Russia's new Navy icebreaker steers clear of Arctic waters

The powerful vessel that is built for naval escorts through remote and icy waters did not sail the Northern Sea Route on its maiden voyage from St.Petersburg to the Russian Far East.

The "Evpatiy Kolovrat" is the second new icebreaker of the Russian Navy. Photo: mil.ru

By  Atle Staalesen  

BARENTS OBSERVER 
May 16, 2023

The 82 meter long, 4000 ton heavy vessel in late January started its voyage towards Kamchatka where it is to be based as part of Russia’s Pacific Fleet. The Yevpatii Kolovrat is the second icebreaker in a new class of Russian naval icebreakers, built to assist warships through rough icy waters.

But although it is designed for manoeuvring in thick ice, the vessel that is named after a 13th Century war hero did not sail the shortcut through the Northern Sea Route, but instead chose the southern route through the Suez Canal.

On the 11th of May, the ship sailed through the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka, and as soon as it arrives in Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka it will be formally included in the Pacific Fleet, the Russian Navy informs.

It is not only the Yevpatii Kolovrat that has shun the Northern Sea Route during the winter of 2023. Since October 2022 no vessel have sailed transit across the remote Arctic waters.

The only exceptions are a few LNG carriers that have sailed from Sabetta in Yamal Peninsula to ports in China. However, even these powerful icebreaking tankers have needed assistance from nuclear icebreakers. The Boris Vilkitsky in January crossed the route from Tianjin, China, to Sabetta and was escorted by icebreaker Arktika through the Laptev Sea and into the Kara Sea.

Sea-ice in the Arctic in early May 2023. Map by Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute

Data from the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute show that a thick layer of sea-ice covered Russian Arctic waters in early May. In the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea two belts of multi-year ice make shipping extraordinary complicated.

The Yevpatii Kolovrat will significantly boost Russian naval capacities in far northern waters. It is capable of breaking through up to 1,5 meter thick ice and will in addition to escorts of warships be used for patrols along the Russian Arctic coast and supply of remote Arctic naval bases.

From before, the Russian Navy has sister ship Ilya Muromets in the Northern Fleet. The icebreaker was officially included in the naval forces in 2017. While the Ilya Muromets is classified as part of Project 21180, the Yevpatii Kolovrat is a modified version branded Project 21180M

Ships of the 21180 project are built with Russian technology, then Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Korolyov said in 2017.

“Use of the newest Russian technologies in the construction of ice-class ships for the Navy allows one to make the conclusion that domestic military shipbuilding has been able to preserve and develop its potential in this field,” he said in a comment.

In addition to the Project 21180 and 21180М, the Russian Navy is building two icebreaking patrol vessels of the 23550 class. The Ivan Papanin and Nikolay Zubov are planned to be commissioned in 2023 and 2024. Also the FSB is building a similar vessel - the Purga - for its northern coast guard units, due to be ready for sailing in 2024.

Russian separatist flag waved on Svalbard

The Russian state company Trust Arktikugol organised a May 9th parade in the settlement of Pyramiden. It included a snowmobile, a car, bulldozer and excavator. And a flag of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic.

The flag of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic in 9th of May parade in Pyramiden, Svalbard. Screenshot of video by Trust Aktikugol

By Atle Staalese

BARENTS OBSERVER

May 15, 2023

The disputed and occupied region that was annexed by Russia ahead of its full-scale war against Ukraine in late February 2022 is a main symbol of Russia’s aggressive war against the neighbouring country, as well as the lawlessness and extremism of the local Russian authorities in the region.

The flag is also a symbol of Russian-backed separatism.

The Trust Arktikugol offers no explanation why it put the Donetsk flag on the bulldozer in Pyramiden.

Locals participating in the 9th of May parade in Pyramiden. 

Screenshot of video by Trust Arktikugol



The small “ghost town” of Pyramiden was abandoned by coal miners in the late 1980s and now houses primarily tourism developers from Trust Arktikugol.

