Energy Blast – July 3, 2012

Europe is currently burning coal at its fastest rate since 2006 – a contradiction of its policies to penalise carbon emissions ‘and is based on profit’.  Russia’s Rosatom is seeking a licence in anticipation of winning contracts to build nuclear power stations in the U.K.  Mongolia wants China and Russia to redirect a gas pipeline that is currently planned to cross its territory – although a spokesperson for Vladimir Putin said he wasn’t aware of a proposal to run the line through Mongolia in the first place.  Total’s huge new natural gas discovery in the Caspian Sea ‘underscor[es] Azerbaijan’s status as a potentially key source of future gas supplies to Europe.’  Japan will start generating electricity from its first offshore wind farm in January 2013, part of its bid to diversify away from nuclear power.