We round up the recent news and updates from the world of Nuclear.
Sizewell C nuclear plant confirmed with £700m public stake, from The Guardian: “The government has confirmed the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk will go ahead, backing the scheme with an investment of nearly £700m that will end China’s controversial involvement. Ministers said the move to take a 50% stake in the project’s development, first announced in Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement, would create 10,000 highly skilled jobs, provide “reliable low-carbon power” to the equivalent of 6m homes for more than 50 years, and help boost UK energy security. The government also said it would set up an arm’s-length body, Great British Nuclear, to develop further nuclear projects.”
France’s EDF in the running to build new Czech nuclear plant, from Euractiv: “France’s EDF, South Korea’s KHNP, and US-Canadian group Westinghouse Electric have made initial bids to build a new unit at the Czech Republic’s Dukovany nuclear power plant, Czech utility ČEZ said on Wednesday (30 November).”
Nuclear energy: Broughton manufacturing site to create 200 jobs, from BBC News: “A new manufacturing site in Flintshire providing equipment for the nuclear industry could create up to 200 jobs. The 10,000 square metre Boccard UK factory will be officially opened later on Tuesday. It is the company’s first major nuclear production facility in the UK. Situated near the Airbus factory in Broughton, it will design and manufacture piping systems and containers used in the construction of nuclear plants.”
Progress in reactivity-initiated accident research, from the Nuclear Energy Agency: “A reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) is a nuclear reactor accident that involves an unwanted increase in fission rate and reactor power. RIA research is an important focus area for the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) Working Group on Fuel Safety (WGFS); two new reports from the WGFS highlight the latest developments in RIA research, providing a knowledge base for RIA safety analyses and identifying gaps where additional collaborative research efforts are required.”
Why Silicon Valley is so hot on nuclear energy and what it means for the industry, from CNBC: “Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are investing money in nuclear energy for the first time in history. That’s changing its trajectory and pace of innovation. “There’s not been a resurgence of nuclear power, ever, since its heyday in the late 1970s,” Ray Rothrock, a longtime venture capitalist who has personal investments in 10 nuclear startups, told CNBC. Now, that’s changing. “I have never seen this kind of investment before. Ever.”