There were also several more local events in connection with the 9th of May. In the local diplomatic office in Barentsburg, General Consul Andrei Chemerilo organised a reception for the local Russian elite, among them the leaders of Russian research organisations and the local Russian state company Trust Arktikugol. And in the local cultural hall, a patriotic propaganda concert was held with participants dressed in military uniforms and carrying the St.George ribbon, the symbol of Russian war aggression extensively used in various patriotic events.

The increasingly patriotic Russian victory day celebrations in Svalbard coincide with a more active debate on Russia’s presence in the archipelago. Only over the past few months, the Trust Arktikugol and its newly appointed leader Ildar Neverov has organised a number of seminar, public meetings and gatherings about Russia’s role in the region.

In a recent presentation delivered in the downtown Moscow Gagarin Museum by former General Consul Sergei Gushchin, the diplomat warned against a weaker Russian presence in the archipelago.

“If we leave, our place is likely to be replaced by the USA, UK or other NATO countries,” he underlined. He also warned against what he described a gradual Norwegian militarisation of the islands.

“Spitsbergen is not something distant and strange for us, it is inseparably connected with the history of our country and is part of our historical, cultural and research heritage,” he underlined in the presentation.

Similar debates are taking place in so-called Scandinavian Club at MGIMO, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. The same Scandinavian Club is also behind a new report titled “Spitsbergen 2033: perspectives for Russian presence.”

The report outlines two main scenarios; one where Norway militarises the archipelago and pushes out the Russians, and another where Norway “continues to create obstacles but takes no radical steps.”

According to the authors, Russia and its Trust Arktikugol should by 2033 take several measures in the area and establish a joint Russian-Norwegian rescue and emergency base.

Under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, Norway has full and absolute sovereignty over the archipelago. Citizens from signatory countries, like Russia, have equal rights of abode as Norwegians.

Timofey says the new leaders in Barentsburg regularly provoke aggravation of relations, giving the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs a reason to accuse Norway of allegedly violating the Svalbard treaty and infringing on Russia’s rights. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Until recently, the settlement of Barentsburg had a mixed Russian-Ukrainian population. But that has now changed, says Timofei Rogozhin, the former leader of the tourism branch of Trust Arktikugol.

“Almost all citizens of Ukraine have left,” Rogozhin says to the Barents Observer. “They began to leave in the first days of the war and throughout 2022. According to my estimate, at least 50 people left. Maybe more.”

He is very critical of Aktikugol’s behavior at Svalbard. Especially after the brutal attack on Ukraine.

“The past year has turned a civilized modern village with an open and friendly society into some kind of grey closed and aggressive swamp. If you look at social networks [in Barentsburg], you can clearly see a systematic desire to return to the Soviet system and totalitarianism,” Rogozhin says.

Brazil Axes Controversial Amazon Oil Project

By Charles Kennedy - May 18, 2023

The Brazilian environmental protection agency has refused to grant approval for a controversial offshore oil project led by state oil major Petrobras.

The agency based its decision, which was celebrated by environmentalists, on “a function of a group of technical inconsistencies.”

The FZA-M-59 block was originally under license to BP Energy but Petrobras took over in 2020. The block, located in the Foz do Amazonas basin, off Brazil’s northern coast, is close to the mouth of the Amazon River, which prompted the environmentalist protest that eventually led to the regulator’s decision.

As many as 80 organizations, including Greenpeace and WWW Brasil, called for the regulator to not grant an exploration license to Petrobras for the block, claiming sensitive ecosystems, including a coral reef.

Petrobras already operates several blocks in the area, which, according to Brazil’s oil and gas regulator, has a similar geology to the Guyana-Suriname Basin where several massive discoveries have been made.

“There is no doubt that Petrobras was offered every opportunity to remedy critical points of its project, but that it still presents worrisome inconsistencies for the safe operation in a new exploratory frontier with high socioenvironmental vulnerability,” the environmental watchdog’s head Rodrigo Agostinho, wrote in the agency’s decision, as quoted by the AP.

“Agostinho is protecting a virtually unknown ecosystem and maintains the coherence of the Lula government, which has promised in its discourse to be guided by the fight against the climate crisis,” a network of environmentalist organizations dubbed the Climate Observatory said in comments on the regulator’s decision.

