UK demonstration of borehole sealing technology

29 November 2022

Existing boreholes at the Rosemanowes quarry in Cornwall, southwest England, have been successfully sealed by Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) in a demonstration of the technology it plans to use to seal boreholes drilled during the search to find a suitable location for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in the UK.

The demonstration of the borehole sealing technology at Rosemanowes (Image: NWS)

The UK search for a suitable site is a nationwide process based on community consent and includes detailed investigations over a number of years. Community Partnerships, which have formed in Mid Copeland, South Copeland, and Allerdale in Cumbria, and Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire, are engaging in a dialogue with local people to ensure they have access to information about what hosting a GDF might mean.

During the process of exploring if a site is suitable to host a GDF, deep boreholes will be drilled to investigate the geology of the location. NWS will then need to seal these boreholes as part of the site restoration programme to minimise impact on the environment.

NWS is conducting a project - costing more than GBP5 million (USD6 million) - to investigate and demonstrate to regulators its approach for deep borehole sealing.

The latest phase of this project was carried out at the Borehole Test Facility at the Rosemanowes quarry. NWS said the site, formerly a working quarry, now offers access to one of the most comprehensively mapped well systems in the world.

Two pre-existing boreholes in granite - one 2 kilometres deep and the other 300 metres deep - were successfully sealed using an innovative technology called a Downhole Placement System (DPS) tool.

Bentonite clay was used as sealant because of its low permeability and swelling properties, with cement being used for seal support. Commonly found world-wide and used in international waste management programmes, bentonite will also be packed around some GDF waste packages as part of the engineered barrier system that will isolate and contain disposed waste in the UK GDF.

The DPS tool is being tested in different locations with varying rock types and at varying borehole depths. The first successful test was in Sweden in 2018 in a 200-metre borehole, followed by a 300-metre borehole in clay in Harwell, Oxfordshire.

"The aim of this research project is to demonstrate the process we plan to use for sealing deep boreholes during future investigations into potential sites for a geological disposal facility," said Simon Norris, principal research manager at NWS and project technical lead. "We want to show that we have the necessary toolkit of approaches, procedures, and equipment to seal any boreholes we may construct in the GDF siting process, and this research was a step closer to achieving this goal."

A GDF comprises a network of highly-engineered underground vaults and tunnels built to permanently dispose of higher activity radioactive waste so that no harmful levels of radiation ever reach the surface environment. Countries such as Finland, Sweden, France, Canada and the USA are also pursuing this option.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Studsvik to develop UK metal treatment facility for Westinghouse

01 December 2022

Westinghouse Electric Company has signed a technology license agreement with Sweden's Studsvik to develop a contaminated metallic waste recycling and treatment facility at its Springfields site in Lancashire, UK.

The agreement was signed by Kirsty Armer, Vice President of Westinghouse Environmental Services UK (left), and Mikael Karlsson, Business Areas President, Waste Management Technology of Studsvik (Image: Westinghouse)

Westinghouse said innovative and carbon-neutral solutions are required to process the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated metals expected from nuclear decommissioning projects globally. "The ability to clean, melt and recycle metals is recognised as a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to disposal," it added.

The Springfields Melter for Advanced Recycling and Treatment (SMART) facility will feature a metal melter as the core technology, to clean, treat and recycle contaminated metals and large components. The agreement provides access to Studsvik's proven melting technology experience and know-how in the field of metallic treatment, significantly enhancing the design and operation of the new facility.

The goal of the SMART facility is to recycle around 90% of the processed metals for re-use in the open market.

Westinghouse said the SMART facility forms part of its development of a wider nuclear material management hub at its Springfields site and expands its global decommissioning and waste management market offerings.

"We look forward to supporting Westinghouse in delivering this new melting facility which will deliver significant benefits to the environment through the recycling of contaminated metals," Karlsson said. "The combined experience of Studsvik and Westinghouse in decommissioning and waste treatment will ensure that the Metal Treatment Facility in the UK will provide an efficient and economical option for contaminated waste treatment."

"Bringing together the Westinghouse capabilities and existing infrastructure at our Springfields site, with the metals treatment expertise of Studsvik, will create a sustainable solution for contaminated metals for our customers and bring long-term jobs and investment to the Lancashire region," Armer added.

