Iran's Bushehr power plant - AFP/Getty Images

Russia has been in the news a lot lately following President Vladimir Putin's big trip to Iran and what look suspiciously like efforts to stay in power after his term expires. But without much media fanfare, the Russians have been quietly working on an initiative that could do a world of good.

Over the past few years, Russia has been collaborating with the United States and other supplier nations to limit the spread of sensitive enrichment technologies that can be used to produce fuel for civilian uses as well as for nuclear weapons. Cooperation here is a matter of necessity: Efforts to halt the spread of atomic weapons simply won't get very far without Russia, one of the world's most important suppliers of nuclear technology and fuel for energy production.

The Russians are about to launch an "international fuel enrichment center" in Angarsk, a city in eastern Siberia. The precise details of the arrangement are still unclear, but it appears as if all countries will be able to participate in the center "without any political preconditions," according to Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations. In return, it was initially believed that participating states would receive assured access to nuclear fuel from Angarsk. However, a recent report by Oxford Analytica merely noted that participating countries would "share in profits" from the facility — a vague formulation that leaves open many questions about the nature of the agreement.

Assured access to fuel, though, is the main principle behind each of the handful of "multilateralization" proposals that have been put forth for the nuclear fuel cycle. Certain states, such as Iran, argue that they need to develop their own fuel-cycle capabilities (i.e. centrifuge enrichment plants) to guard against disruptions in the international market for nuclear fuel. Even though the market has never seen a notable disruption, this argument is valid to a certain degree; for a state that is heavily reliant on nuclear power, a disruption would be crippling, and just because market disruptions haven't happened doesn't mean they won't. Development of enrichment facilities, moreover, is allowed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

The current fuel-cycle countries hope that multilateral initiatives such as the center in Angarsk will reduce incentives for more states to build enrichment capabilities. They could also help reveal Iran's true intentions — why refuse to participate in the Angarsk center if their only concern is reliable access to fuel? With a possible renaissance for nuclear power on the horizon, initiatives like Angarsk are promising attempts to slow proliferation of dangerous technology without eviscerating the NPT.

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For anyone who has every seen the sorry state of Egypt's infrastructure up close, this is terrifying news:

CAIRO - President Hosni Mubarak announced yesterday that Egypt, which lacks the oil reserves of some of its Middle East neighbors, would build several nuclear power plants to meet rising energy demands.

The statement was made in a nationally televised address and seemed to have twin purposes: overhaul an energy policy to keep pace with economic growth and support his son, Gamal, who has stressed the need for nuclear power and who many analysts regard as a front-runner to succeed the 79-year-old president.

Gamal first proposed this idea at the 2006 conference of the ruling National Democratic Party, an annual meeting that is coming up again soon. It's a winning issue for the president's son, who lacks populist credentials and is often tagged by his critics as a momma's boy. So far, the United States is OK with Egypt's plan:

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would not object to Egypt's program as long as Cairo adhered to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines.

The subtext here is, of course, Iran's own nuclear program, which makes daily headlines in Cairo. It's highly doubtful that the Egyptians would pursue nuclear weapons and even more doubtful that they would get away with such a thing, nor is it even clear that Egypt would seek to enrich uranium on its own rather than purchasing it from abroad. But the enrichment route is certainly a possibility, given the national pride at stake and the concomitant political benefits for Gamal. And Egypt may be looking for more than simple acquiescence from the United States. Commenting last year on Gamal's proposal, an analyst at the Al-Ahram Center, a government-funded think tank in Cairo, asked, "Why should the U.S. assist India in its nuclear program and not Egypt?"

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Most of the press on Vladimir Putin's historic trip to Tehran has focused on his warning to the U.S. not to attack Iran and the possibility of some sort of strategic partnership between the Kremlin and the ayatollahs. One could almost be forgiven for thinking that the meeting that Putin attended was some sort of trans-Caspian "death to America" summit. In fact, the real substance of the meeting was about the distribution of the Caspian Sea region's energy resources. On this front, almost no progress was made and more was revealed about Russia and Iran's differences than their agreements.

The Kremlin still views the Caspian as Russia's "near-abroad," and Iran's growth as a regional power is troubling to the Russians as well. The two countries didn't really see eye to eye at the summit, as the AP explained:

Iran, which shared the Caspian's resources equally with the Soviet Union, insists that each coastal nation receive an equal portion of the seabed. Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan want the division based on the length of each nation's shore, which would give Iran a smaller share.