Yet the same government is working on a program aiming to boost Brazil’s oil production to turn it into the world’s fourth-largest producer of the commodity. The program will seek to guarantee investment in new oil exploration in both mature fields and frontier areas, Offshore Energy reported earlier this year.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

Wisconsin Tribe And Michigan AG Seek Shutdown Of Line 5 Pipeline

By Tsvetana Paraskova - May 18, 2023

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a Wisconsin Native American tribe in seeking a court injunction to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline due to an increased risk of erosion and rupture.

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa last week filed an emergency motion with a federal court in Wisconsin requesting that Line 5 be closed, due to erosion of the Bad River riverbank in the past month, which threatens to lead to a rupture of the pipeline.    

In an opposition brief to the court, pipeline operator Enbridge argued that “Despite having to prove both liability and grounds for an injunction, the band has done neither. The motion must therefore be denied.”

“No release of oil is 'ready to take place,' 'happening soon,' or 'real and –immediate,'” lawyers for Enbridge argued in the brief, as carried by The Canadian Press.

The Wisconsin band’s motion was supported on Wednesday by Attorney General Dana Nessel of Michigan, the state which has been trying to shut down Line 5 for years.

In an amicus brief, Nessel asked a Wisconsin federal court to take emergency action to protect Lake Superior from an imminent threat posed by Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline. A pipeline rupture in Wisconsin would cause irreparable damage in Michigan, too, according to Nessel.

“The alarming erosion at the Bad River meander poses an imminent threat of irreparable harm to Lake Superior and necessitates injunctive relief,” the AG’s amicus brief reads.

Michigan also says that “The potential impacts of a court-ordered shutdown of Line 5 do not outweigh the risk of irreparable harm posed by Line 5’s continued operation on the Bad River Reservation.”

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians sued Enbridge in 2019, seeking the removal of Line 5 from the Bad River Reservation.  

Enbridge is proposing a relocation of a 12-mile section of Line 5 from the Bad River Reservation, replacing it with approximately 41 miles of pipe outside of the Reservation. The company, however, hasn’t obtained yet from the Department of Natural Resources the permits it needs for the relocation project. 

US officials remove key obstacle to Thacker Pass lithium project

Reuters | May 16, 2023 | 

Thacker Pass is projected to begin lithium production in the second half of 2026.

 (Image courtesy of Lithium Americas.)

The US Interior Department on Tuesday removed one of the last remaining obstacles to Lithium Americas Corp’s Thacker Pass mine project in Nevada by finding nearly all of the site contains the metal used to make electric-vehicle batteries.


The opinion from the department’s solicitor comes amid an acrimonious debate about whether more US mines should be built to produce lithium and other green energy transition metals.


A federal judge in February rejected claims that the Thacker Pass project would cause unnecessary harm to the environment, but ordered officials to study whether roughly 1,300 acres (530 hectares) at the site where Lithium Americas hopes to store waste rock – a byproduct of the mining process – contained the metal. The ruling is being appealed, although the court has allowed construction to begin.

The judge’s order was linked to an unrelated appeals court ruling that found mining companies do not necessarily have the right under US law to store waste rock on federal land that does not contain valuable minerals.

Of the dozens of mining claims at the Thacker Pass site held by the company, the government found fewer than 10 did not contain lithium mineralization, an Interior Department official told Reuters.

“They’re going to be able to start construction and production without these claims being in the plan of operation,” the official said of Lithium Americas.

The Vancouver, Canada-based company, which is developing the project with General Motors Co, can apply for a right-of-way to use those other claims for non-mining purposes, the official said.

“We’re committed to doing this job right and meeting or exceeding state and federal regulations as we advance construction,” said Jon Evans, the CEO of Lithium Americas.

John Hadder of Great Basin Resource Watch, a conservation group that has appealed the court’s ruling, said it believes federal law allows Lithium Americas access to the land only if lithium is consistently found in quantities that are economical to extract.

“It stands to reason that the mining company would not place millions of tonnes of waste material on an area where they see valuable mineral deposits,” said Hadder.