Nyköping-based Studsvik's business focus areas are fuel and materials technology, reactor analysis software, decontamination and radiation protection as well as technical platforms for handling, conditioning and volume reduction of radioactive waste. The company offers a technology license transfer of its patented waste treatment technologies. This transfer allows the recipient to build, own and operate their own waste management treatment facility using Studsvik's proven technology.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Defects found in two key components of ITER's tokamak

22 November 2022

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project has announced defects have been discovered in the thermal shields and vacuum vessel sectors and warned that the consequences on schedule and cost "will not be insignificant".

The decision was taken to lift the module already installed in the machine pit and disassemble it in order to proceed with the repairs (Image: ITER)

The director general of ITER, Pietro Barabaschi, said: "If there is one good thing about this situation, it is that it is happening at a moment we can fix it. The know-how we are acquiring in dealing with ITER's first-of-a-kind components will serve others when they launch their own fusion ventures. It is in ITER's nature and mission, as a unique and ambitious research infrastructure, to go through a whole range of challenges and setbacks during construction. And it is therefore our task and duty to promptly inform the engaged scientific community so that they will take precautions when dealing with the same type of assemblies."

ITER is a major international project to build a tokamak fusion device in Cadarache, France, designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The goal of ITER is to operate at 500 MW (for at least 400 seconds continuously) with 50 MW of plasma heating power input. It appears that an additional 300 MWe of electricity input may be required in operation. No electricity will be generated at ITER.

Thirty-five nations are collaborating to build ITER - the European Union is contributing almost half of the cost of its construction, while the other six members (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are contributing equally to the rest. Construction began in 2010 and the original 2018 first plasma target date was put back to 2025 by the ITER council in 2016.

The vacuum vessel thermal shields are about 20 mm thick and contribute to insulating the superconducting magnet system operating at 4K, or minus 269°C. ITER said that in November 2021 helium tests detected a leak on an element of the vacuum vessel thermal shield that had been delivered in 2020. The cause was found to be stress caused by the bending and welding of the cooling fluid pipes to the thermal shield panels "compounded by a slow chemical reaction due to the presence of chlorine residues in some small areas near the pipe welds".

This had caused "stress corrosion cracking", ITER said, "and over time, cracks up to 2.2 mm deep had developed in the pipes".

A total of approximately 23 kilometres of piping are welded to the surface of the thermal shield panels. An example of the piping on a vacuum vessel thermal shield panel is clearly visible in this photo, which shows a vacuum vessel module in pre-assembly tooling (Image: ITER)

Investigative techniques (high-resolution CT scanning, scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer, and metallographic observation) revealed cracks in thermal shield cooling pipes such as the ones pictured here, 2.2 mm deep and crossing the full width of the pipe (Image: ITER)

Although this might have been a one-off problem, it could also have affected all thermal shield components, with Barabaschi saying they had to assume it was a wider problem, explaining: "The risk is too high and the consequences of a leaking thermal shield panel during operation are too dire."

He said that it would be too difficult to fix the issue on the assembled module in the pit so "we have to lift out the installed module and disassemble it in order to proceed with the repairs. We are exploring different possibilities, from on-site repair to re-manufacturing in an outside facility, possibly with different pipe attachment options."

The issue discovered with the vacuum vessel sector was that when the component's four individual segments were welded together the "deviations from nominal dimensions were more substantial than the specified limit in different locations on the component’s outer shell", explained ITER. "These dimensional non-conformities modified the geometry of the field joints where the sectors are to be welded together, thus compromising the access and operation of the bespoke automated welding tools."

There had been plans to fix the issue in the assembly pit, but Barabaschi said that "the thermal shield issue has now changed the perspective … as we need to disassemble the module to fix the thermal shield piping, the question of whether or not to repair the vacuum vessel sector in the pit becomes irrelevant. We have no other solution but to remove it".

Repair strategies are being refined at the moment with assessments of the impacts on timings and costs being drawn up and vacuum vessel assembly put on hold. ITER told World Nuclear News in July that it was already planning to revise its schedule, which most recently had been for first plasma in 2025 and the start of deuterium-tritium operation in 2035. That revision to timings was partly blamed on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Longtime director general of the project, Bernard Bigot, died in May and the revision was said not likely to be agreed until April 2023 - to allow time for the new director general to be appointed and decide on the timetable revision. 



