Tuesday, May 07, 2024

 

Breakthrough paves the way for next generation of vision implants



CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
Professor Maria Asplund 

IMAGE: 

MARIA ASPLUND, WHO LED THE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT PART OF THE PROJECT AND IS PROFESSOR OF BIOELECTRONICS AT CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN SWEDEN.

view more 

CREDIT: CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY | GABOR RICHTER





A group of researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, University of Freiburg and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience have created an exceptionally small implant, with electrodes the size of a single neuron that can also remain intact in the body over time – a unique combination that holds promise for future vision implants for the blind.

 

Often when a person is blind, some or part of the eye is damaged, but the visual cortex in the brain is still functioning and waiting for input. When considering brain stimulation for sight restoration, there needs to be thousands of electrodes going into an implant to build up enough information for an image. By sending electrical impulses via an implant to the visual cortex of the brain, an image can be created, and each electrode would represent one pixel.

 

“This image would not be the world as someone with full vision would be able to see it. The image created by electrical impulses would be like the matrix board on a highway, a dark space and some spots that would light up depending on the information you are given. The more electrodes that ‘feed’ into it, the better the image would be,” says Maria Asplund, who led the technology development part of the project and is Professor of Bioelectronics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

 

The vision implant created in this study can be described as a ‘thread’ with many electrodes placed in a row, one after the other. In the long term you would need several threads with thousands of electrodes connected to each one, and the results of this study are a key step towards such an implant.

 

The future of vision implants

An electrical implant to improve vision in people with blindness is not a new concept. However, the implant technology currently being explored in human patients is from the 1990s and there are several factors that need to be improved, for example the bulky size, scarring in the brain due to their large size, materials corroding over time and materials being too rigid.

 

By creating a really small electrode the size of a single neuron, researchers have the potential to fit lots of electrodes onto a single implant and build up a more detailed image for the user. The unique mix of flexible, non-corrosive materials make this a long-term solution for vision implants.

 

“Miniaturisation of vision implant components is essential. Especially the electrodes, as they need to be small enough to be able to resolve stimulation to large numbers of spots in the ‘brain visual areas’. The main research question for the team was, ‘can we fit that many electrodes on an implant with the materials we have and make it small enough and also effective?’ and the answer from this study was – yes,” says Professor Asplund.

 

The smaller the size, the worse the corrosion

To create an electrical implant on such a small scale comes with its challenges, especially in a tough environment, such as the human body. The major obstacle is not to make the electrodes small, but to make such small electrodes last a long time in a moist, humid environment.  Corrosion of metals in surgical implants is a huge problem, and because the metal is the functional part, as well as the corroding part, the amount of metal is key. The electrical implant that Asplund and her team have created measures in at a miniscule 40 micrometers wide and 10 micrometers thick, like a split hair, with the metal parts being only a few hundred nanometers in thickness And since there is so little metal in the super tiny vision electrode, it cannot ‘afford’ to corrode at all, otherwise it would stop working.

In the past, this problem has not been possible to solve. But now, the research team have created a unique mix of materials layered up together that do not corrode. This includes a conducting polymer to transduce the electrical stimulation required for the implant to work, to electrical responses in the neurons. The polymer forms a protective layer on the metal and makes the electrode much more resilient to corrosion, essentially a protective layer of plastic covering the metal.

 

“The conducting polymer metal combination we have implemented is revolutionary for vision implants as it would mean they hopefully could remain functional for the entire implant life-time. We now know it is possible to make electrodes as small as a neuron (nerve cell) and keep this electrode effectively working in the brain over very long timespans, which is promising since this has been missing until now. The next step will be to create an implant that can have connections for 1000s of electrodes,” says Asplund, something that is currently explored within a larger team in the ongoing EU project Neuraviper.

 

More about: the study method

The method was implemented by the research collaborators at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, where mice were trained to respond to an electrical impulse to the visual cortex of the brain. The study showed that not only could the mice learn to react to the stimulation applied via the electrodes in just a few sessions, but the minimal current threshold for which mice reported a perception was lower than standard metal-based implants. The research team further reported that the functionality of the implant stayed stable over time, for one mouse even until the end of its natural lifespan.