The opinion comes as the Biden administration has taken steps to block other mines, although the official said those should not be taken as a sign of opposition to all extractive projects.

“We’re in favor of increasing domestic mineral production when it’s being done in the right location and in the right way,” the official said.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Biden administration clarifies 1872 Mining Law; says huge Nevada lithium mine can proceed

By SCOTT SONNER and MATTHEW DALY

May 16, 2023

A "No Lithium No Mine" sign is displayed on April 24, 2023, on the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation, near McDermitt, Nev. The Biden administration says it has completed a court-ordered review that should ensure construction continues at the Nevada lithium mine, despite legal challenges brought by conservationists and tribal leaders. (AP Photo/ Rick Bowmer)

RENO, Nevada (AP) — The Biden administration says it has completed a court-ordered review that should ensure construction continues at a Nevada lithium mine, despite legal challenges brought by conservationists and tribal leaders.

At the same time, in a broader response to recent U.S. court rulings that more strictly interpret a Civil War-era mining law, the Interior Department announced Tuesday it is taking steps to clarify mineral rights under the 1872 law to reflect the “realities of the 21st century.”

The moves come after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a proposed copper mine in Arizona last year. The Appeals Court is considering a related appeal filed by environmentalists and Native American tribes challenging construction of the huge Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada near the Oregon line.

Lithium is a key element needed to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles — a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s “clean energy” agenda intended to expedite a transition from fossil fuels to renewable forms of energy.

The 9th Circuit’s so-called “Rosemont decision” upended the government’s long-held position that the 1872 Mining Law conveys the same rights established through a valid mining claim to adjacent land for the disposal of tailings and other waste. The 9th Circuit held instead that the company must establish — and the government must validate — that valuable minerals are present under such lands for a claim to exist.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du in Reno adopted the new standard in a ruling in February that found the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to comply with the law when it approved a Canadian company’s plan to open the Thacker Pass mine about 200 miles (322 kilometers) northeast of Reno.

Despite that ruling — and over the objections of environmentalists and tribes who now are appealing to the 9th Circuit — Du allowed construction to begin at the mine while the agency provides additional proof the company has the mineral rights necessary to dump waste rock and tailings from the operation on adjacent federal land.

Interior Department officials announced Tuesday that the land management bureau has completed the review necessary to establish mineral rights on the land adjacent to Lithium Americas’ project and is convinced it will satisfy Du’s requirement.

A group of Native Americans and some supporters have been staging a protest since last week near the site where the open pit mine is planned. The mine would ultimately be deeper than the length of a football field. They say federal law prohibits construction of the project near where dozens of Paiute tribal members were massacred by the U.S. cavalry in 1865.

The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit has scheduled oral arguments for the Thacker Pass appeal for June 26 in Pasadena, California.

Lithium Americas CEO Jonathan Evans said in a statement after Tuesday’s announcement they are “pleased the administration has established a path forward that allows us to resolve the outstanding matters related to the approval of our Thacker Pass project.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., called the “Rosemont decision” misguided and said it defies more than a century of practice on landscapes in the West. She recently introduced a bill with bipartisan support seeking to insulate the mine at Thacker Pass and others from the ruling by essentially adopting language that reverts to the historic interpretation that automatically conveyed established mining rights to the neighboring lands.

An Interior Department official told The Associated Press ahead of Tuesday’s formal announcement that the Biden administration doesn’t intend to challenge or appeal the Rosemont decision. The official requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. The department issued a new legal opinion from its solicitor general to provide guidance to mining companies.

The new opinion “will support the timely review of mining proposals on federal lands and is one step of many” Interior is taking to “update guidance for mining companies to reflect the realities of the 21st century,” Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said in a statement.

Beaudreau is the chairman of the administration’s Working Group on Mining Regulations, Laws and Permitting that’s expected to offer a list of recommendations sometime this year to make improvements to the antiquated mining law.

Dozens of other mines face similar situations as Thacker Pass, an Interior Department official said Tuesday.

