World Nuclear Association Blog

A blog from Normandy  from the BBC's Mark Mardell, on the construction of the Flamanville 3 EPR. While protesters do get some attention, Mr Mardell concludes that "most French don't seem disturbed by their reliance on nuclear energy, particularly at a time when the intellectual fashion is swinging back that way".

There's an interesting article on research at the Desalination Division of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, published in the International Journal of Nuclear Desalination. Meenakshi Jain of Positive Climate Care says that "Nuclear energy seawater desalination has a tremendous potential for the production of freshwater."

Nuclear desalination is taking an increasing role in meeting  the world's growing demand for fresh, clean water. A plant in Yuhuan County in Zhejiang province in China can produce 374,400 gallons of water every hour.

At the recent G8 meeting in Japan the International Energy Agency presented their latest Energy Technology Perspectives, that made a clear and convincing case for a significant contribution from nuclear energy to meeting the global need for more electricity and less greenhouse gas emissions. The various communications issued by the G8 and other countries represented at the meeting largely endorsed this support for nuclear energy, the UK Minister declaring that "we are on the verge of a new nuclear age."

However, the official communication statements  were couched in the usual politic-speak on nuclear, where the support for nuclear was qualified as being only from those countries that supported the use of nuclear energy. Indeed, the statement from the G8 made no reference to nuclear energy at all.

Such qualified support is typical of G8 statements, where a minority opposition to nuclear energy has to be dealt with. Press speculation unsurprisingly pointed to Germany as the source of the opposition to outright support for nuclear energy. To be fair, the G8 statements have improved somewhat, at least now they recognise the value of nuclear energy, where in the past they have often chosen to ignore it altogether.

However, only a few days after the meeting the German chancellor Angela Merkel signalled her Christian Democratic Union party would oppose the nuclear phase-out policy of the previous government, pointing to how nuclear energy helps contribute to affordable energy prices.

So it appears that the G8 meeting texts pandered to a nuclear phase-out policy that isn't even supported by the leader of that country.

A trio of high-level politicians made supportive statements for nuclear energy last week. European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs outlined the facts about nuclear energy in his blog post 'Discussing nuclear without taboos'. 

In the Netherlands, Stockhouse.com reported that economics minister Maria van der Hoeven not envisage a nuclear-free future if the government was to meet its CO₂ targets. Meanwhile, the Hugarian environmental minister Imre Szabo, expressed support for expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant.

The WNA Nuclear Energy Index, designed to serve as a fair, impartial and transparent measure of the performance of the global nuclear energy industry, has received positive reviews from two publications. Check out the Washington Post and Seeking Alpha articles. the latter saying "The WNA Nuclear Energy Index is a clear winner over the S&P 500."

UK industry is ready for a new nuclear build programme, according to a new report released by the Nuclear Industry Association today. Although there have been concerns that the gap between the UK's previous nuclear plant programme and the expected new nuclear build programme of the next decade might mean there were insufficiently skilled workers based in the UK to make a meaningful contribution to such a programme.

However, in a statement released today the NIA says that UK industry could provide 70-80% of a sustained new build programme, that would draw on less than 5% of the current UK construction capability. That 5% would still represent valuable jobs for UK construction workers.