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WAR IN A NUCLEAR COUNTRY: The advance of Russian forces toward Kyiv is raising fears about the safety of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors — all of which are operating at full or near-full capacity, and which could pose a grave threat to the country if handled improperly.
Nuclear facilities in other countries have been attacked before, but as Bloomberg’s Jonathan Tirone reports, the assault on Ukraine marks the first time that large-scale war has ever been waged amid a fleet of large, operational nuclear plants.
For context, Ukraine holds one of the largest nuclear fleets in all of Europe, second only to France.
Less than 24 hours ago, Ukraine reported that Russian troops had seized control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in northern Ukraine — the site of the world’s largest nuclear disaster — and that its staff were being held hostage.
Early this morning, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said conditions at the nuclear waste facility remain “largely unknown.”
“After a completely senseless Russian attack in this direction, it is impossible to say that Chernobyl is safe,” Podolyak said, according to CNN. “This is one of the most serious threats to Europe today.”
Hours later, Ukrainian officials reported higher-than-usual control levels of gamma radiation at the plant.
In a statement, experts from Ukraine’s Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate said the increase was likely due to disturbances to the top layer of soil, caused by movement from “a large number of radio heavy military machinery through the Exclusion zone and increase of air pollution,” the Washington Examiner’s Abigail Adcox reports. (As of this writing, nuclear conditions at the facility remain unchanged.)
The Parliament of Ukraine also posted a map of a radiation monitoring system on its Twitter page pointing to the areas of concern: “Data from the automated radiation monitoring system of the exclusion zone, which is available online, indicate that the control levels of gamma radiation dose rate (red dots) have been exceeded at a significant number of observation points,” they wrote.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki sharply criticized Russia’s actions in Chernobyl yesterday, saying the unlawful and “dangerous” hostage taking threatened to “upend the routine civil service efforts required to maintain and protect the nuclear waste facilities.” Russia’s actions are “obviously incredibly alarming and greatly concerning,” she added.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement that he is watching the Russian assault in Ukraine with “grave concern,” and called for “maximum restraint” to avoid putting at risk any of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors.
“It is of vital importance that the safe and secure operations of the nuclear facilities in that zone should not be affected or disrupted in any way,” Grossi said in the statement, which was issued shortly after Russia seized Chernobyl, the now-defunct site of the 1986 nuclear meltdown.
This sentiment was echoed by James Acton, the head of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. There is a “disquieting nuclear dimension to the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” Acton wrote in a blog post Thursday.
“[Even] if Moscow doesn’t authorize direct attacks against nuclear plants, such attacks might occur anyway,” he added. “A weapon aimed at a nearby target could hit a nuclear power plant if its navigation system failed.”
Yesterday, officials in Ukraine confirmed that all of its nuclear plants were still operating normally.
Ukraine’s nuclear power utility, Energoatom, said this morning that its operations remained “stable” and reiterated its commitment to providing a safe and reliable energy supply––even as Russia continued its attack.
“Ukraine is at war, people are dying, defenders are heroically repelling enemy attacks,” Energoatom said Friday on its website. “Our common goal is to ensure a reliable electricity supply, despite these difficult circumstances.
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CLARITY ON ENERGY SANCTIONS: It’s become increasingly clear the administration is placing a priority on avoiding disruptions to energy markets with its sanctions packages.
“To be clear: Our sanctions are not designed to cause any disruption to the current flow of energy from Russia to the world,” Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics Daleep Singh told reporters yesterday. “We’ve carved out energy payments on a time-bound basis to allow for an orderly transition of these flows away from sanctioned institutions, and we’ve provided other licenses to provide for an orderly winddown of business. “
Biden has pledged repeatedly to spare Americans pain at the pump in crafting these penalties — he knows the high gas prices are something that cost him, and Democrats, politically — especially in the months ahead of the November midterm elections. He has said that the price of higher prices is worth paying for sanctions to punish Russia, but he is still clearly working to avoid the worst effects for energy.
It’s working, so far: Brent crude has fallen back below $97, after touching near $105 immediately after the invasion. In other words, the worst-case scenario has not yet materialized.
Still, the administration faces pressure to go after oil and gas: Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, for instance, called on the administration yesterday to go there. “By failing to impose significant sanctions on the Russian oil and gas industry, which accounts for the majority of all Russian exports, the administration is intentionally leaving the biggest industry in Russia’s economy virtually untouched,” he said.