Another back story behind the summit is CIA Director Michael Hayden's unexplained recent visit to Baku, Azerbaijan where he met with President Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijani analysts have speculated that the U.S. is preparing to use the country as a staging ground for a war on Iran, though the Azeris and the Iranians continue to enjoy strong cultural and economic ties. But Hayden's visit might also have had something to do with the construction of a trans-Caspian natural gas pipeline to bypass Russia, a deal the Russians have wanted to scuttle from the beginning. Witness Putin channeling Al Gore here:

Projects that may inflict serious environmental damage to the region cannot be implemented without prior discussion by all five Caspian nations," Putin said, apparently suggesting each capital should have a virtual veto on energy transport.

The governments of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan are somewhat wary about that proposal as they seek to navigate a middle ground between Russia and the West. In the end, the five countries failed to come up with a formula for sharing the Caspian's resources—which was supposed to be the point of the whole summit—and could agree only on a resolution banning foreign military action from the region. That doesn't look like success to me.

I spoke today with Jim Rogers, chairman, president, and CEO of Duke Energy, and Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), which represents shareholder-owned electrical utilities. Along with leaders of seven other utilities, Rogers announced an initiative "seeking regulatory reform and approvals to increase [the utilities'] investment in energy efficiency by $500 million annually to about $1.5 billion annually." His group's commitment will mean the equivalent of taking nearly 6 million cars off the road, Rogers says, and "avoid the need for 50 500-megawatt peaking power plants."

FP: What is motivating Duke Energy, and why aren't more utilities getting on board?

Jim Rogers: Well, I think the seven utilities who are here today are all very progressive with respect to energy efficiency and addressing the climate issue. And in fact, our entire industry—and Tom Kuhn's here, president of the EEI—as you know, early this year our industry changed our policy position on this and really said, "We support regulation of CO2 consistent with a set of principles." So we are going to work, because we realize our industry has about 35 to 40 percent of all the emissions of CO2, and our assignment is to find a solution. And so we turned our attention to finding the right regulatory framework and finding the right technical solutions so that we can solve the problem.

FP: Does that mean lobbying on Capitol Hill for mandatory emissions caps?

JR: We are now—There's a rich debate going on on the Hill today, and we are very involved.

Tom Kuhn: We're very much in favor of establishing a price for carbon. And I think that we are very strongly behind the whole idea that the only way you're really going to accomplish it ... is also to move these technologies together aggressively. And that means all the technologies, starting with energy efficiency, which is the fifth fuel (but maybe we call it the first fuel, too), but then renewables, moving the transmission that it takes to get the renewables to market; moving nuclear energy forward, which is a zero-emission technology ... We now generate 50 percent of our electricity with coal. If we want to maintain coal as an important option for the future, we've got to move forward aggressively with carbon capture and storage. So, it is the full basket of things that we need to do, the full toolset that we need to make our global climate goals, but we fully agree with the need to get a price for carbon.  

JR: President Clinton really said it pretty well today with respect to this whole energy efficiency issue. While we call it the fifth fuel, it's really the number one option right now. And while people and politicians are debating how to move forward with climate regulation and how to develop an international framework, we can go today to work in implementing these energy efficiency regulatory changes and investing in energy efficiency as a way to reduce our carbon footprint right now. And what we need is action right now.

Make no mistake: Self-interest is motivating these guys, who are uneasy about patchwork, state-level regulation and fear the uncertainty that could come from not having a seat at the table. EEI opposes, for instance, a federal renewable portfolio standard that would require a certain percentage of electricity to come from renewable sources. Moreover, it's far from clear what, exactly, the proposed regulatory reforms entail. They certainly deserve scrutiny going forward. Still, the fact that they're seeing the light on energy efficiency is a good thing.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a 2006 press conference with Tony Blair, said the European Union needed to work towards a common energy policy to limit the influence of Gazprom, the Russian-controlled energy giant. Merkel's statement came after Russia, unhappy with the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, turned off that country's gas in the middle of the winter. Not long after, Merkel pirouetted and signed a unilateral deal with Russia to supply about 90 percent of German energy. Other large countries have signed similar deals (all under different terms). So much for EU solidarity.

However, smaller EU countries have become increasingly concerned about Gazprom as it has expanded its business interests in Europe. On Thursday, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes presented what she said was a concrete step to counter the company's influence. According to Forbes, the European Commission is expected to publish a new law that mandates separate ownership for non-EU gas distribution and gas production companies. This is known as "unbundling," and it means that the same company cannot produce and distribute the gas. Because the measure is clearly directed at Russia, it has become known in the EU as the Gazprom Clause.

