Russia’s federal atomic energy agency, Rosatom, reportedly said Tuesday that it had reached a landmark deal to supply enriched uranium fuel rods to nuclear power plants in the U.S.

A jury in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana last week ruled in favor of Duke Energy and against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on four of six projects involved in a decade-long pollution controls lawsuit affecting the company’s Midwest power plants. The jury ruled against the company on two Indiana projects.

A public-private partnership that includes the Energy Department, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and Southern Co. is planning the largest start-to-end coal-fired demonstration of MHI’s amine solvent carbon capture technology at an existing Alabama coal-fired unit by 2011.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector decreased by about 2.1% as power generation declined by 1% last year, according to preliminary estimates released last week by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The decrease reflected, among other factors, falling emissions from fossil fuel generation and an increase in wind-powered generation, the agency said.

Despite financial turmoil, the global carbon market doubled in size and grew to an estimated value of $126 billion, according to the latest State and Trends of the Carbon Market Report 2009, released today by the World Bank at Carbon Expo in Barcelona.

As a democrat (that’s with a small “d” and a large “D”), I have a great deal of faith in the wisdom of the American people. That’s why I’m not surprised that the hysteria over alleged man-made global warming is in rapid decline in public opinion polls. It’s no longer in the top 10, or event the top 15, of issues that Americans care about.

French Prime Minister François Fillon  and AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon on Monday inaugurated the first centrifuge cascade of the €3 billion Georges Besse II uranium enrichment plant, where production is set to commence this year.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu on Friday announced at the National Coal Council that $2.4 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be used to expand and accelerate the commercial deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

UniStar Nuclear Energy last week confirmed that its Calvert Cliffs Unit 3 nuclear energy facility was among four projects chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to enter the final phase of due diligence for a portion of $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees for advanced nuclear projects. The selection positions UniStar to move forward with detailed negotiations leading to a conditional commitment under the program.

American Electric Power (AEP) and Allegheny Energy on Tuesday said they had jointly filed an application seeking authorization to build a proposed electric transmission line in West Virginia.