Global Monitor

Recent months have seen a violent shakeup of India’s coal supply sector and may result in the end of a 40-year-old government monopoly on mining and selling coal. The development could be a boon for

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan, the policy mechanism proposed to replace the coal-rich country’s now-defunct carbon trading program, cleared the Senate despite staunch

Solar power has taken many forms in recent years—from giant concentrated solar power installations and solar towers spread out across deserts worldwide, to rooftop photovoltaic (PV) installations in urban

With 40% of the world’s reactor’s under construction, China’s nuclear ambitions are vast and include a full-integrated domestic supply chain.  

Vietnam won’t begin work on its first of eight planned nuclear power plants until at least 2020 or 2022 to ensure safety, the country’s Trade Ministry announced in September. Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom was expected to begin construction of the first two-reactor plant in the south-central province of Ninh Thuan at the end of […]

Sweden is reconsidering phasing out nuclear power in favor of a 100% renewables power mix. The country’s 10 operating nuclear power plants produce about 40% of the Scandinavian country’s power. The remainder mostly comes from hydropower, depending on the season. The fourth-largest country in the European Union, Sweden’s electricity consumption has been gradually rising. Sweden […]

This August, in a bid to bolster its latent geothermal energy industry, Indonesia passed new laws that allow geothermal exploration in protected areas such as forests. Located in the Ring of Fire—a string of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin—the archipelago has estimated potential geothermal resources of up to 29 GW. State power […]

A lack of rainfall is hitting the power industry especially hard in parts of Brazil. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the country depends on hydroelectricity for more than 75% of its electric power supply (Figure 2). But with reservoir levels at historic lows in some places, more electricity has been required from […]

Finland Rejects Permit Extension for Olkiluoto Reactor. Finland’s government on Sept. 25 rejected an application from utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) to extend a permit for its proposed Olkiluoto 4 reactor for five years. TVO requested the extension in light of delays from its Olkiluoto 3 EPR project, which is being built by an AREVA-Siemens […]

India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in September issued a proposal to vastly increase the county’s reliance on solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, taking installed capacity from its current 2.6 GW to more than 20 GW over the next five years. Following on the nation’s ambitious-but-troubled ultra-mega coal plant build-out—only one has come online, […]