The ITER council, which features respresentatives from the countries involved in the ITER project, met in a hybrid format on 16 and 17 November (picture, above, supplied by ITER) and urged for the necessary repair work to start as soon as possible. The council also urged "the ITER Organisation and Domestic Agencies to work together to ensure an appropriate project-wide quality culture to prevent any recurrence of such issues". ITER said that the council members also reaffirmed their strong belief in the value of the ITER mission, and resolved to work together to find timely solutions to facilitate ITER's success.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

KHNP, Candu Energy to cooperate in decommissioning

25 November 2022

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and SNC-Lavalin subsidiary Candu Energy will see the two companies cooperate in areas such as decommissioning waste and digital twins, and work together on a system to exchange technology, information and experience.

The MoU was signed at SNC-Lavalin's headquarters in Canada on 21 November (Image: KHNP)

KHNP said it is increasing its capacity to dismantle nuclear power plant: Korea's oldest reactor, Kori 1 - a 576 MWe pressurised water reactor - closed in June 2017 after 40 years of service, having had a ten-year licence extension, and Wolsong 1, the country's first Candu 6 unit, was taken offline in May 2018 and declared closed in December 2019.

KHNP is planning to carry out "immediate dismantling" of Wolsong 1 - rather than delayed decommissioning, when dismantling is not carried out until more than 60 years after the reactor has shut - and said this would be a world first for a commercial heavy water reactor.

In addition to securing nuclear power plant dismantling capabilities, the MoU will also serve as an opportunity to advance into the overseas decommissioning market, it said.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

NRC issues GEH renewed used fuel storage facility licence to 2042

02 December 2022

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued the licence to GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy America (GEH)  for the "possession, transfer and storage of radioactive material" at the Morris Operation Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) in Illinois.

(Image: Pixabay)

In an announcement published in the US Federal Register on 28 November, the NRC said the "licensee's application for a renewed licence complies with the standards and requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), and the NRC's rules and regulations".

The subsequent renewed licence will last to 31 May 2042. The application to renew the current licence was submitted in June 2020 and the NRC said that it had received "no request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene".

The NRC said that a safety evaluation report had concluded that the ISFSI would continue to meet the required regulations and "NRC staff also prepared an environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact for the subsequent renewal of this licence" and concluded that the renewal of the licence "will not have a significant impact on the quality of the human environment".

In its environmental impact assessment, published on 17 November, the NRC said: "Approval of the proposed action is not expected to result in changes to current ISFSI operations. Routine operation of the ISFSI is largely passive; activities include continuation of existing monitoring and maintenance activities for the wet storage basins, which are inside a building. The proposed action would not result in any changes in water use or in the types, characteristics, or quantities of radiological or nonradiological air effluents or wastes.

"GE Hitachi would continue to operate onsite sanitary wastewater lagoons in compliance with its state-issued permit and would manage the radioactive wastewater system and solid radioactive wastes generated from ISFSI operations in accordance with NRC regulations. No wastewater would be discharged from the property. As a result of these continued ISFSI activities, no significant radiological or non-radiological environmental impacts are expected."

It also considered the impact of not issuing the renewal licence and said that this option would mean GEH still having to maintain storage at the ISFSI until such time as it could be transferred to another ISFSI and then decommission Morris Operation ISFSI. The NRC determined "that shipment of the spent fuel to a commercial reprocessing facility, a Federal repository, or an interim storage facility is not a reasonable alternative to renewing the licence because these facilities are not available in the United States as of the date of the EA".

The Morris Operation, where used fuel from the Connecticut Yankee, Cooper, Dresden, Monticello and San Onofre plants is stored, is the only licensed away-from-reactor wet used fuel storage facility in the USA.

The Morris ISFSI was originally designed as a fuel reprocessing plant, but the 300 tonne per year plant was declared inoperable in 1974. According to the American Nuclear Society, the NRC issued the Morris facility its first 20-year licence as an ISFSI in 1982. This was renewed for a second 20-year term in 2000.

The NRC says "continued storage of the spent fuel and continued operation of the ISFSI is necessary because Congress has not yet established a permanent national repository, and no facility is yet available for monitored retrievable storage".

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Collaborators to develop SMR-based hydrogen production concept

01 December 2022

NuScale Power, Shell Global Solutions and research participants including Idaho National Laboratory, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), Fuel Cell Energy, FPoliSolutions, and GSE Solutions will develop a clean hydrogen production system for use in small modular reactor (SMR) power plants.

(Image: Pixabay)

A newly signed collaboration agreement provides for a two-phase project to develop and demonstrate a concept for an economically optimised integrated energy system (IES) for hydrogen production using electricity and process heat from a NuScale VOYGR SMR plant.

