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For most people springtime means flowers, cleaning and putting away winter coats. For people in the energy business, warming weather means they can stop managing for the heating season and brace for the really big stage in the US power sector: cooling season.

With natural gas prices failing to settle lower despite the beginning of what are called the shoulder months in the energy business, when demand for temperature control and other power-sucking activity slips, many are entering the spring months with a renewed sense of uncertainty about their commitment to the fuel. Even a bearish storage report couldn’t weigh down natural gas prices earlier this week, and although prices are nowhere near historical highs the sector has become so accustomed to cheap gas every penny higher makes for a pause given the US large scale “dash to gas” in recent years.

So what does that leave? Perhaps rising gas prices have something to do with the intensified fight around nuclear installations, which have attracted both renewed support and renewed condemnation in recent weeks. While the Atomic Safety Licensing Board rejected appeals from opponents of a proposed new Duke Energy nuclear unit near Tampa Florida, local media reported, high profile opponents of new nuclear capacity elsewhere were highlighting what they claimed are increased cancer risks from the generation units.

The Radiation and Public Health project held another in a series of events citing what they claim to be the danger to public health from nuclear power plants, in this case marking the release of an academic paper focused on the history of an area adjacent to the long-closed Rancho Seco nuclear plant. Find out more on their website here.

In a race to support their spectacularly growing manufacturing-led economy, China’s authorities have made dashes for new fuel and power supply that make US investments look puny by comparison. New concerns about China, highlighted in a new World Bank Group book, are part of the shifting dynamic back to developed country investment noted by ABB in its recent earnings and investment roundup at a customer conference in the US.

The World Bank notes six major challenges for the country, even as its essential forecast remains positive, one of the major issues being the switch to green power. For more information, visit their site here.

Protests against the Keystone pipeline have already swept Washington, DC repeatedly and now the protest action is headed roughly as far from the pipeline as you could get and still be in the Lower 48. A group called 350.org is highlighting a planned protest at a fundraiser hosted by President Obama in San Francisco on Wednesday April 3. Visit their website to find out more.

What are the major stories in the energy sector we aren’t reporting? Let us know in the comments.