“We are not appealing or challenging Rosemont,” a spokesman said. “It makes it clear for the company that if you have a situation like Rosemont or Thacker, you have these options.”

Officials analyzed more than 100 of the nearly 500 individual claims and found only eight that don’t have evidence of enough mineralization to justify siting the waste rock dump there, Interior said.

Solicitor General Robert T. Anderson said in his 10-page opinion that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management should not approve a mine operating plan if the record lacks any evidence of valuable mineral deposits on the adjacent land planned for the waste rock dump. But he said the agency is not required to “conduct a validity determination ... if there is some evidence of discovery.”

____

Daly reported from Washington.

The Massive Solar And Wind Waste Problem

By Felicity Bradstock - May 17, 2023

• Both solar power and wind power have grown at a remarkable rate in the last decade, and as these industries grow the waste associated with them also grows.
• 
  
• There is currently no comprehensive plan for how to deal with solar and wind waste, with solar waste alone expected to account for up 1 million tonnes by the end of the decade.
• 
  
• In both the wind and solar industries, there is an increasing number of companies looking to solve these waste problems and create a circular economy.

Solar and wind power could have a massive waste problem if not dealt with soon, with growing uncertainty over what to do with components at the end of their lifespan. Some countries are now investing heavily in recycling operations for no longer functioning solar panels and wind turbines, while many others are uncertain about how to best tackle the problem sustainably. But one thing’s for sure, wind and solar power will be a lot less green unless governments worldwide introduce comprehensive regulations on how to manage renewable energy waste appropriately. 

The end-of-life management of solar photovoltaics (PV) occurs when solar equipment is retired from operations. With millions of solar installations in operation in the U.S. alone and hundreds of millions of solar panels in use, it is important to consider what to do with this equipment once it can no longer be used. By 2020, solar power operations were providing around 40% of the U.S. electric generation capacity, a dramatic increase from 4% just a decade earlier. At present, lots of the solar panels in use are young, with many having been installed since 2017. As the lifespan of a PV module is between 30 and 35 years, on average, many companies across the U.S. have put off considering what to do with solar industry waste up until now. 

But the government needs to put comprehensive regulations in place for the disposal and recycling of solar components now, before the issue snowballs. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) believes that the cumulative end-of-life PV waste in the U.S. will reach between 0.17 and 1 million tonnes by the end of the decade. At the top end, that equates to around 0.5% of the total U.S. annual solid waste. At present, as the cost of recycling is far higher than disposal, many companies have opted to send old solar equipment to landfills. By 2050, the U.S. could have as many as 10 million total tonnes of panels. Considering that the U.S. is expected to have the second-largest number of end-of-life solar panels globally by 2050, the government must establish regulations for dealing with waste solar equipment in line with the country’s green transition. 

When it comes to wind power – one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity generation, there is just as great a need to establish a circular economy to avoid old turbines ending up in landfills. We are beginning to see more frequent innovations in turbine manufacturing, thanks to years of investment in research and development, meaning that turbines can now be engineered using fewer materials, resources, and energy. Much of the equipment is also developed with consideration for its end-of-life transition, as many turbines are now longer lasting and easy to break down for reuse. 

Since 2021, the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) has been working with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), as well as industry and educational partners, to establish wind blade recycling technologies and develop a circular economy for entire wind turbines. And now, companies are seeing wind turbine, solar panel, and lithium-ion EV battery recycling as big business. Several private startups across the U.S. have seen the mistakes of the past –when coal mines and oil wells were not properly decommissioned – and have used these examples to promote green energy recycling. 

Solarcycle is just one of the companies hoping to solve the waste problem, having launched its first recycling facility in Odessa, Texas. At its plant, Solarcycle extracts 95% of the materials from end-of-life solar panels to be reused in the industry. It sells the silver and copper recovered from the panels on commodity markets, as well as selling glass, silicon, and aluminum to panel manufacturers and solar farm operators. 

The CEO of Solarcycle, Suvi Sharma, stated: “Solar is becoming the dominant form of power generation.” Sharma explained, “But with [greater capacity] comes a new set of challenges and opportunities. We have done a phenomenal job making solar efficient and cost-effective, but really have not done anything yet on making it circular and dealing with the end-of-life [panels].” 