NuScale's SMR technology is based on the NuScale Power Module, a pressurised water reactor with all the components for steam generation and heat exchange incorporated into a single unit generating 77 MWe. Plants based on the module are known as VOYGR, and are scalable to meet customer needs. NuScale's 12-module offering, the VOYGR-12 power plant, is capable of generating 924 MWe.

The flexibility of the technology means NuScale SMRs could help balance and stabilise power grids dominated by renewable energies by producing hydrogen, the company said. Hydrogen could be used as an end-product at times when energy demand is high and renewable energy production is low, or as a stored energy source to be processed through a reversible solid oxide fuel cell (RSOFC) for electricity generation.

"Hydrogen has been identified as a pathway for global decarbonisation and NuScale's SMR technology complements this goal through low carbon hydrogen production," NuScale President and CEO John Hopkins said.

A NuScale control room simulator will be modified to evaluate the dynamics of the IES and will include models for the solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) system for hydrogen production, in addition to a RSOFC for electricity production. The research will consider the number of NuScale Power Modules needed for use in SOEC hydrogen production and the quantity of hydrogen stored for electricity production. In addition, local economic factors from the UAMPS Carbon Free Power Project - a plant based on six VOYGR modules, generating 462 MWe, which is to be built near Idaho Falls, Idaho - will be assessed.

"We are pleased to join this collaboration, which is in line with our efforts to explore technologies that have the potential to enable decarbonisation and support the energy transition," said Dirk Smit, Vice President of Research Strategy at Shell.

Anglo-Dutch company Shell, now headquartered in London, is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies. Its Renewables and Energy Solutions business focuses on finding commercial ways to meet energy needs from solutions including hydrogen, renewable and low-carbon sources such as wind, solar and natural gas and decarbonisation options including nature-based solutions and carbon capture and storage.

Last month, at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, NuScale announced it had joined the United Nations 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact, a global community of organisations collaborating to develop solutions that enable access to 24/7 carbon-free energy. "It cannot be emphasised enough - decarbonisation is a global movement that requires cross-collaboration," Hopkins said at the time.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

First Light teams up with CNL on tritium production

30 November 2022

The UK's First Light Fusion plans to build a 60 MW pilot power plant based on its unique projectile fusion technology to prove the integrated engineering for electricity generation and the production of tritium. It has partnered with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) to design a system for extracting tritium from the reactor.

How a First Light Fusion plant could look (Image: First Light Fusion)

Oxford, England-based First Light Fusion said the proposed pilot plant is expected to cost about USD570 million to develop and will produce about 2 kilograms of excess tritium per year. It said the plant has been designed to minimise the barriers to a first-of-a-kind commercial power plant, while reducing overall costs and engineering risk, and accelerate the development of a secure supply of tritium, by enabling a revenue-generating pilot plant with less stringent engineering requirements.

One of the key features of deuterium-tritium fueled fusion power plant designs is the ability to purposely produce tritium in the reactor, which is then used as reactor fuel.

First Light's inertial confinement approach aims to create the extreme temperatures and pressures required for fusion by compressing a target using a hypervelocity projectile. Its plant design avoids the three biggest engineering challenges of fusion: preventing neutron damage, producing tritium, and managing extreme heat flux.

The company said its 'liquid lithium wall' approach, inside the reactor chamber where the fusion reaction will take place, gives it an inherent advantage in tritium production. The fusion reaction is surrounded by liquid lithium, allowing tritium self-sufficiency to be easily reached, and making it possible to design for excess tritium production.

First Light has entered into a collaboration agreement with CNL for the preliminary design of a system capable of extracting tritium from the First Light reactor, as well as the development of tritium processing and storage options. Under the agreement, CNL will choose two major tritium extraction candidate techniques on which system size and tritium inventory calculations, and assessments of safety and technological risks, will be performed.

CNL said the tritium extraction system represents an essential part of tritium control in a fusion fuel cycle, and is a key factor in harvesting the tritium and limiting tritium permeation into the coolant. "This is of fundamental significance for reactor licensing and safety, and demonstrates the fusion reactor self-sufficiency in terms of tritium production and consumption," it said. CNL will also prepare recommendations for future laboratory work that could lead to the production of testing equipment used to validate the systems in a laboratory environment.

