Vermont will be the first state to outlaw a controversial oil and gas drilling method known as fracking when Governor Peter Shumlin signs a bill banning the practice, a largely symbolic move given the state's apparent lack of energy reserves.

Hydraulic fracturing has helped companies tap potentially decades of gas supply and huge amounts of oil from previously inaccessible shale formations dotted across the United States in recent years.

The Czech Environment Ministry is planning to put up to a two-year moratorium on granting licenses for shale gas exploration until new legislation is put in place, the ministry said.

During the moratorium, the ministry would look at preparing geological and mining legislation that is clear for potential exploration companies.

"Existing Czech legislation is not prepared for such technically complicated research like there is in the case of shale gas," the ministry said on its website.

The United States remained the primary backer of biotech crop technology in 2011, but adoption spread internationally as the total global planted area of genetically modified seeds grew 8 percent from a year ago, according to a report issued Tuesday.

Roughly 160 million hectares, or 395.2 million acres, were planted with biotech crops in 2011, up 8 percent from 2010, said the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) in its annual report on biotech seed use.

Slovakia's four nuclear reactors have passed so-called stress tests against potential severe accidents, earthquakes, floods and other extreme events, the country's nuclear regulator reported on Tuesday.

The analysis followed Japan's Fukushima disaster in March 2011 which spurred the European Union to mandate safety tests of the European Union's 143 reactors.

The Slovak regulator released its report a day after the neighboring Czech Republic announced that the nuclear power plants of utility CEZ at Temelin and Dukovany had passed the EU-mandated stress tests.

Due to increasing costs of production, a slowed demand for electricity, and fresh memories of disaster in Japan, production of nuclear power fell in 2011, according to the latest Vital Signs Online (VSO) report from the Worldwatch Institute. Despite reaching record levels the previous year, global installed nuclear capacity—the potential power generation from all existing plants—declined to 366.5 gigawatts (GW) in 2011, from 375.5 GW at the end of 2010.

The nuclear radiation detected in some parts of Europe that were earlier supposed to be coming from Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (Kanupp), might have emitted from Hungry, according to the information received by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority (HAEA).

Well-placed sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday that higher than the normal level of radiations were recorded in Poland, Czech Republic and Ukraine.

The Coal Minister Mr Sriprakash Jaiswal met visiting Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic Mr. Martin Kocourek here on Tuesday.

The issues discussed include the scope for technical cooperation in the development of coal mining in India, particularly underground mines, Government officials said.

The delegation from the Czech Republic was informed about the possibilities for establishing manufacturing facilities in India for underground mining machinery.

The Czech government approved a plan on Wednesday to allocate a part of carbon dioxide emission allowances for free to electricity producers in 2013-2020 and will raise energy taxes to make up for the lost revenue.

The plan marks a compromise among the finance, industry and environment ministries following a row over the free allocations.

It will give majority state-owned utility CEZ around 78 million free credits.

Environment Minister Tomas Chalupa, announcing the move, said the recipients of free permits must invest in environmental improvements.

India’s largest crocodile bank situated here is gearing up to welcome four more crocodile species to its collection. The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology (MCBT), located on the East Coast Road, will receive the new reptiles “by end of September or beginning October,” its Director, Colin James Stevenson, said. The four new species Cuban Crocodile, Black Caiman, Smooth Fronted Caiman and Broad Snouted Caiman will arrive from a zoo in the Czech Republic, he said.