On the surface, this law suggests a shift towards a common energy policy. But a deeper examination shows it has no teeth. First, Germany, Italy and France will oppose the deal, as they all have national utility companies with substantial foreign ownership. They do not want to break up those firms, which would be required by the proposed law. Without both of those countries on board, it's unlikely the law will make it through the EU parliamentary process. 

Perhaps anticipating this opposition, the Commission also presented a second plan that allows joint ownership as long as an independent operator controls one of the companies. In other words, Russia would have to create a separate company to distribute gas, while Gazprom produces it. This separation is insignificant, as both companies answer to the same master.

So, the Commission's victory for collectivism appears to be a hollow one. Until more forceful steps are taken towards EU consensus, Russia will keep striking unilateral deals with European countries, making a common energy policy less and less likely.

The economics of corn ethanol have never made much sense. Rather than importing cheap Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane, the United States slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on ethanol from Brazil. Then the government provides a tax break of 51 cents a gallon to American ethanol producers — on top of the generous subsidies that corn growers already receive under the farm program.

The above passage from today's New York Times editorial recalls nothing so much as this gem from Milo Minderbender, the mad genius businessman in Catch-22:

But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share."

Maybe Rupert's not so bad after all.

Wall Street Journal reporters unhappy with their new boss should be thankful today, as a report in the Times of London indicates it could have been a lot worse. According to the Times, "an international oil and gas company" held private talks in July to buy the company for more than $5 billion dollars. Sources confirmed the unnamed company was Gazprom, the Russian-controlled energy giant. 

It's highly unlikely the Gazprom bid could have succeeded—the U.S. government would have likely scuttled the deal, as it has in the past when it strong-armed Dubai Ports World into giving up its American holdings. That doesn't mean, however, that the bid is unimportant. It's yet another indication of Russia's increasingly aggressive international posture, and another attempt by Moscow to use Gazprom as a foreign-policy tool. It is also the second time in recent months that Gazprom has attempted to enter the U.S. market (the first being a potential deal with BP). But trying to buy Dow Jones, owner of one of the best newspapers in the world, a symbol of American capitalism? The Russians are nothing if not ambitious.

As the so-called "war on terror" rolls on, the balance between security and public oversight remains tense. Recently, this tension surfaced when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission revealed a series of previously undisclosed accidents that took place over the past few years at Nuclear Fuel Services, one of only two U.S. companies that are allowed to process highly enriched uranium (HEU) for nuclear fuel. In 2004, citing national-security concerns, the NRC deemed as "Official Use Only" all documents relating to Nuclear Fuel Services and the other HEU processing company, BWX Technologies, and sealed them away from public view.

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As a result, several "abnormal occurrences" remained secret, including one particularly dangerous incident involving a spill of 9 gallons of HEU in liquid solution on March 6, 2006. When in liquid form, HEU must be handled with particular care to prevent creating a critical mass. If enough of the liquid collects within a certain volume, a dangerous, uncontrolled chain reaction can occur. Usually, such reactions will not result in a nuclear explosion, but they do release significant amounts of radiation. Processing facilities have extensive safeguards in place to prevent this, but accidents do happen.

This time, the spill did not turn out to be serious, ranking a lowly 2 out of 7 on the IAEA's International Nuclear Events Scale. (With a 2, there is very little threat to the surrounding area or even to the actual facility. Three Mile Island was a 5. With a 7, you're in Chernobyl territory.)

It's worrisome, however, that the NRC kept such a basic safety breach secret for so long. Rather than examining documents to see which truly contained sensitive information, the NRC just hid everything. And interestingly, the NRC did not fine Nuclear Fuel Services for the violation. Instead, a performance review was initiated. In past years, the NRC fined companies for violations like this and made the events public. Replacing fines with performance reviews is fine, but the NRC should bring back public announcements. To its credit, the NRC at least admits that "the pendulum maybe swung too far" towards excessive secrecy.

Potential terrorists might benefit from knowing the exact details of an accident or the security changes implemented after it, but there will rarely be much harm in disclosing the incident itself. In some cases even the old security procedures that led to such accidents could be safely disclosed, if they were no longer being used. And in general, increasing the transparency of the NRC's oversight role can spur greater vigilance and hopefully help prevent more dangerous "nuclear mishaps" in the future.

loan Barbulescu/Flickr

Although it would seem a more natural fit for an eco-conscious country like Norway, whose government pledged to be carbon-neutral by 2050, the world's first carbon-free city will actually be built in Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich Gulf emirate.

