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BankTrack, in cooperation with a number of working partners, today launches www.nuclearbanks.org, a new website mapping the involvement of 45 leading commercial banks in funding nuclear power projects and companies active in the nuclear sector. [1] BankTrack considers nuclear energy a grave danger for people and planet. The renewed interest in nuclear energy also poses a severe obstacle to achieving a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.[2] The website provides information on 867 transactions, involving a total of 124 banks providing finance to over 70 nuclear companies. Between 2000 and 2009, these banks…read more"

"Major Japanese commercial banks are in final talks to set a 400 billion yen syndicated credit line possibly in August for Tohoku Electric Power Co., which has had difficulties raising funds through debt issues amid the Fukushima nuclear crisis, sources close to the matter said Friday. The government-controlled Development Bank of Japan is also considering a low-interest crisis response loan worth some 150 billion yen to the utility serving northeastern Japan, which was devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, they said. The major commercial banks and the DBJ will thus provide a total of 550 billion yen to Tohoku Electric, following some 2 trillion yen in loans they extended by April to Tokyo Electric Power Co. plagued with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis set off by the quake-tsunami disaster."

Last week House Energy and Commerce members approved by 51-6 an amendment to the Waxman-Markey bill offered by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) to create a clean energy bank . As Greenwire explained, the amendment would "create an autonomous Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) within the Energy Department" that would "provide a suite of financing options, including direct loans, letters of credit, loan guarantees, insurance products and others" for "energy production, transmission, storage and other areas that could reduce greenhouse gases, diversify energy supplies and save energy." CEDA must adopt a "portfolio investment approach" and "ensure no particular technology receives more than 30 percent of the total funding available." John Podesta and Karen Kornbluh explain why we need a clean energy bank in a post first published here. The picture is of a worker makes adjustings before a section of a wind turbine is put into place at Energy Northwest's Nine Canyon Wind Project near Finley, WA, the kind of clean energy project the bank could help accelerate. The United States is falling behind in the space race of our generation-building long-term economic prosperity powered by low-carbon energy. China's stimulus package invests $12.6 million every hour in greening its economy, for a total of $220 billion, twice as much as similar U.S. investments. Meanwhile, during the most recent economic expansion the average American family paid more than $1,100 a year in rising energy bills for U.S. policies that favor fossil fuels.

"Vienna - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Russia set up the world's first nuclear fuel reserve Monday to ensure uninterrupted supplies for the world's power reactors. The idea for a fuel bank was initiated by the IAEA in order to give countries an alternative to developing their own uranium enrichment technology, like Iran has done. "With our effort, we made the world a little better," said Sergei Kirienko, the head of Russia's nuclear corporation ROSATOM in Vienna, after signing the agreement with IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. The reserve is intended as an insurance mechanism for countries whose foreign supply of nuclear fuel is interrupted. In such a case, the IAEA would provide the nuclear material, which is to be made and stored at Angarsk in Siberia. The recipient country would pay current market prices for the low-enriched uranium. Russia would have 30 per cent of the target of one reactor load ready by the end of the year, Kirienko said. Developing countries have expressed scepticism about the fuel bank, as they fear that such mechanisms might indirectly prevent them from acquiring peaceful nuclear technology."

Belgium will introduce levies on banks, life insurers and nuclear-power producers next year as Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy seeks to start taming a swelling debt burden without hampering the economic recovery. The government will seek 670 million euros ($991 million) from banks and life insurers in 2011 to protect their depositors and policy holders from default, Finance Minister Didier Reynders said. Power producers GDF Suez SA and SPE NV will have to pay as much as 245 million euros annually for keeping the country's three oldest atomic reactors in operation for an additional 10 years, according to Energy Minister Paul Magnette.

Belgium will introduce levies on banks, life insurers and nuclear-power producers next year as Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy seeks to start taming a swelling debt burden without hampering the economic recovery. The government will seek 670 million euros ($991 million) from banks and life insurers in 2011 to protect their depositors and policy holders from default, Finance Minister Didier Reynders said. Power producers GDF Suez SA and SPE NV will have to pay as much as 245 million euros annually for keeping the country's three oldest atomic reactors in operation for an additional 10 years, according to Energy Minister Paul Magnette.

Efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to keep countries from acquiring nuclear technology by offering them alternatives got a boost this week as three plans for nuclear fuel banks and multinational fuel factories were tabled. The latest proposal was put forward by Germany on Friday. The text foresees the creation of an internationally-governed nuclear fuel production plant. Two additional, complementary, proposals for Russian and IAEA fuel banks to provide supply of last resort are also to be considered by the 35 countries on the IAEA's governing board in June. The ideas were proposed by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in 2003 to keep countries such as Iran from acquiring uranium enrichment and reprocessing technologies, which can be used not only for energy purposes, but also for making nuclear bomb material. But diplomats say the Vienna-based nuclear agency is split on the issue between those countries that already hold the technology, and sceptical countries such as Egypt, Argentina and Brazil, many of them developing economies.

"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Russia signed off Monday to set up the world's first nuclear fuel reserve in Siberia Monday to ensure uninterrupted supplies to the world's nuclear power reactors. The deal guarantees stock of 120 metric tons of low-enriched uranium in Angarsk, near Irkutsk in Siberia, said Sergey Kiriyenko, head of Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom, who added that other countries were displaying interest in the pool of low-enriched uranium.The IAEA said the value of the uranium was about $250 million. The move to create the bank on the site of the Angarsk Electrolysis and Chemical Combine mollifies many defence industry experts who are afraid de-centralised caches of nuclear fuel could be used for terrorism. But Monday's announcement also perturbs many Russian and international environmentalists who say the Siberian fuel bank at Angarsk will become a sink hole of radioactive contamination. Once operational, the fuel reserve is meant to encourage countries looking to develop peaceful nuclear programmes to depend on outside sources - in this case the Angarsk instead of developing uranium enrichment programmes of their own."

Cheap, reliable hydroelectric power once helped make Ontario rich, powering the factories and foundries that created wealth for the province. But it's now 18 aging nuclear reactors that keep the lights on, providing half the power used in Ontario. Most are closer to the end of their working lives than the beginning, and many have a record of costly overruns, inefficiency or both. Despite that history, the Liberal government of Premier Dalton McGuinty has enthusiastically backed a nuclear future for Ontario, planning to renew the aging fleet to maintain its half of provincial generation with an ambitious, 20-year, $26-billion plan. But in June, when the bill for replacing just two of those reactors came in so startlingly high -- "several billions" too high in Energy Minister George Smitherman's words -- that he simply pulled the plug on the project, suspending it and leaving open the question once again: Can Ontario keep splitting the atom without breaking the bank?

Cheap, reliable hydroelectric power once helped make Ontario rich, powering the factories and foundries that created wealth for the province. But it's now 18 aging nuclear reactors that keep the lights on, providing half the power used in Ontario. Most are closer to the end of their working lives than the beginning, and many have a record of costly overruns, inefficiency or both. Despite that history, the Liberal government of Premier Dalton McGuinty has enthusiastically backed a nuclear future for Ontario, planning to renew the aging fleet to maintain its half of provincial generation with an ambitious, 20-year, $26-billion plan. But in June, when the bill for replacing just two of those reactors came in so startlingly high -- "several billions" too high in Energy Minister George Smitherman's words -- that he simply pulled the plug on the project, suspending it and leaving open the question once again: Can Ontario keep splitting the atom without breaking the bank?

Cheap, reliable hydroelectric power once helped make Ontario rich, powering the factories and foundries that created wealth for the province. But it's now 18 aging nuclear reactors that keep the lights on, providing half the power used in Ontario. Most are closer to the end of their working lives than the beginning, and many have a record of costly overruns, inefficiency or both. Despite that history, the Liberal government of Premier Dalton McGuinty has enthusiastically backed a nuclear future for Ontario, planning to renew the aging fleet to maintain its half of provincial generation with an ambitious, 20-year, $26-billion plan. But in June, when the bill for replacing just two of those reactors came in so startlingly high -- "several billions" too high in Energy Minister George Smitherman's words -- that he simply pulled the plug on the project, suspending it and leaving open the question once again: Can Ontario keep splitting the atom without breaking the bank?