 

More about the research:

The research has been published in the article: "Flexible Polymer Electrodes for Stable Prosthetic Visual Perception in Mice" published in Advanced Healthcare Materials. It is written by Corinne Orlemann, Christian Boehler, Roxana N. Kooijmans, Bingshuo Li, Maria Asplund and Pieter R. Roelfsema. The authors are active at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, University of Freiburg and Chalmers University of Technology.

 

For more information, please contact: 

Maria Asplund, Professor, Electronics Material and Systems, Microtechnology and Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden maria.asplund@chalmers.se  +46 31 772 41 14

 

Pieter R. Roelfsema, Department of Vision and Cognition, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands p.roelfsema@nin.knaw.nl

 

The Chalmers contact person speaks English and Swedish, and is available for live and pre-recorded interviews. At Chalmers, we have podcast studios and broadcast filming equipment on site and would be able to assist a request for a television, radio or podcast interview.

 

Collage CAPTION: The exceptionally small vision implant created in this study uses electrical impulses to stimulate the visual cortex of the brain, where information is converted into visual impressions, like pixels on a highway matrix board.  Lower left corner: figure from the study - electrodes the size of a neuron are placed on implant “threads” as small as half a strand of hair. The implant is made of a non-corrosive material paving the way for a permanent – and more efficient - solution for the blind. 

 

Collage CREDIT: top left eye: Unsplash, lower left: Chalmers University of Technology\ Maria Asplund, right illustration: iStock

 

 

NOTE TO THE EDITOR - IMAGES:

The Chalmers Press portal can be accessed here and you can search for any images or videos. 

We kindly request credit to be given in the following format where possible:

Image/Graphic/Illustration: Chalmers University of Technology | Name Surname

Images provided in Chalmers University of Technology press releases are, unless specified otherwise, free for download and publication as long as credit is given to the University and the individual creator. Cropping and rescaling of the images is permitted when required for adaptation to the publication’s format, but modifications that would influence the message and content of the original are not. The material is primarily intended for journalistic and informative use, to assist in communication and coverage of Chalmers’ research and education. Commercial usage, for example the marketing of goods and services, is not permitted.

Participants of pioneering CRISPR gene editing trial see vision improve


OHSU scientist: Results show CRISPR can treat inherited retinal disease, support further research



OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY





About 79% of clinical trial participants experienced measurable improvement after receiving experimental, CRISPR-based gene editing that is designed to fix a rare form of blindness, according to a paper published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

 

Mark Pennesi, M.D., Ph.D. (OHSU)

“This trial shows CRISPR gene editing has exciting potential to treat inherited retinal degeneration,” said Mark Pennesi, M.D., Ph.D., a corresponding author on the paper, an ophthalmologist and Oregon Health & Science University’s lead scientist for the Phase 1/2 BRILLIANCE trial. “There is nothing more rewarding to a physician than hearing a patient describe how their vision has improved after a treatment. One of our trial participants has shared several examples, including being able to find their phone after misplacing it and knowing that their coffee machine is working by seeing its small lights.

“While these types of tasks might seem trivial to those who are normally sighted, such improvements can have a huge impact on quality of life for those with low vision.”

The BRILLIANCE trial evaluated the safety and effectiveness of EDIT-101, an experimental gene editing treatment developed by Editas Medicine that uses CRISPR technology. The experimental treatment was designed to edit a mutation in the CEP290 gene, which provides instructions to create a protein that is critical for sight.

People with this gene mutation have a rare condition that is commonly called Leber Congenital Amaurosis, or LCA, Type 10, for which there is currently no Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment. LCA’s various types occur in about 2 or 3 out of 100,000 newborns.

Learn more about how OHSU is a leader in eye health care and research.

The OHSU Casey Eye Institute treated the trial’s first participant in early 2020. That procedure also marked the first time that CRISPR had been used to edit genes within the human body, called in vivo gene editing.