By 2009, Abu Dhabi hopes to complete construction of Masdar, a 3.7 mile enclosed city devoid of cars and carbon. To produce energy, Masdar will rely on a combination of wind, solar power and geothermal energy. The city—whose name means “source” in Arabic—is slated to be the centerpiece of The Masdar Initiative, which, according to their website, is “a global cooperative platform for open engagement in the search for solutions to some of mankind's most pressing issues: energy security, climate change and truly sustainable human development.”

According to this, some of Masdar’s main investors are automobile manufacturers and oil companies. British Petroleum, Fiat, and Mitsubishi are all involved. Why? Masdar is guaranteed to produce an excess of carbon credits traded on international markets either for profit or for the right to produce more emissions during other activities, such as oil production or auto manufacturing.

While their intentions might not be completely altruistic, the fact that oil and car companies are investing heavily in a project whose very mission is to consume no oil and use no cars means that carbon trading schemes might be having their desired effect. That is, incentivizing investments in carbon-reducing initiatives. Although, not everyone is playing by the rules. There is some evidence that Chinese companies are actually polluting more in order to make a buck (or about 7.5 Renminbi) off carbon credits.

Back in 1969, the United States won the space race against the Soviet Union by planting the U.S. flag on the moon. This Thursday, Russia is expected to win the race to claim much of the oil and gas deposits of the Arctic Ocean by sinking its flag to the seafloor beneath the North Pole.

A Russian icebreaker has already broken through ice sheets and cleared a path to the North Pole. Thursday morning, two submarines will dive more than 13,200 feet and drop a capsule containing the Russian flag. The symbolic act seems aimed at strengthening Russia's legal claims to the estimated 10 billion tons of oil and gas deposits that are in a 460,000-square-mile region of the Arctic shelf.

Four other countries — Canada, the United States, Norway, and Denmark — have claimed land inside the Arctic Circle. International law lets them claim only up to 200 miles from their coastlines for economic activity. Russia, however, has been claiming a larger area that reaches the North Pole by saying that Siberia and the Arctic seabed are on the same continental shelf.

If the flag drop succeeds, it will be a small step for submarine pilots, and a giant leap for Russia … into a territorial dispute.

Perhaps you recall the "Northwest Passage" from your seventh grade social studies class. Until the phrase showed up on the AP newswire and at the center of Canada's aggressive new defense policy, I had almost forgotten about this long-sought-for shortcut to Asia that swallowed up so many European explorers.

Usually frozen, the Passage has historically only been passable for a few days every summer. The onset of global warming has raised its strategic value, since all the ice in the world might be gone soon. In addition to a transcontinental shipping route that's 2,480 miles shorter than going through the Panama Canal, it turns out those northern straits host bountiful fishing stocks, valuable minerals, and—get this—25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

In the manner of any self-respecting oil producer (especially given the recent IEA report of an oncoming oil supply crunch), Canada has begun an aggressive campaign to protect what the Canadians say is rightfully theirs. Despite his country's history of turning a blind eye to U.S. usage of the Passage, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has forthrightly asserted Canadian sovereignty over the arctic waterways:

Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it. It is no exaggeration to say that the need to assert our sovereignty and protect our territorial integrity in the North on our terms have never been more urgent.

What's more, Canada has recently hoisted the maple leaf over Hans island, a small, barren rock less than a thousand miles from the North Pole. Countering Danish claims of sovereignty over the island, which isn't far from Denmark's Greenland, many Canadians have even called for a boycott of Danish pastries.

First PM Harper won't talk to Bono, and now he's on the warpath, hoping to reap the rewards of global warming. Better keep an eye on this fellow.

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Buoyed by the high price of oil, Brazilian President Ignacio Lula da Silva is trumpeting biofuels as an alternative. And now he says they could be a boon for the poor. And Lula, as quoted by Al Jazeera, seems to be taking a page out of Mao's little red book:

[E]veryone has the technology and the knowledge to dig a little hole of 30 centimeters to plant an oil plant that could produce energy, the energy they couldn't produce in the 20th century.

