An agreement has been concluded to renew the Generation IV International Forum, which aims to build on its first 25 years of sharing research and development on innovative nuclear reactor designs. In this episode, William D Magwood IV, Director-General of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, which supports GIF as its Technical Secretariat, explains how the forum came about, how it works, what the key achievements have been so far and what the hopes for the future are.

He says that originally it was expected to be governments and government laboratories taking the lead, but now the private sector is doing it "which is very energising and very exciting". He says a key priority is to facilitate private sector success in the deployment of these technologies, albeit with challenges from working with IP issues across the private and public sector, and looks ahead to some lead countries demonstrating how these technologies can be regulated effectively.

All in all, he believes that the future for nuclear energy "is brighter than it's probably been in history".

In the World Nuclear News round-up Claire Maden reports on what we know so far about the impact on the nuclear sector from the return to the White House of US President Donald Trump, while Warwick Pipe has an update on the French nuclear power programme, following the Flamanville EPR's long-awaited connection to the grid.

Key links to find out more:
World Nuclear News
Gen IV International Forum
Climate and energy in Trump's Day One executive orders
French auditor warns of challenges for EPR2 programme
France's Flamanville EPR starts supplying power

Email newsletter:
Sign up to the World Nuclear News daily or weekly news round-ups via our website

Contact info:
alex.hunt@world-nuclear.org

Episode credit: Presenter Alex Hunt. Co-produced and mixed by Pixelkisser Production

The World Nuclear News team looks back over the most read articles in 2024 - with topics including tech giants turning to nuclear energy for data centres, nuclear battery innovations, the uranium market and progress on current and proposed nuclear power capacity projects.

Then World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León sits down with host Alex Hunt to pick out key developments of the year - such as the public backing for nuclear from large financial institutions at New York Climate Week and political leaders declaring their commitment at the IAEA's Nuclear Energy Summit in Brussels.

She also highlights the importance of discussions at COP29 about carbon markets, and reflects on the similarities and differences in the case put for nuclear energy at conferences held in different parts of the world.

Looking ahead to 2025 there are big set-piece events to look forward to - such as World Nuclear Association's 50th Symposium, COP30 and the first World Nuclear Supply Chain conference - as well as likely big moments for Turkey and Bangladesh's first units - and continued work on financing and achieving a change in multilateral bank lending policies towards nuclear.

Key links to find out more:
World Nuclear News
COP29
World Nuclear Association
Net Zero Nuclear

Email newsletter:
Sign up to the World Nuclear News daily or weekly news round-ups

Contact info:
alex.hunt@world-nuclear.org

Episode credit: Presenter Alex Hunt. Reporters Claire Maden and Warwick Pipe. Co-produced and mixed by Pixelkisser Production

The COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, was the latest global gathering aiming to agree measures to tackle climate change. Jonathan Cobb, senior programme lead, climate, at World Nuclear Association, was there. In this episode he explains what COP is, what the aims of COP29 were, what was achieved, and what role nuclear energy played.

He also explains why many people's focus was already looking towards COP30 in Brazil - and outlines the nuclear energy-related events held, and agreements signed, at Baku. Notable among these announcements was six more signatories - El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Nigeria and Turkey - to the Net Zero Nuclear goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

Also in this edition, Claire Maden rounds up some of the big nuclear energy stories in November, including Russia's decision to restrict uranium exports to the USA, the go-ahead being given for the Hermes 2 molten salt-cooled reactor and China's latest nuclear-powered district heating achievement.


Key links to find out more:
World Nuclear News
COP29
Net Zero Nuclear
Russia places 'tit-for-tat' ban on US uranium exports
China's first commercial nuclear district heating scheme expands
Hermes 2 construction permits approved by NRC
UK SMR negotiations begin with bidders

Email newsletter:
Sign up to the World Nuclear News daily or weekly news round-ups

Contact info:
alex.hunt@world-nuclear.org

Episode credit: Presenter Alex Hunt. Co-produced and mixed by Pixelkisser Production