Financial challenges facing nuclear energy need to be tackled by disrupting the status quo to help drive down costs, delegates heard at the recent World Nuclear Association 2018 Symposium in London. Excluding nuclear energy drives up the cost of electricity in future low-carbon scenario projections, Idaho National Laboratory’s David Petti, executive director of the recently released MIT …
Nuclear power generation provides about 11 percent of the world’s electricity from approximately 450 nuclear reactors. The United States is far and away the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30 percent of worldwide nuclear generation of electricity. The United States has 99 nuclear reactors, which produced 805 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in …
Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation Rosatom has held initial discussions with its Chinese partners on potential projects to jointly build nuclear power plants in third states, Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev said on Wednesday. The discussions have started. The talks are on the initial stage,” Likhachev said at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF). Earlier this year, Rosatom state …
Production cuts, halted projects and operations, as well as renewed interest from investors has helped drive uranium prices up by 30% in the past four months, but experts remain cautious about the long-term outlook for the commodity. Decade-low prices have had a negative effect on the profitability of existing mines and a devastating effect on the capacity …
Power was restored to a nuclear energy plant in Hokkaido, northern Japan on Thursday after a strong earthquake left it relying on emergency generators for 10 nervous hours, but it may be a week before lights are back on all over the major island. Triggering a blackout just after 3 a.m. local time, the magnitude …
A draft updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) approved by South Africa’s cabinet on 22 August sees the country’s nuclear capacity remaining at its current 1830 MWe over the period to 2030. Energy Minister Jeff Radebe yesterday released the plan for public comment. Under IRP 2018, coal would represent 46% of South Africa’s installed capacity mix, …
Spanish spot power prices are set to remain strong this week as nuclear outages in France continue to underpin power markets. Baseload power for Monday and Tuesday settled at EUR 66.56/MWh and EUR 67.67/MWh, respectively, compared to last week’s average of EUR 65.25/MWh. Spanish day-ahead prices could average EUR 65.71/MWh this week, according to Energy Quantified …
The availability of Sweden’s nuclear power plants could drop to 33% of installed capacity next week, due to outages at up to five of the country’s eight reactors, according to the latest data on Tuesday. Forsmark 2 (1,123 MW) and Oskarshamn 3 (1,445 MW) are offline for annual maintenance until 18 September, while Ringhals 4 …
Ecology minister’s sudden resignation puts spotlight on controversial power source. France produces almost three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear power. That didn’t sit well with Ecology Minister Nicolas Hulot, who abruptly quit his post after he “failed to convince” the government in questioning the use of atomic energy. President Emmanuel Macron, aiming to boost renewables as he prepares an energy-policy …
Russia’s state civil nuclear power corporation Rosatom has started to load nuclear fuel at the fourth power unit of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in China, Rosatom said in a statement on Saturday. “On August 25, 2018, at 7:20 p.m. (2:20 p.m. Moscow time), the first fuel assembly was loaded into the active zone of …