CASSIDY SAYS RUSSIA CONFLICT IS THE ‘IN’ FOR US LNG: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Bill Cassidy said the Russian war with Ukraine offers an opportunity to excise Russian gas from Europe’s energy supply, something lawmakers and officials of all persuasions across the U.S. and EU wish to happen.
“The Europeans can do without Nord Stream 2, but sooner or later they’re going to increase their burning of coal, which is going to increase global greenhouse gas emissions,” he told Jeremy, referring to the troubled Russia-Germany natural gas pipeline.
The alternative which he and other Republican lawmakers want to see, quite in contrast to some of their Democratic colleagues, is for Europe to expand its LNG capacity to displace gas now supplied by Russia.
More LNG from the U.S. and other non-foes “denies the temptation to resume taking natural gas from Russia,” Cassidy said.
Europe in recent months has already been bringing in more LNG and is receiving more than 70% of U.S. LNG volumes this month, per Platts Analytics. By contrast, some 60% of U.S. LNG shipments ended up in Asia in June 2021.
REPUBLICANS CLAIM VINDICATION ON FOSSIL FUEL PRODUCTION: Cassidy and other Republicans have pressed the case that Russia’s attack displays the value of encouraging domestic production of fossil fuels and the downsides of regulating them to reduce emissions.
Basically, the argument is that more U.S. energy production puts Russia at a relative disadvantage, a point Republicans have hit repeatedly in the past few days as Biden has stressed his goal of limiting energy price increases as he sanctions Russia.
Expect to hear more on this in the days ahead.
REPORT: PERMITTING PLAGUES EUROPE’S WIND DEPLOYMENT: Slow permitting for wind power projects is inhibiting Europe from greening its power sector more quickly, industry group WindEurope says in a new report.
Europe added 17 GW of new wind capacity last year, 11 of which was inside the European Union. The total falls well short of the 32 GW per year the bloc must add to reach 40% renewable energy by 2030 as it aims to do.
WindEurope implicates “permitting bottlenecks” as well as global supply chain issues for the figures.
“Land is not the issue. Finance is not the issue. Technology is not the issue. Public opinion is not the issue. It’s the sheer complexity of the permitting procedures,” the CEO of WindEurope Giles Dickson told Euractiv.
Kingsmill Bond, England-based senior principal in the Strategic Analysis & Engagement at RMI, said regulatory issues are especially prevalent in the U.K., home to the most offshore wind capacity in Europe.
“You speak to developers and they’re like, ‘I have this wind farm. I could be pumping electricity into the grid, but I can’t get regulatory permission to bring the cable onshore because there’s somebody who doesn’t like it,” he told Jeremy. “It’s a real problem.”
WindEurope estimates Europe will install 116 GW of new wind between 2022 and 2026.
INHOFE RETIRING: Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe has confirmed his plans to retire and backed his chief of staff, Luke Holland, to succeed him.
Inhofe, 87, joined the Senate in 1994 and chaired the Committee on Environment and Public Works from 2003 to 2007 and 2015 to 2017. He’s long been a top congressional opponent of measures to reduce emissions and rejected the consensus that human activity is changing the climate. He authored the 2012 book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. Memorably, he took a snowball onto the Senate floor in 2015 as evidence against climate change.
CONSERVATIVE ENERGY GROUP ADDS CLIMATE POLICY HIRE: Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions’ CRES Forum policy arm has brought on Ewelina Czapla to be its director of climate policy.
CRES said Czapla, who holds a J.D. from the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America and previously worked as director of energy policy for American Action Forum, will help develop policy recommendations on clean energy and climate change solutions.
The Rundown
EE News Feds walk back plans for nuclear reactors to run 80 years
Bloomberg News Exxon to build $400 million Wyoming carbon-capture project after delay
AP News What Lies Beneath: Vets worry polluted base made them ill
ClimateWire Russia’s climate posture offers clues on its Ukraine mindset
AP News Farmers want bill to ban ‘forever chemical’ sludge in fields
Politico Nord Stream 2’s lobbyists dump the account after Russia invasion
Calendar
TUESDAY | MARCH 1
10:00 am: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hear testimony on pending legislation, including the Department of Energy Science for the Future Act of 2022 (S. 3699), the Fission for the Future Act of 2021 (S. 3428), the Energy Emergency Leadership Act (H.R. 3119), and more.
THURSDAY | MARCH 3
10:00 am: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to review FERC’s recent guidance permitting construction and operation of interstate natural gas pipelines and other natural gas infrastructure projects.