"A First Light commercial power plant, based on our unique projectile approach, will avoid some of the biggest engineering barriers to that of other fusion approaches, including the production of tritium," said Nick Hawker, Co-founder and CEO of First Light Fusion. "Our design will allow tritium self-sufficiency, and CNL will support us with the initial design of a system capable of extracting tritium."

"CNL has a long and extensive history in the development of technologies and systems to safely manage tritium, given their presence in CANDU reactors here in Canada," said Ian Castillo, Head of CNL's Hydrogen & Tritium Technologies Directorate. "With the growing momentum and interest in fusion as a source of carbon-free electricity, we are increasingly leveraging these capabilities to help advance fusion reactor designs and technologies towards deployment."

In addition to working with CNL, First Light Fusion is also working with Spanish engineering giant IDOM on the design of its fusion reactor chamber. This chamber will include the unique liquid lithium wall, which will absorb the neutrons caused by the reaction caused by the impact of the projectile into the target, or fuel.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Centrus Energy, DOE finalise HALEU contract

02 December 2022

The first phase of the USD150 million contract will see demonstration production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) at Piketon by the end of 2023. Centrus says it could scale up the facility to commercial production capacity, given sufficient funding.

An AC100M centrifuge, in a black protective covering, positioned in an assembly stand (Image: Centrus)

The contract signed by Centrus subsidiary American Centrifuge Operating LLC (ACO) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) follows DOE's announcement in November that it had selected ACO for the competitively awarded, cost-shared contract which runs in two phases to 2024. The first phase - a USD30 million cost share contribution from Centrus matched by USD30 million from the DOE will cover the completion of construction of the demonstration cascade of AC100M advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges at the Ohio site, bringing it online and producing some 20 kilograms of 19.75% enriched HALEU by 31 December 2023. ACO will then continue production for a full year at an annual production rate of 900 kilograms of HALEU under the second phase of the contract.

Sustainable, commercial domestic production of HALEU - enriched to between 5% and 20% uranium-235 - will be needed to fuel most of the next-generation reactor advanced reactor designs. The DOE has projected a national need for more than 40 tonnes of HALEU before the end of the decade to support the current administration's goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035.

"Centrus is strongly committed to pioneering production of HALEU to support the deployment of the next generation of reactors and help meet the surging global demand for carbon-free energy," President and CEO Daniel Poneman said. "Bringing the demonstration cascade online and starting HALEU production represents a critical step toward restoring a domestic enrichment capability for the nation."

The contract also gives the DOE options to pay for up to nine additional years of production from the cascade beyond the base contract.

Centrus said further centrifuge cascades could be added to expand capacity at the facility, given "sufficient additional funding or offtake contracts". A full-scale HALEU cascade with a capacity of about 6,000 kilograms per year could be brought on line within about 42 months of securing funding, and additional cascades could be added every six months after that, the company said. Such expansion could support hundreds of jobs in the construction and operation of the plant as well as "thousands" of direct and indirect jobs across a "100% domestic" manufacturing supply chain, it added.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Refurbished OPG reactor cleared to begin fuel loading

02 December 2022

Canada's nuclear regulator has given Ontario Power Generation (OPG) the go-ahead to load fuel into Darlington unit 3 after removing the first regulatory hold-point for the refurbished reactor.

Darlington (Image: CNSC)

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) Executive Vice-President and Chief Regulatory Operations Officer Ramzi Jammal notified OPG by letter that the OPG has met the conditions for the removal of the hold-point "and fuel may now be loaded into the Unit 3 core".

OPG is refurbishing all four Candu units at Darlington in a 10-year, CAD12.8 billion (currently about USD9.5 billion) project that will enable the reactors to operate for the next 30 years. Darlington 3 is the second unit at the site to undergo refurbishment: Darlington 2 has already been refurbished and returned to service in June 2020.

Refurbishment of a Candu reactor involves removing all the reactor's fuel and heavy water and isolating it from the rest of the power station before it is dismantled. Thousands of components, including those that are not accessible when the reactor is assembled, are inspected, and all 480 fuel channels and 960 feeder tubes are replaced during the high-precision rebuild. Reassembly of the Darlington 3's reactor core was completed in July.

Hold points are mandatory checkpoints where CNSC approval is required before the licensee - OPG - is allowed to move on to the next stage of the process to return the unit to operation. Each step ensures verification that all required testing had been properly done and that systems function as planned in safe condition. Three additional regulatory hold points must be removed before the unit can reach criticality and return to service.