At present, around 90% of end-of-life solar panels end up in landfills. But Sharma expects this to shift significantly over the next decade, as landfill costs increase and innovations in recycling drive costs down. In fact, the market for recycled solar panel materials is expected to be worth over $2.7 billion by 2030, an increase from $170 million in 2022. It is expected to continue growing over the following decades to reach a value of $80 billion by 2050. And the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Laboratory (NREL) believes recycled materials could meet between 30 and 50% of U.S. solar manufacturing needs by 2040 if the government puts recycling regulations in place now. 

While there is a significant solar and wind power and battery waste problem at present, there is much optimism around the growth of the clean-energy component recycling industry. As the need for better disposal methods becomes clear, in support of a green transition, more companies across the U.S. (and the globe) are investing in developing recycling operations, which will help ensure that renewable energy projects remain green.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

Is Colombia On The Brink Of A Coup D’Etat?

By Matthew Smith - May 17, 2023, 

• Last Thursday, retired Colonel John Marulanda threatened to depose Colombia’s president just a day after hundreds of veterans protested in Bogota.
• 
  
• Gustavo Petro is Colombia’s first leftwing president and tensions between his government and Colombia’s armed forces have been worsening of late.
• 
  
• While Marulanda appears unlikely to carry through with his threat, it is a clear sign of rising opposition against Petro.

It was a daunting moment last Thursday in Colombia, South America’s longest-running democracy, when retired Colonel John Marulanda, ex-president of the Andean country’s powerful Retired Officers Association (ACORE – Spanish initials), threatened to depose (Spanish) Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro. In a statement directed at Petro, Marulanda said they are going to “defenestrate a guy who was a guerrilla." Those comments came a day after hundreds of Colombia’s military veterans protested against Petro in Bogota. Since taking office on August 7, 2022, the relationship between former socialist guerrilla Petro, who is Colombia’s first ever leftwing president, and the public forces, which have experienced substantial resignations, has been particularly strained. Since then, fears have emerged that Colombia’s armed forces, a politically influential body with close ties to former hard-right President Alvaro Uribe, will not accept a former socialist guerrilla as president.

The political intrigues and conflict playing out in Bogota, long a focal point for clashes between the extreme left and right, are being fanned by considerable unease in the upper socioeconomic levels of Colombian society over a one-time leftwing revolutionary holding the office of president. As a young man, Petro joined the socialist M19 guerrilla movement, founded after the disputed and allegedly fraudulent 1970 presidential election. During his time with the M19 Petro was imprisoned and according to him tortured. After the group disbanded as part of the March 1990 peace deal - where Petro was a negotiator - struck with the government of President Virgilio Barco, he held various government appointments. Petro then went on to become a congressional representative in 2002 and a senator in 2006. After two earlier failed attempts to win Colombia’s presidency, in 2010 and 2018, Petro finally succeeded during the 2022 election.

Tensions are further heightened in Colombia because of the impact of the fallout from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic with the Andean country struggling to recover from spiraling poverty, crime, and violence. By the end of 2021, nearly 40% of Colombians were living in poverty (Spanish) compared to 36% in 2019, while 12% of the population was living in extreme poverty against just under 10% 2 years earlier. Petro’s predecessor President Ivan Duque ignited a tinderbox of simmering community resentment in April 2021 when he announced plans to hike taxes subsequently triggering Colombia-wide violent anti-government protests.

After emerging victorious during the July 2022 presidential run-off, Petro announced his ambitious yet what increasingly appears to be an unachievable plan for total peace. This focuses on obliging the state policy to seek peace with the disparate illegal armed groups engaged in Colombia’s decades-long bloody civil conflict that has claimed 262,000 lives, the vast majority of whom were civilians. It is this low-level asymmetric war which is responsible for much of the violence occurring in the strife-torn country, notably in remote rural regions. As part of that plan, Petro prematurely declared a ceasefire at the start of 2023, but it was not recognized by the numerous illegal armed groups operating in Colombia which continued attacking crucial infrastructure, civilians, and the armed forces. That only heightened tensions with the military and police which have borne much of the brunt of the uptick in violence.