A dozen activists who planned to protest the Kazakh president's proposal to host an international nuclear fuel bank were detained hours before the demonstration was to start on Tuesday, a spokesman for one of their organizations said. Supporters of an international nuclear repository, including the United States, say it would boost global security by dissuading countries from developing their own fuel-production facilities. Iran's development of uranium-enrichment facilities is seen by critics as a precursor to developing nuclear weapons. President Nursultan Nazarbayev this month offered Kazakhstan as the location for the fuel bank. Under the proposal, Kazakhstan would store and supply nuclear fuel to interested countries under the supervision of the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency.

"The issue of energy subsidies is heating up. The cards are out, positions are being redefined and bargaining is in process. A concerted effort is on to get this anomaly to the maximum possible and the issue was mentioned at the just-concluded G20 summit in Toronto too. The final communiqué at the end of the G20 summit here in Toronto not only noted with appreciation the report on energy subsidies from the International Energy Agency, OPEC, OECD and the World Bank combined, but also welcomed the work of the finance and energy ministers "in delivering implementation strategies and timeframes, based on national circumstances, for the rationalization and phase out - over the medium term - of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourages wasteful consumption, taking into account vulnerable groups and their development needs." The IEA, OPEC and the World Bank report on fossil fuel subsidies was prepared at the request of the previous G20 summit in Pittsburgh."

HOW do you manage a global boom in nuclear power while discouraging weapons proliferation? Uranium and plutonium are most likely to find their way into weapons via the enrichment and reprocessing of fuel for nuclear power plants. If all of the countries now planning to go nuclear also handle their own fuel cycles, the proliferation risk could skyrocket. The answer may be to put the fuel cycle entirely under international control. Many governments, international agencies and arms control experts are calling for the establishment of international fuel banks, and eventually fuel production plants, that would pledge to supply nuclear materials to any country so long as it meets non-proliferation rules. The US already supports the idea, at least for new nuclear powers, and last month the European Union (EU) pledged €25 million towards the first fuel bank. Yet this means countries with new nuclear programmes would have to place control of their fuel supply at least partly in foreign hands. Could it actually work?

At the very end of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "Town Hall" meeting at Embassy Suites on May 28, we in the audience were made aware that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is almost entirely funded by the nuclear industry itself rather than our government, through taxes. They consider it a "user fee."( On Sunday June 7, I was listening to Public Radio International's This American Life episode called "The Watchmen". We were told that the big investment banks, like AIG, also paid a "user fee" (not their words) to their regulatory agency-in this case, the Office of Thrift Supervision. (It was in the interests of both the industry and the agency that investment bonds be awarded high ratings. If the ratings were low, the investment banks would lose business, and the regulatory agency would have less to "regulate" and consequently also lose business. High ratings, whether accurate or not, led to a win/win situation for all concerned; except of course for us, the public.( What is to protect us now from the similar scenario of the nuclear industry paying for its own regulation?

In a speech on 5 April 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic, US President Barack Obama said that his Administration will: negotiate a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia this year; immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials intended for use in nuclear weapons; and seek to build "a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation" (1).

Which sectors will perform which functions in the future in the energy industry is still being discussed, but the Department of Energy is now becomming a major investor in the renewable energy industry. So, now the U.S. government is in the auto industry, particulary advancing EVs; and also it is in the banking, investment banking, home finance, and insurance markets. Conditions are aligning to create a fundamental shift in how energy is financed, generated, transmitted, and consumed in both businesses and residences in America. Since the government has chosen to lead the way into the transition, it pays to listen to the process they have established for applicants and how they organize outgoing funds here in the initial buildout phase.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a provision to its sweeping climate and energy bill that would create an autonomous Clean Energy Deployment Administration within the Energy Department and make reforms to DOE's loan guarantee program for low-emission projects. The time spent debating the amendment was more than hour, suggesting the committee will face a slog through the 946-page measure. The amendment passed 51-6, with ranking member Joe Barton (R-Texas) among a handful of Republicans who opposed it. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), who offered the amendment with Democrats Jay Inslee of Washington and Bart Gordon of Tennessee, said the plan would aid deployment of new nuclear plants as well as renewable technologies. Changes to the loan guarantee program and creation of a "clean energy" bank within DOE are also part of a major energy bill before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, although the plans are not identical. The Clean Energy Deployment Administration would be empowered to provide a suite of financing options, including direct loans, letters of credit, loan guarantees, insurance products and others.