The new paper describes the study’s findings through February 2023 and details how the trial’s 14 participants — 12 adults and two children — responded to receiving EDIT-101 in one eye. Key results include:

  • 11 participants, about 79%, showed improvement in at least one of four measured outcomes.
  • 6 participants, about 43%, showed improvement in two or more outcomes.
  • 6 participants, about 43%, reported improved vision-related quality of life.
  • 4 participants, about 29%, had clinically meaningful improvement in visual acuity, or how well they could identify objects or letters on a chart.
  • There were no serious adverse events related to the treatment.
  • Most adverse events were mild or moderate, and all have since been resolved.

Four specific outcomes were used to evaluate the experimental treatment’s effectiveness:

  • Visual acuity
  • How well participants saw colored points of light while looking into a specialized device, which scientists call a full-field test
  • How well participants navigated a research maze with physical objects and varying amounts of light
  • How much participants reported experiencing improved quality of life

Further research for a future treatment

In November 2022, trial sponsor Editas Medicine announced that it was pausing the trial’s enrollment and would seek another partner to continue the experimental therapy’s development. Pennesi and colleagues are exploring working with other commercial partners to conduct additional trials, in collaboration with Editas. The researchers hope future studies can examine ideal dosing, whether a treatment effect is more pronounced in certain age groups such as younger patients, and include refined endpoints to measure impacts on activities of daily living.

“This research demonstrates that CRISPR gene therapy for inherited vision loss is worth continued pursuit in research and clinical trials,” said Mass Eye & Ear ophthalmologist Eric Pierce, M.D., Ph.D., who is also a corresponding author. “While more research is needed to determine who may benefit most, we consider the early results promising. To hear from several participants how thrilled they were that they could finally see the food on their plates — that is a big deal. These were individuals who could not read any lines on an eye chart and who had no treatment options, which is the unfortunate reality for most people with inherited retinal disorders.”

“Our patients are the first congenitally blind children to be treated with gene editing, which significantly improved their daytime vision,” said the paper’s third corresponding author, Tomas S. Aleman, M.D., a pediatric ophthalmologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania’s Scheie Eye Institute. “Our hope is that the study will pave the road for treatments of younger children with similar conditions and further improvements in vision. This trial represents a landmark in the treatment of genetic disease, in specific genetic blindness, by offering important alternative treatment when traditional forms of therapy, such as gene augmentation, are not an option.”

“The results from the BRILLIANCE trial provide proof of concept and important learnings for the development of new and innovative medicines for inherited retinal diseases. We’ve demonstrated that we can safely deliver a CRISPR-based gene editing therapeutic to the retina and have clinically meaningful outcomes,” said Editas Medicine Chief Medical Officer Baisong Mei, M.D., Ph.D.

The OHSU Casey Eye Institute is one of five clinical sites that recruited participants for the trial. The other sites are: Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida; Mass Eye and Ear in Boston, Massachusetts; Scheie Eye Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; and Kellogg Eye Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

More information is also available from Mass Eye and Ear and Penn Medicine.

REFERENCE: Eric A. Pierce, Tomas S. Aleman, Kanishka T. Jayasundera, Bright S. Ashimatey, Keunpyo Kim, Alia Rashid, Michael Jaskolka, Rene L. Myers, Bryon L. Lam, Steven T. Bailey, Jason I. Commander, Andreas K. Lauer, Albert M. Maguire, Mark E. Pennesi, Gene-editing for CEP290-associated Retinal Degeneration, New England Journal of Medicine, May 6, 2023, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2309915, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309915.

This research was supported by Editas Medicine, the National Institutes of Health’s National Eye Institute (grants P30 EY014104 and P30 EY010572), Malcolm M. Marquis MD Endowed Fund for Innovation, Research to Prevent Blindness (unrestricted grants to OHSU Casey Eye Institute and University of Pennsylvania’s Scheie Eye Institute), the Irene Heinz Given and John LaPorte Given Endowment, and Hope for Vision.

This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

In the interest of ensuring the integrity of our research and as part of our commitment to public transparency, OHSU actively regulates, tracks and manages relationships that our researchers may hold with entities outside of OHSU. In regards to this research, Dr. Mark Pennesi has received payments for consulting from Editas Medicine. Review details of OHSU's conflict of interest program to find out more about how we manage these business relationships.

