Thomas Nilsen

Cross-border pollution blows bad as Nornickel smiles for growing EV demand

Festivity in the mining town of Zapolyarny as Nornickel-sponsored fast charger for electric vehicles opened on Thursday. At the same time, sulphur dioxide concentrations spiked to 250 micrograms per cubic meter on the Norwegian side of the border.
August 29, 2019

Russia to launch nuclear-powered fish shipping around Scandinavia

The 30-years old container carrier “Sevmorput” is now being loaded with 200 refrigerated containers with fish at port in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy and will soon set sail for the Northern Sea Route and further south to St. Petersburg.
August 26, 2019

Northernmost Norway struggles with population decline

Shrinking population also in cities like Tromsø, Harstad and Mo i Rana during first half of 2019.
August 26, 2019

Isotopes composition proves a reactor was involved in Nenoksa accident, expert says

Analyses of the radionuclides in the fallout over Severodvinsk show several isotopes that would not have been present if was a simple RTG in the explosion.
August 26, 2019

Russia with double ballistic missiles test from submarines

One missile was launched from the Barents Sea while the other came from the Arctic Ocean.
August 24, 2019

Floating nuclear power plant leaves Murmansk for Russia’s eastern Arctic

Tugs start towing floating nuclear power plant across the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to Chukotka in what is just the new beginning of a massive investment in new reactors for civilian and military purposes in the Russian Arctic.
August 23, 2019

Low ice class reason to ban Hurtigruten from Franz Josef Land, says Murmansk Minister

Meanwhile, a competing cruise liner founded by a Russian business man sails the same waters with a vessel holding lower ice class.
August 22, 2019

Norwegian Coast Guard vessel reaches North Pole

Both Canadian and US Coast Guard have sailed to the top of the world before, but «KV Svalbard» became the first Norwegian ship to reach the North Pole.
August 21, 2019

Norilsk tops world's list of worst SO2 polluters

1,9 million tons of sulfur dioxide from the chimneys in Norilsk were blowing over the Arctic tundra on the Taymyr Peninsula in 2018, according to an estimate in a NASA satellite study.
August 21, 2019

Last Cold War reactor lifted onshore

The Barents Sea is safer as the era of storing radioactive reactor compartments on water comes to an end.
August 19, 2019

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Thomas Nilsen is editor of the Independent Barents Observer with its news desk located in Kirkenes, northern Norway. He has a long experience in media cooperation across the borders in the high north of Europe, both as radio- and newspaper reporter all the way back to the days before the breakup of the Soviet Union. 

Nilsen has been editor of Barents Observer since 2009.

He was Deputy Head of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat from 2004-2009. Until 2003, he worked 12 years for the Bellona Foundation’s Russian study group, focusing on nuclear safety issues and general environmental challenges in northern areas and the Arctic. 

Thomas has been traveling extensively across northern Scandinavia and Arctic Russia since the late 80’s working for different media and organizations. He is also a guide at sea and in remote locations in the Russian north for various groups and regularly lectures on security issues, environmental and socio-economic development.

Thomas Nilsen studied at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Mobile: +47-90573143

thomas@thebarentsobserver.com
@nilsen.thomas