Petro, to the displeasure of the hard-right and many within the armed forces, resumed peace talks with the last remaining leftist guerrillas the National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish initials ELN. His predecessor Duque suspended negotiations (Spanish) with the guerrillas after their January 2019 bombing of a Bogota police academy claimed 21 lives. The ELN, which was founded in 1964, is believed to have as many as 2,500 combatants making it the second largest illegal armed group in Colombia after the Gulf Clan, a neo-paramilitary group that has an estimated 5,000 fighters. The Gulf Clan emerged in 2006 when senior paramilitary leader Vincente Castaño broke away from the demobilization process of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC – Spanish initials) and rearmed a paramilitary group. After clashing with a variety of other illegal armed groups the Gulf Clan emerged as Colombia’s most powerful criminal organization. There are also various bands of combatants from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC – Spanish initials) who didn’t accept the 2016 peace accord with Bogota.

There have been frequent scandals and allegations concerning Colombia’s police and army’s involvement in human rights abuses, illegal detention, torture, extrajudicial killings, and rampant corruption over the last two decades. The most severe instances occurred during the 2021 national strike where thousands of Colombians took to the streets to protest against President Duque’s proposed tax hikes, soaring corruption, and economic mismanagement. The crisis of impunity among Colombia’s public forces is so severe that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR – Spanish initials) expressed concerns over endemic police violence in Colombia in 2021. Petro’s desire to secure peace, eliminate corruption, and end the impunity enjoyed by Colombia’s armed forces and police when it comes to human rights abuses saw him appoint controversial prominent anti-corruption investigator Iván Velásquez as Minister of Defense. That further inflamed tensions with Colombia’s armed forces. 

This is all occurring at a time when there is considerable rumor and innuendo about a rightwing campaign by various former senior security officials as well as business leaders and supporters of former President Uribe to undermine Petro’s presidency. While Petro has been able to maintain an overall semblance of a functional relationship with Colombia’s Armed Forces despite evident tensions, his relationship with retired members of the military has been strained and antagonistic. Regardless of the issues discussed, Colombia’s active military has, thus far, shown no interest in Marulanda’s comments. Petro ridiculed the statement and warned the Colombian people of the threat writing via Twitter “Why are they conspiring for a coup d’état? Because they are terrified that we will put an end to impunity.” Indeed, the retired colonel later walked back his comments claiming that he was referring to the President of Peru Pedro Castillo, who was ousted from office during the first week of December 2022 to be later arrested and detained.

While a coup certainly appears unlikely with Marulanda’s comments appearing to amount to nothing more than saber rattling, Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation (Spanish) to determine whether a crime has been committed. They have also inflamed tensions at a crucial time for Petro whose controversial health reforms, aimed at establishing a centralized government-monitored payment system to reduce corruption and improve care, were rejected. After the clashes over his health reform proposals, the president replaced seven ministers in his cabinet who were seen by many as moderates. There are also accusations that retired military members protested to create a distraction from the explosive testimony from paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. That includes claims of close ties between paramilitary forces, the Army, and police as well as their participation in extrajudicial killings.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com

Electricity Prices Plunge By 75% As Finland Opens New Nuclear Power Plant

By ZeroHedge - May 16, 2023

The commencement of regular output from a much-delayed Finnish nuclear reactor in April saw electricity prices in the country decrease by more than 75 percent.

The Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear plant completed the transition from testing to regular output last month to become Finland’s first new nuclear plant in more than four decades. It is expected to produce up to 15 percent of the country’s power demand.

And while the plant’s production is still in its early days, its launch has had a considerable effect on Finland’s energy prices, lowering the electricity spot price in the country from €245.98 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in December to €60.55 per MWh in April, a reduction of more than 75 percent, according to physical electricity exchange, Nord Pool.