RACHEL CARSON WAS RIGHT

DDT pollutants found in deep sea fish off Los Angeles coast


As the region reckons with its toxic history of offshore dumping, the new findings raise troubling questions about whether the banned pesticide remains a threat to wildlife and human health


UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

Barrel on the Seafloof 

IMAGE: 

RESEARCHERS ABOUT RESEARCH VESSEL FALKOR USED REMOTELY OPERATED VEHICLE SUBASTIAN TO COLLECT SEDIMENT PUSH CORES OFF THE COAST OF LOS ANGELES DURING THE BIODIVERSE BORDERLANDS EXPEDITION IN JULY 2021. CREDIT: SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE 

view more 

CREDIT: SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE





In the 1940s and 1950s, the ocean off the coast of Los Angeles was a dumping ground for the nation’s largest manufacturer of the pesticide DDT – a chemical now known to harm humans and wildlife. Due to the stubborn chemistry of DDT and its toxic breakdown products, this pollution continues to plague L.A.’s coastal waters more than half a century later. While legal at the time, details of this industrial-scale pollution of the marine environment at a dump site some 15 miles offshore near Catalina Island have deeply concerned scientists and the public since they gained wider recognition in 2020

Now, new research from scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and San Diego State University (SDSU) finds deep-sea fish and sediments collected from near the Catalina Island offshore dump site are contaminated with numerous DDT-related chemicals.

The study, published May 6 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, suggests that the DDT-related chemicals dumped into the ocean decades ago may still be making their way into marine food webs. 

Since the rediscovery of the offshore dump site near Catalina Island, scientists have been working to discern the extent and severity of the problem today. Of particular urgency are the questions of whether the decades-old chemicals, now settled on the seafloor thousands of feet underwater, are staying put or whether they are circulating in marine ecosystems where the compounds could be harming wildlife or even posing health risks to humans.

“These are deep-sea organisms that don’t spend much time at the surface and they are contaminated with these DDT-related chemicals,” said Lihini Aluwihare, a professor of ocean chemistry at Scripps and co-author of the study. “Establishing the current distribution of DDT contamination in deep-sea food webs lays the groundwork for thinking about whether those contaminants are also moving up through deep-ocean food webs into species that might be consumed by people.”

From 1948 until at least 1961, barges contracted by DDT-producer Montrose Chemical Corporation would motor from the Port of Los Angeles out toward Catalina and pump manufacturing waste laden with sulfuric acid and up to 2% pure DDT directly into the Pacific Ocean. Legal until 1972, this offshore dumping largely escaped public scrutiny because it was overshadowed by Montrose’s other waste disposal practice: Pumping a more dilute acidic slurry that also contained DDT through L.A. County sewers and into the ocean off Palos Verdes. An estimated 100 tons of DDT ended up in the sediments of the Palos Verdes Shelf, and the Environmental Protection Agency declared it an underwater Superfund Site in 1996. In 2000, a judge ordered the company to pay $140 million to remedy the environmental damages.  Research has since linked the DDT pollution on the Palos Verdes Shelf to contamination and health problems in local wildlife including sea lions, dolphins, bottom-feeding fish, and even coastal California condors (likely from consuming dead marine mammals). 

In 2011, UC Santa Barbara researcher David Valentine used an undersea robot to rediscover Montrose’s offshore dumping near Catalina at a place now known as Dumpsite 2. The findings leapt into the public consciousness in 2020 when the Los Angeles Times published the first in a series of exposés unspooling the region’s toxic legacy of offshore dumping.

Valentine and Scripps researchers have helped map the extent of the dumping. To date, they’ve found DDT-related chemicals across an area of the seafloor larger than the city of San Francisco. What’s still unknown is if that pollution is staying put or if it is moving through the undersea environment in ways that pose dangers to marine life or humans.

Beginning in 2021, Aluwihare, study co-author Eunha Hoh of SDSU, and other collaborators began a series of research efforts to work on two key questions: Are the DDT-related chemicals lurking on the seafloor near Dumpsite 2 being stirred up and ingested by marine life in the deep? And could they identify a kind of chemical fingerprint unique to the contamination from Dumpsite 2 and other offshore dump sites that could be used to distinguish them from pollutants emanating from the Palos Verdes Shelf?   

