A nuclear COP?

The Energy Gang

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🗓️ 11 December 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Nuclear energy has been in the headlines more in Dubai, than at any previous COP.

Nuclear power has had more prominence at this year’s climate talks than at any previous COP. In fact, some people have even been calling it “the nuclear COP”.

That’s partly because the hosts, the United Arab Emirates, have been a pioneer of nuclear power in the Gulf region, building four reactors to meet 25 per cent of its electricity demand. At this year’s COP, 24 governments set a goal to triple worldwide nuclear power generation capacity by 2050. To discuss the implications of this pledge, and analyse the current state of the nuclear industry globally, Ed Crooks is joined by Henri Paillere, who is head of the planning and economic studies section at the International Atomic Agency. He says there is now a much wider appreciation of the central role that nuclear power can play in tackling climate change.

Nuclear technology is also seen as offering some big commercial opportunities. The EX-IM Bank, the US export – import bank, recently launched a package of measures intended to support sales of US Small Modular reactors – SMRs. Reta Lewis, chair of the Ex-Im bank came to the COP and spoke to the Energy Gang, to highlight the bank’s support for SMR investment around the world.

SMRs are expected to play a key role in the future of nuclear energy, as Dr Sama Bilbao y Leon, who is the director-general of the World Nuclear Association, which represents the international nuclear industry, said when she joined Ed in the studio.

We’ll be following the latest developments from COP28 right to the end of the summit, so subscribe and join the conversation – we’re @theenergygang.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Energy Gang coming to you from the COP28 Climate Talks in
0:07.2	Dubai. I'm Ed Crooks.
0:11.0	Now one issue that we haven't talked about much in our reports from the cop is
0:16.8	nuclear power and it's fair to say that is a bit of an omission because it's
0:20.6	probably true to say that nuclear power has had more prominence of these talks than at any previous cop.
0:25.8	In fact, some people have even been calling it the nuclear cop.
0:29.4	That's partly because our hosts here of the United Arab Emirates has been a pioneer of nuclear power in the Gulf region,
0:34.7	building four reactors to meet 25% of its demand for electricity. But the main reason is that we've
0:39.8	had pretty noteworthy announcements, including the biggest one probably which is this statement
0:44.2	from 24 governments setting a goal of tripling worldwide nuclear power generation capacity by 2050.
0:50.2	Those governments include several of the pro-nuclear names you'd expect, including France, Japan, South Korea, the U.S., the UK, and our hosts
0:57.5	the UAE. But they're also something you might not expect, including Ghana, Morocco, and the Netherlands. Henri Puyer, who's the head and the Netherlands.
1:03.0	Ori Payaire, who's the head of the Planning and Economic Studies section at the International Atomic Energy Agency,
1:09.0	says there's now a much wider appreciation of the central role that nuclear power can play in tackling climate change.
1:15.0	I think there's a realization that it will be very difficult to achieve net zero without some form of
1:22.3	clean baseload, firm power, and this could be hydro for countries that are lucky to have
1:27.9	hydropower, and for those that don't, well it has to be or it should be or could be nuclear.
1:34.4	A nuclear technology is also seen as offering some big commercial opportunities.
1:38.2	The XIM Bank, which is the U.S. Export-Import Bank, recently launched a package of measures intended to support sales of U.S.
1:44.8	small modular reactors, SMRs.
1:47.4	Rita Lewis, chair of the Exim Bank, came to the COP to highlight the bank's support
1:51.0	for SMR investment around the world.
	...

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