Energy prices had risen sharply in the Scandinavian country after the Finnish government banned electricity imports from neighboring Russia last year due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The utilization of nuclear power will be welcomed by Finnish consumers, particularly given the fact that Finland has the highest per-capita electricity consumption in the European Union.

“We have had more stability in the system because of OL3. It’s a huge nuclear plant, one of the biggest in the world, connected to a small system,” said Jukka Ruusunen, chief executive of Finland’s national grid operator Fingrid. “It has its own risks, which we are happy to follow up on,” he added.

Speaking to The National, Ruusunen explained that wind power is expected to be the largest source of energy production in Finland by 2027, with nuclear currently being a useful and reliable substitute.

He said that wind power is capable of attracting greater investment, with nuclear energy seemingly being blacklisted by a number of environmental investors.Related: Saudi Aramco Considers Another Stock Offering In Riyadh

“Nuclear, it seems, is not very attractive for the investors. This is what they say. But, it’s an option and I’m sure that our politicians would be in favor of these decisions,” he told the news site.

There are also business concerns:

“Who dares to put billions of euros into nuclear?” he asked.

Nuclear, however, continues to be an increasingly popular source of energy production in many EU nations with France, Sweden, Poland and Hungary all seeking to expand their nuclear energy output.

Last month, Poland secured $4 billion in U.S. funding to help build 20 small modular reactors across the country by 2029, while Hungary is focused on expanding its Paks nuclear power plant.

The Finnish example is a testament to how nuclear can play a part in solving the current energy crisis, with consumers still paying sky-high fees for energy in many European countries.

Germany, however, went the opposite way and controversially closed down its three remaining nuclear power plants last month. High inflation, high energy costs, and a sharp decline in industrial output have led to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicting a recession is in the cards for Europe’s powerhouse.

While German government officials say that energy prices are stabilizing, many will argue this is primarily because the federal government has spent around €26 billion in taxpayers’ cash on bailing out energy firms Sefe and Uniper, both of which incurred record losses by purchasing natural gas at hugely inflated prices to replace the banned supply from Russia.

As other European countries turn to alternative sources of energy production such as nuclear, some have ignored the benefits and chosen to plunge themselves into debt because of a notion that nuclear isn’t an acceptable energy source in the modern day.

By Thomas Brooke of Remix News via Zerohedge.com

CNNC launches test platform to extract uranium from seawater

18 May 2023

China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has commissioned a seawater uranium extraction test platform, said to be the largest such test platform to be built in the South China Sea.

The platform for extracting uranium for seawater (Image: CNNC)

CNNC noted that only a few institutes in China have carried out on-site tests of seawater uranium extraction. It said its new marine test platform has the ability to carry out material verification and amplification experiments in real ocean conditions.

The company added that, in the future, the test platform will form a "two centres, one platform" seawater uranium extraction scientific research base together with a research and test centre and an international exchange centre, construction of which has just got under way. These facilities, CNNC said, will create a "world-leading" seawater uranium extraction technology development centre.

The floating test platform (Image: CNNC)

Speaking at the 2023 Seawater Uranium Extraction Technology Innovation Alliance Council and Academic Exchange Conference on 17 May in Hainan, CNNC Deputy General Manager Cao Shudong said exploring unconventional uranium resource development technologies and promoting land and sea uranium resources are strategic choices to ensure the sustainable and steady development of China's nuclear energy industry.

Faced with the challenge of engineering application of seawater uranium extraction technology, CNNC joined with various alliance units to jointly tackle key problems and make important progress in various tasks, he told the conference.

Seawater contains naturally occurring uranium at a concentration of about 0.003 parts per million. Although this concentration is very low - the average abundance of uranium in the Earth's crust is about 2.7 parts per million and ore grades are many times greater than that - the oceans are estimated to contain some 4 billion tonnes of the metal. The total uranium resources in land-based ores recoverable at costs of up to USD130 per kilogram stands at around 3.7 million tonnes, so the oceans could be an important resource of uranium if it can be recovered economically.

"As the demand for natural uranium resources and the difficulty of development increase year by year, it will be an important strategic choice to explore and develop unconventional uranium resources while developing terrestrial uranium resources," CNNC said.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News