The team opportunistically collected sediment samples and deep-sea animals from the water column in the San Pedro Basin near Dumpsite 2 to test for a wide range DDT-related compounds. The research cruises to collect these samples were funded by the National Science Foundation and the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Typically, testing for DDT looks for four to eight chemicals, but a 2016 paper co-authored by Hoh and Aluwihare identified 45 DDT-related chemicals in the blubber of dolphins from off the coast of Southern California. The results demonstrated that wildlife was being exposed to a much larger suite of DDT compounds in the real world. In the present study, the team tested for this larger suite of DDT-related chemicals, known as DDT+, in hopes that it could help develop a chemical fingerprint for Dumpsite 2 and the other offshore dump sites used by Montrose. Also, testing for DDT+ will provide a more holistic picture of the degree of contamination in sediment and animals that might otherwise go undetected.

When the researchers analyzed the sediments for the presence of DDT+ they found no fewer than 15 chemicals, 14 of which had been previously detected in birds and marine mammals in Southern California. 

The researchers collected 215 fish spanning three common species near Dumpsite 2. Chemical analysis revealed that the fish contained 10 DDT-related compounds, all of which were also present in the sediment samples. 

Two of the fish species were collected between 546 meters (1,791 feet) and 784 meters (2,572 feet) – Cyclothone acclinidens and Melanostigma pammelas – and the third, Leuroglossus stilbius, was collected between 546 meters (1,791 feet) and the surface. The species collected at shallower depths contained a lower concentration of contaminants and were missing a pair of DDT-related compounds that were present in the deepest fishes.

“None of these fish species are known to feed in the sediment of the seafloor,” said Anela Choy, biological oceanographer at Scripps and co-author of the study. “There must be another mechanism that is exposing them to these contaminants. One possibility is that there are physical or biological processes resuspending sediments around Dumpsite 2 and allowing these contaminants to enter deeper water food webs.”

The findings can’t yet rule out the Palos Verdes Superfund Site as a potential source of the contamination in the fish, said Aluwihare. But several lines of evidence uncovered in the study – the lower overall concentrations and two missing DDT-related compounds in the shallower water fish species, as well as the overlap between contaminants found in the sediment and those found in marine mammals and birds – point to the alarming possibility that pollution is moving from the seafloor and into the marine food web.

“Regardless of the source, this is evidence that DDT compounds are making their way into the deep ocean food web,” said Margaret Stack, an environmental chemist at SDSU and the study’s lead author. “That is cause for concern because it’s not a big leap for it to end up in marine mammals or even humans.”  

Hoh said understanding the pathways by which the DDT-related chemicals are entering the food web is vital and “will help us figure out what to do as far as mitigation and what not to do in terms of offshore development that could make this problem worse by stirring up these contaminants.”

Aluwihare said more work needs to be done to pinpoint the source of the DDT contaminants they found in the deep-sea fish and establish whether the same contamination exists in larger, open-ocean fish species that are consumed by people. 

Numerous additional studies are ongoing to answer these urgent questions. Researchers at Scripps and SDSU are currently analyzing samples from fish species targeted by recreational anglers and commercial fisheries, including basses and sanddab, for DDT+. Comparing the chemicals and their concentrations found in these fish with sediment samples collected from the Palos Verdes Shelf and Dumpsite 2 may allow the team to determine the source of the toxins in these fish.  

“We are still seeing this DDT contamination in deep-sea organisms and ocean sediments more than 50 years after they were dumped there,” said Hoh. “I’m not sure if that company expected the consequences of their pollution to last this long, but they have.”

In addition to Aluwihare, Stack, Choy, and Hoh, Raymmah Garcia, Tran Nguyen,, Paul Jensen, and Johanna Gutleben of Scripps as well as, William Richardot, and Nathan Dodder of SDSU co-authored the study.

Additional information on Scripps Oceanography research underway on the DDT dumpsite offshore Southern California can be found here: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/ddtcoastaldumpsite

 

Nuclear site licence issued for UK's Sizewell C site

07 May 2024


The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has granted a nuclear site licence for the Sizewell C site in eastern England, where the plan is to replicate the Hinkley Point C model of a nuclear power plant featuring two EPRs.