The refurbishment of Darlington 3 began in September 2020, and is currently slated for completion in the first quarter of 2024. Refurbishment of unit 1 began in February this year, with completion expected in the second quarter of 2025. Preparations are under way for work on Darlington 4 to begin in the third quarter of 2023.

OPG has also applied to the CNSC for a licence to construct Canada's first grid-scale small modular reactor at Darlington, which is the only site in Canada currently licensed for new nuclear build. The company has selected GE Hitachi's BWRX-300 design and has previously said it expects to make a construction decision by the end of 2024 with a preliminary target of 2028 for plant operations.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Viewpoint: Bilbao y León reflects on nuclear's presence at COP27 

29 November 2022

Sharm El-Sheikh marked the first time the global nuclear community had a large pavilion in the Blue Zone, at the heart of COP27, writes World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León. The pavilion, a partnership between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), World Nuclear Association and other nuclear organisations, was a focal point where people could visit and enquire about nuclear energy and the nuclear industry.

Sama Bilbao y León at COP27 (Image: World Nuclear Association)

But most of all, the pavilion allowed us to host a robust programme of panel discussions, speeches, film screenings, presentations and interviews where we presented the reasons why nuclear energy is - and needs to continue to be - an essential piece of the climate change solution.

From the point of view of the political negotiations, the main development at COP27 was the agreement to set up a Loss and Damage fund, that would provide finance to poorer countries affected by the negative impacts of climate change. On the other hand, it was acknowledged that very little progress was made on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Without such progress the impacts of climate change will only get worse. Governments need to take action with pragmatic, implementable action plans to go from where we are right now to where we need to be.

There was one promising development. Where earlier drafts of the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan referred only to deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions through "increase(d) renewable energy" the final text referred more broadly to "low-emission and renewable energy". This clearly includes nuclear energy. However, the continued omission of text referring to the need for more nuclear energy in the COP agreements remains a failing driven by ill-conceived political obstruction.

On our side, we at World Nuclear Association will continue working together with our members, with the global nuclear industry, to put in place the frameworks that are needed to make the most of the existing nuclear fleet, and to accelerate the deployment of new nuclear globally.

This includes working together with governments, with regulators and other international organisations. This also means supporting the nuclear industry as it jointly develops a secure global supply chain that is truly global and able to help us deliver nuclear energy at the speed and scale needed.

And this also includes working together with policymakers, to help them put in place bold, actionable, pragmatic, technology-neutral policies that are going to recognise the essential role of nuclear energy, and are going to incentivise long-term planning and investment.

This also includes working together with the finance community, because it is essential that nuclear power is recognised as an investable, sustainable asset.

At the pavilion we spoke with global leaders, with policymakers, with activists and with the finance community, as well as with members of civil society who just came to learn more about nuclear energy. As this was very successful, we still can do much more to make sure that nuclear energy is part of the mainstream climate change discussion.

World Nuclear Association, in cooperation with the Canadian Nuclear Association, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF), Nucleareurope and the Nuclear Energy Institute, curated a programme of ten events covering issues such as finance, innovation in nuclear, decarbonisation beyond electricity, and the experiences of women working in clean energy. I was particularly pleased to host our final event where I interviewed a very diverse range of energy experts from the Clean Air Taskforce, the World Energy Council, the International Hydro Association, Women in Renewable Energy, influencers as filmmaker Tyson Culver as well as nuclear colleagues from Urenco, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, Rolls-Royce, Pillsbury and JAIF.

I was also pleased to participate in two official United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change side events, one of which brought together three UN organisations - IAEA, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation - to recognise the essential role of nuclear energy in addressing decarbonisation and sustainable development. In the second, leaders of the nuclear trade associations spoke after an opening interview with US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

I also had the opportunity to contribute to an event organised by the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plant Authority highlighting the El Dabaa nuclear power plant as an indispensable element of the clean energy and economic development future of Egypt.

While we invited a broad range of people to take part in our events, at future COPs we need to do more to take our messages to other pavilions and venues to make sure we are not just speaking to ourselves, and are getting our message to a broader audience.

We must do this because I truly think that nuclear energy offers a golden opportunity to decarbonise not just electricity, but the entire economy, and do it in a way that is cost-effective and equitable. With nuclear energy, we can provide abundant, affordable, clean, 24/7 energy to everyone, everywhere.