Estonian state-owned energy giant Eesti Energia has acquired a majority holding in a heating enterprise in Valka – Valkas Bioenergo Kompanija, Latvia and plans to establish a new biofuel-based co-generation plant in 2012, the company announced on Tuesday. The new name of the enterprise that will provide heat to the city of Valka is Enefit Heat&Power Valka.

• January 26, 2011

What should countries do with their nuclear waste? This question has been tormenting scientists and politicians since the early days of nuclear energy. Proposals have ranged from storing radioactive material in polar ice sheets, burying it in the ocean floor, or even blasting it into space.

• January 25, 2011

Negotiations in Istanbul over Iran’s nuclear program broke up on Saturday with no agreement between Tehran and the UN Security Council permanent members—the US, China, Russia, Britain and France—plus Germany (P5+1). Such was the gulf between the parties that no further meeting was scheduled

• January 24, 2011

Belarus on 17 January concluded an agreement with Ukraine that will give it access to crude oil from the Black Sea while bypassing Russian pipelines. Ukrtransnafta and the Belarusian Oil Company signed the two-year contract for the guaranteed annual transit of four million tons of oil through Ukraine’s oil transport system using the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline to the Belarusian oil refinery in Mozyr.

• January 24, 2011

Six world powers began fresh talks with Iran today in a bid to resolve tensions over its controversial nuclear drive, but the United States warned against building up hopes of a breakthrough.

• January 22, 2011

Russia will cooperate in a range of energy projects including the construction of the Trans-Afghanistan (TAPI) pipeline, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai said

• January 22, 2011

China may reach an initial agreement with Russia on natural gas pricing - a subject of great contention for years - by the middle of 2011, industry experts close to the matter said.

• January 21, 2011

For all the excitement over Wyoming coal making its way to Chinese power plants, the trend reveals a dampening outlook for the industry here in the United States. Coal proponents and opponents alike seem to agree that the lack of a U.S. energy policy hasn’t served anybody well, including the mining industry.

• January 21, 2011