When thinking about 2017, it is easy to see the bankruptcy of Westinghouse and the subsequent cancellation of its Summer project in South Carolina as this year’s big issue. But as the year has drawn to a close, the continuation of its AP1000 project at Plant Vogtle in Georgia has Read more…
At the World Nuclear Fuel Conference (WNFC) conference in Toronto this month, I will be presenting a paper “Nuclear Power Economics and Project Structuring – 2017 Edition” to introduce the most recent version of this World Nuclear Association (WNA) report. For full disclosure, I am the chair of the WNA Read more…
There is no shortage of people happy to see 2016 come to an end. It has been an extraordinary year characterized by strong popular revolt to the status quo resulting in unexpected government changes in places like Britain and Italy and a surprising result in the US election. For those Read more…
When we look to the future, people the world over are hopeful for an era of abundant reliable electricity supplying all of our energy needs; all at a reasonable cost and with little to no impact to the environment. Unfortunately, in many western countries the politics of electricity planning has Read more…
Have you ever seen something that just amazed you? We were wowed by a recent YouTube video showing what the Chinese have achieved in turning conventional high-rise construction on its head. A 57 story building was built in 19 days – yes – 19 days! Who would ever believe this Read more…
This past month, following the fourth anniversary of the Fukushima accident, it is good to see there is less emphasis on the nuclear accident and more discussion of the significant natural disaster – the tsunami and earthquake that killed some 20,000 and destroyed so much, leaving 300,000 homeless. It is Read more…
The world needs nuclear power – so says the latest edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) issued in November. “Nuclear power is one of the few options available at scale to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions while providing or displacing other forms of baseload generation. It has avoided the release of Read more…
Quite often we hear about the problem of attracting financing to support new build nuclear projects. In fact financing will be a topic of major interest at a number of upcoming nuclear conferences. While it is easy to agree that financing nuclear projects is a big challenge, in my Read more…
I have just done my first pass of the Word Energy Outlook 2012 issued by the IEA this November. Many of you will have seen some of the headlines – one of the most intriguing is that the US is expected to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017 Read more…
I started writing this while sitting on the very long plane ride on my way to China. The Rio+20 conference had just started, the largest ever UN conference and yet it was receiving relatively little press. I remember the first Rio conference 20 years ago when there was so much Read more…