(Image: Sizewell C Ltd)

The licence application was initially submitted in 2020, and despite it having met "almost all" regulatory requirements, two issues prevented the granting of a licence in 2022 - relating to the shareholders' agreement and the ownership of the land at the site. The ONR said at that time it would carry out a "proportionate reassessment" once those two issues had been "resolved to its satisfaction". It has now done so and recommended the granting of the nuclear site licence.

The issuing of the licence is a significant step in the long-running Sizewell C process, but it does not permit the start of nuclear-related construction at the site - instead it formalises ONR's regulatory responsibility and allows it to require project company Sizewell C Ltd to request permission for the start of nuclear-related construction.

It is the first site licence issued by the ONR since the one issued for Hinkley Point C in 2012 and it means that Sizewell C has a legal responsibility to comply with health and safety and nuclear security regulations and needs the project to meet 36 conditions attached to the licence covering the design, construction, operation and decommissioning of the plant.

ONR CEO Mark Foy said: "I am pleased to confirm that following extensive engagement and review by the ONR team, our assessment of the Sizewell C application is complete and a nuclear site licence has been granted. The licensing process is fundamental in confirming that operators of a nuclear site are ready and able to meet their obligations under the nuclear site licence, to protect their workforce and the public.

"The granting of this licence is one step in ONR's process, allowing us to provide greater regulatory oversight, advice and challenge to the licensee as they progress their plans. We will continue working with Sizewell C to ensure that the highest levels of safety and security are met."

Sizewell C director of safety, security and assurance, Mina Golshan, said: "Securing a nuclear site licence is a show of confidence from our nuclear regulator that we have a suitable site, that we can achieve a safe design replicated from Hinkley Point C, and that we have a capable organisation ready to begin major construction work. It’s a huge milestone and demonstrates that this project is firmly on track."

The EDF-led plan is for Sizewell C to feature two EPRs producing 3.2 GW of electricity, enough to power the equivalent of around six million homes for at least 60 years. It would be a similar design to the two-unit plant being built at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, with the aim of building it more quickly and at lower cost as a result of the experience gained from what is the first new nuclear construction project in the UK for about three decades.

EDF agreed in October 2016 with China General Nuclear (CGN) to develop the Sizewell C project to the point where a final investment decision could be made. EDF had an 80% stake and CGN a 20% stake. However, the so-called "golden era" of UK-China relations has ended in recent years with the UK government citing security concerns as it reviewed and blocked Chinese investments in UK infrastructure. In November 2022, the UK said it would invest GBP679 million (USD845 million) and become a 50% partner with EDF in the Sizewell C project. A further GBP511 million of funding was made available to the project in summer 2023, with the government funding designed to get the project to the final investment decision. EDF said in November 2022 that it planned to "retain only a minority stake in the final investment decision - a maximum of 20%".

The UK government has been seeking investment in the Sizewell C project, launching a pre-qualification for potential investors as the first stage of an equity raise process last September. It has also taken legislation through Parliament allowing a new way of funding new large infrastructure projects - a Regulated Asset Base (RAB) funding model, which can see consumers contributing towards the cost of new nuclear power plants during the construction phase. Under the previous Contracts for Difference system developers finance the construction of a nuclear project and only begin receiving revenue when the station starts generating electricity.

In January, a further GBP1.3 billion of government funding was approved allowing for necessary infrastructure work such as roads and rail lines to continue pending a final investment decision being taken. In March Sizewell C Ltd, a standalone company majority-owned by the UK government, signed a deal with EDF Energy to purchase the freehold of the land which will be used for the new power plant.

Minister for Nuclear and Renewables Andrew Bowie said: "Sizewell C will be the cornerstone of the UK's clean energy transition, supplying six million homes with green energy for decades. Obtaining a nuclear site licence is a significant achievement and should instil further confidence from investors - bringing us another step closer towards reaching a final investment decision this year."

Sizewell C Ltd said that earthworks are under way at the site, that the process of raising private equity from investors "continues to make good progress" and "the project is anticipating taking a Final Investment Decision in the coming months".

WEC panelists welcome growth in support for nuclear power

07 May 2024


The public and political perception of nuclear energy has significantly improved over the past few years, speakers agreed in a panel session during the recent World Energy Congress 2024.