"Russia will provide by the end of 2010 the first batch of low-enriched uranium for an international nuclear fuel reserve bank under control of the UN nuclear watchdog, the head of Russia's state-run nuclear power corporation Rosatom said. Russia has earlier proposed to establish international reserves of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to ensure stable fuel supplies to IAEA member countries in case of emergency, including "insurmountable political difficulties." "I believe that the first part of these reserves could be formed by the end of this year," Sergei Kiriyenko said at an international conference on nuclear energy in Paris on Monday. "We want to initially build LEU reserves that would ensure the operation of at least one 1,000 MW reactor," he said. Russia proposed in 2007 the creation of a nuclear center with LEU reserves in Angarsk, 5,100 km (3,170 miles) east of Moscow, to enable countries including Iran to develop civilian nuclear power without having to enrich their own uranium."

"The head of Japan's banking lobby said on Thursday that Tokyo Electric could become insolvent if parliament fails to pass a bailout bill by the end of September, when the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant closes books for the fiscal first half. Katsunori Nagayasu, chairman of the Japanese Bankers Association, told a regular news conference time is running out as the government panel on nuclear damages compensation is set to release guidelines around late July. "It will be known how much the compensation will be in rough figures, but if there is no (government) scheme for that then, Tokyo Electric could immediately become insolvent," he said. "And it will trigger a series of risks for the power industry and the markets and put a damper on Japan's reconstruction efforts," he said. "

I'm not surprised about this new turn of events but I am stunned that your staff accepted interim GM Steve Bartley's statement that he didn't know about the omission. How could henot know? Ask Bartley what he'd do to any employee who: 1. told him he didn't know about a major element of their business, or 2. flat out lied to him? He would fire him on the spot. What CPS management did was out and out fraud. They lied to us on their application for a rate hike. Treat them the same way any bank would treat an application for a home loan if the financial information was fraudulent. Turn down the application and call the authorities to investigate. We should do the same. City Council would not tolerate any citizen coming before them and lying to their faces, or are they going to condone lying? Hopefully there are not two sets of rules - one for ordinary citizens and one for big shot citizens/companies.

I'm not surprised about this new turn of events but I am stunned that your staff accepted interim GM Steve Bartley's statement that he didn't know about the omission. How could henot know? Ask Bartley what he'd do to any employee who: 1. told him he didn't know about a major element of their business, or 2. flat out lied to him? He would fire him on the spot. What CPS management did was out and out fraud. They lied to us on their application for a rate hike. Treat them the same way any bank would treat an application for a home loan if the financial information was fraudulent. Turn down the application and call the authorities to investigate. We should do the same. City Council would not tolerate any citizen coming before them and lying to their faces, or are they going to condone lying? Hopefully there are not two sets of rules - one for ordinary citizens and one for big shot citizens/companies.

I'm not surprised about this new turn of events but I am stunned that your staff accepted interim GM Steve Bartley's statement that he didn't know about the omission. How could henot know? Ask Bartley what he'd do to any employee who: 1. told him he didn't know about a major element of their business, or 2. flat out lied to him? He would fire him on the spot. What CPS management did was out and out fraud. They lied to us on their application for a rate hike. Treat them the same way any bank would treat an application for a home loan if the financial information was fraudulent. Turn down the application and call the authorities to investigate. We should do the same. City Council would not tolerate any citizen coming before them and lying to their faces, or are they going to condone lying? Hopefully there are not two sets of rules - one for ordinary citizens and one for big shot citizens/companies.

Buffett's bankroll, Obama's clout and the partnership of a savvy ex-Soviet strongman may turn the steppes of central Asia into a nuclear mecca, a go-to place for "safe" uranium fuel in an increasingly nervous atomic age. The $150 million idea, with seed money from U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett, must still navigate the tricky maze of global nuclear politics, along with a parallel Russian plan. But the notion of such fuel banks is moving higher on the world's agenda as a way to keep ultimate weapons out of many more hands. Decisions may come as early as next month here in Vienna.

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has offered to build a nuclear fuel bank on its territory. He made the announcement in a joint press conference with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is visiting Kazakhstan. The idea was first proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2005, and is supported by both the United States and Russia. The US allocated $50m (£33.5m) to the project in 2007.