Our Energy Policy is about as moronic and downright damaging as our Foreign Policy. The single most efficient and cost effective source of electrical energy is Nuclear and we are blowing money on energy rat-holes but ignoring Nuclear.
From Next Big Future:
BRICS countries are building about 75% of the worlds new nuclear reactors and are forming a new BRICS energy association
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to establish a BRICS "energy association" that will include a fuel reserve bank and an energy policy institute. BRICS is a grouping of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Fifty of the 66 nuclear reactors currently under construction are in BRICS states.
Russia signed a number of nuclear power cooperation agreements that coincided with Putin's visit to South America. On 12 July, Rosatom director general Sergey Kiriyenko and Argentina's minister of planning, investments and services, Julio Vido, signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the peaceful use of atomic energy. Rosatom plans to participate in the tender in the third quarter for construction of the third unit at the Atucha nuclear power plant.
On 15 July, Rusatom Overseas chief executive Dzhomart Aliyev and Camargo Correa President Dalton Santos Avancini signed a memorandum of understanding with Brazilian Camargo Correa on building an additional spent fuel storage facility and a nuclear power station in Brazil.
The document envisages an expansion of bilateral cooperation in nuclear power, in particular, the construction of engineering and technical facilities at the Brazilian operational Angra nuclear power plant and partnership in the construction of new nuclear power units in Brazil.
On 16 July, Putin held talks with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on broadening their partnership in the energy and defense sectors. Modi has reportedly invited the Russian leader to visit the construction site of Kudankulam 2 during their annual summit in New Delhi, in December. The two countries signed a general framework agreement in April on units 3 and 4.
What makes this really interesting is that tucked into this agreement is a new bank:
The key development of the BRICS summit was the launch the long-awaited New Development Bank and a Currency Reserve Pool. With combined resources of $200 billion, they are aimed at fostering greater financial and development cooperation among the five emerging markets.
With a stated capital of $100 billion, the bank - widely seen as an alternative to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – "will become one of the largest multilateral financial development institutions in the world," Putin said. The group has also launched a Currency Reserve Pool, which Putin said "creates the prerequisites for effectively protecting our countries from financial market crises."
Putin is trying to move the world's reserve currency away from the US Dollar. This would undermine our ability to borrow money and would prompt lender nations to ask for repayment on an accelerated schedule. This would demolish the USA's economic power. We are at war here, we could win this easily (and come out ahead) but now -- Obama is fiddling while the world is burning. Right now, Russia is starved for hard currency. They get their money from oil and gas sales to Europe. If we came to market with the same product only cheaper, we would shut down Russia as well as defund the oil-ticks who are funding terrorism. But noooooo...