The panel session (Image: WNN)

"The fact that we're having this panel here at WEC is really a testament to the growing interest in nuclear," session moderator John Gorman, president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association, noted in his introduction. The session - titled Leap of scale or faith: Realising the full potential of nuclear - was held on 24 April during the congress in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that although some people refer to a nuclear 'renaissance', he prefers to think of it as "a return to realism".

"We are seeing this realisation that ... ensuring the means to grow and to power our economies ... it would be very difficult, if not simply impossible, to get to that place without nuclear," he said. Grossi said there was a "common understanding" when it comes to energy and the transition to cleaner energy systems - "nuclear has a place. It always had it. We always knew it, but for quite a long time it was challenged, it was contested". He continued: "We have a global consensus that [nuclear] should be accelerated side-by-side with renewables, side-by-side with fossils."

People are now realising that nuclear energy does not emit greenhouse gases and is necessary, along with renewable energies, to reach the target of reaching net-zero by 2050, Laurence Piketty, deputy general administrator of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) said. She said France's fleet of 56 power reactors - which provide about 70% of the country's electricity - had helped France maintain electricity prices at a "fair level compared with other European countries" during the energy crisis that began in 2022.

Piketty highlighted the 12-member Nuclear Alliance that is calling on the European Commission to recognise nuclear energy in the EU's energy strategy and relevant policies. "I see the excitement around this European alliance as a clear change in the public perception and European perception of nuclear and an increasing acceptance of it, even in countries where nuclear energy was banned for many years," she said.

Referring to the first Nuclear Energy Summit, held in Brussels in March this year, Grossi said some leaders "very candidly said, 'We have changed. Things have changed. And the reality has changed'. And the people out there are saying it even in countries phasing out nuclear - when you go and ask people on the street they would like to have nuclear."

Grossi said there was a generational change in public opinion about nuclear energy. "Young people are very favourable in general to nuclear," he said. "And what we see is that those having expressed more doubts perhaps belong more to my generation than the new generations that are not carrying this package of doubts and sometimes ideological issues." He added: "We have to address problems squarely, including those having to do with opposition, societal doubt. And in this I think there has been a real change."

Naomi Hirose, vice chair of the World Energy Council and chairman of the Japan Energy Association, said that public opinion about nuclear energy in Japan had been "very, very negative" in the years following the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. "But I was very much surprised to see [the results of] a public opinion poll which took place a year and a half ago, the end of 2022," the former CEO of Tokyo Electric Power Company said.

"The question was whether nuclear power plants that have passed safety review from the Nuclear Regulatory Authority should be restarted, 58% of the respondents said they should be restarted. I was honestly very surprised because this same question had been asked many times over the years after the accident and the average positive answer is something like 20-25%. But it suddenly changed up to 58%. This is the public reacting to energy security. It was brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and people are very much scared about the safe, stable supply of electricity in Japan. And the price of electric power jumped up. That's why the people changed [their opinion] dramatically."

"The young generation is so important and in much of the world we see that the young generation is actually pushing for the adoption of nuclear," Gorman said.

Piketty said that nuclear energy was now widely recognised as a valuable source of low-carbon, stable, long-lasting, predictable energy that will enable countries to decarbonise in the long-term. "But, with the electrification of many sectors in the world, starting with mobility, nuclear energy needs to show its potential and its capacity to match this ... we have to take up several challenges. We must develop and deploy a new generation of reactors (including SMRs) in a timely manner."

"We are at the moment, unfortunately, in the international scene seeing conflict, we see tension," said Grossi. "And we see problems. It's not the first time - history is not linear. But when it comes to nuclear, there is a lot of convergence. There is a perception and a conviction that there are many things in which we can cooperate and we see that this pattern is a reflection of that.

"There are still challenges ahead of us and nothing is guaranteed, because if we fail to address and to give the right answers to some of the issues perhaps preventing nuclear to flourish in the way we want, we will still have nuclear, but we will not have the nuclear we need. And this is the gap. We know that nuclear is going to continue, but we also know that we need more nuclear. Are we going to get it, yes or no? This is the question."

Researched and written by World Nuclear News