It's a sentiment that recalls one of Mao's famous exhortations during the Great Leap Forward—that every Chinese should smelt steel in his or her backyard. Lula's economics is not quite as bad as Mao's, but he's still full of it. Lula was responding to a recent report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, who are decidedly less enthusiastic. The rise of biofuels, the report makes clear, is no panacea for poverty.

In fact, Oil-exporting countries, net food importers, and the urban poor are all in for a rough ride thanks to biofuels. As gasoline starts to become so expensive that the world turns en masse to alternative fuels, oil-exporting countries in the Middle East will see their main source of revenue dry up. And since many types of biofuel are made from feedstock, the rising prices of crops such as corn will increase the cost of raising livestock and, ultimately, the price of food. Indeed, this is already happening, and it's bad news for the poor, who spend a significant chunk of their meager incomes on food. (It's also bad news for beer drinkers.)

So while Brazil's sugar producers may be cashing in on the ethanol boom, the hundreds of thousands of Brazilian favelados aren't exactly eager to ride the biofuel wave. After all, many of these people don't have yards in which to grow little "oil plants" ... nor running water, for that matter.

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With announcements of new energy technologies coming out constantly, it's sometimes difficult to figure out which ones are actually worth getting excited about.

A power-plant scrubber highlighted in Tuesday's Financial Times is a case in point. The Sugarland, TX-based WOW Energies has developed a device that reduces CO2 emissions in a big way, the company claims:

Daniel Stinger, Wow chairman and inventor of the technology, says standard scrubbers can remove 50-60 per cent of mercury from emissions, while third party testing has shown his technology removes 85 to 95 per cent of heavy metals pollutants, including mercury. In addition, its pilot projects demonstrated carbon dioxide reductions of up to 85 per cent - not even the original aim.

85 percent CO2 reduction? Wow (no pun intended). Although it hasn't been proven on a large scale, this is impressive. Oddly, the WOWClean results (pdf) have been out since December, yet we're only reading about it now. There has to be a catch. The FT reports that WOW energy hasn't found much interest from utilities:

In the six months since Wow began marketing the technology, [WOW's CFO Martin] Brau has found utility groups have little interest in spending money to reduce emissions unless forced by legislation, preferring instead to "chip away" at emissions as new requirements gradually come into effect."A lot of them simply don't want to know," says Mr Brau. "Unless they are forced to, they won't stop. They have a grandfathered right to pollute."

Could the catch be that WOWClean captures the CO2 so that it can be stored somewhere or sequestered underground (boring) rather than eliminate CO2 emissions through some chemical process (potentially very exciting)?

I emailed Brau to get clarification on this. Brau responded:

What we mean is that the CO2 is converted into a stable bicarbonate, such as baking powder, it is not sequestered as a liquid gas.

This is awesome ... but it's probably unwise to get too excited until more work is done to test the large-scale performance and viability of this technology. In energy, there's always a catch. But definitely keep an eye on this. Power plants account for 40 percent of CO2 emissions in the United States, so progress in this area is crucial to major emissions reductions.

FP contributor Dan Drezner, citing reliable sources in Europe, tells a brief story about Russo-German diplomacy:

Angela Merkel apparently has a fear of dogs. Vladimir Putin is aware of this fact. Therefore, whenever Putin meets with Merkel in Moscow, he makes sure his pet dogs are in the room.

Press accounts suggest this to be true. President Putin loves his dogs, and he appears to use them to intimidate Chancellor Merkel during tough negotiations. This was the initial test, in January 2006:

Putin, who already met Merkel several times when she was opposition leader of the conservative Christian Democrats, said his meeting with her had taken place "in a very good atmosphere." Earlier, Putin, who likes dogs, had given Merkel a gift of a small toy black and white dog, which had a short leash. Merkel, however, does not like dogs - she was bitten by one when she was young and has since kept her distance, according to an aide. German diplomats said they were unsure how to interpret the gift.

One year later, in January 2007, Putin brought in diplomatic reinforcements during a dust-up with Merkel over energy supplies:

Later, when Koni, Putin's black Labrador, made her domineering entrance, Merkel nervously, or perhaps wishfully, commented in Russian, "Now the dog is going to eat the journalists." [...] Kremlin critic and journalist Yulia Latynina, writing for "Yezhednevny zhurnal," said the "friendly meeting in Sochi between Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and Labrador Koni" left her bewildered.

Putin apparently told the German chancellor, "I don't think the dog will scare you. She won't do anything bad, she likes journalists."

I wonder what Vlad does to try to intimidate U.S. President George W. Bush. Show him the latest poll numbers?