Nuclear energy must get a fair representation at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties to be held 31 October to 12 November in Glasgow, World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León has said in an open letter to COP26 President Alok Sharma. The full text of the 16 August letter is as follows.

The UK government says nuclear will play a significant role in developing a thriving low-carbon hydrogen sector to meet the country's ambition for 5GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030. Releasing its Hydrogen Strategy today, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said a hydrogen economy could support over 9000 UK jobs and unlock GBP4 billion (USD5.5 billion) in investment by 2030, potentially rising to 100,000 jobs and worth up to GBP13 billion by 2050.

The governments of Australia and the UK have signed a letter of intent to establish a partnership on low emissions solutions including clean hydrogen and small modular reactors. Meanwhile, the Australian Research Council  has awarded funding to a newly launched project to develop fuel for hydrogen-boron fusion which its participants say has the potential to re-establish Australia as a leader in fusion research and clean energy technology.

Nuclear power can be part of a broader portfolio alongside deploying other sustainable low- or zero-carbon technologies to decarbonise the global energy system and energy intensive industries, according to a new technology brief from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The publication highlights nuclear power as an important source of low-carbon energy that can contribute to attaining carbon neutrality and for policy-makers who wish to meet climate and sustainable development objectives using nuclear power should provide positive, long-term policy signals for new nuclear development.

Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting global warming to about 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The new IPCC Working Group I report assesses the physical science basis of climate change and is the first instalment of the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report, which will be completed next year.

US energy retailer Energy Harbor has claimed "strong demand" for its tariffs offering carbon-free electricity from nuclear power plants. Interest in and sales of 100% carbon-free retail electricity products from the company's clean, reliable nuclear fleet have increased significantly this year, it said yesterday.

Molten salt reactor technology has the potential to revolutionise the commercial shipping industry by making the largest ships faster, cleaner and more efficient, Core Power Chairman and CEO Mikal Bøe said in an interview with World Nuclear News. The goal is initially to power floating production of hydrogen-derived green fuels for a vast fleet of smaller vessels and, once licensed and approved, eventually to provide onboard electric propulsion power for large ships.

A new study published yesterday by the New Nuclear Watch Institute finds that the "supposed dependency concerns" associated with the host-vendor relationship in the nuclear energy sector are "historically and practically unfounded". The report - Energy Security in the Age of Net-Zero Ambitions and the System Value of Nuclear Power - focuses on the issue of energy security and the important contributions that nuclear power can make towards maintaining and strengthening it as energy systems decarbonise, both along the various transition pathways that energy systems have started upon and at their eventual low-carbon endpoint.

The UK government today published a Call for Evidence that sets out its suggested approach to building the first advanced modular reactor demonstrator. This will specifically explore high temperature gas reactors as the most promising model for the demonstration programme, which ministers are investing GBP170 million (USD237 million) into delivering by the early 2030s.

Nuclear energy must be included in a delegated act of the European taxonomy, 18 trade unions in the energy sector from 10 European Union countries have told Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. In a joint letter, the unions called for "a dialogue with the purpose of nuclear energy to play its full potential and build an economically efficient and socially just carbon-free Europe by 2050".

Delivery of the UK’s net-zero goals requires a vast increase in the production of zero-carbon electricity, hydrogen and district heating. Nuclear can make a vital and commercially viable contribution to the rapid scale-up of these energy vectors, write Dr Paul Nevitt, technical director of the Advanced Fuel Cycle Programme at the National Nuclear Laboratory, Kirsty Gogan and Eric Ingersoll, managing directors at LucidCatalyst, and Scott Milne, head of insights at Energy Systems Catapult.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the USA's 100 largest power producers fell 10% between 2019 and 2020, according to the latest in a series of benchmarking studies dating back to 1997. Nuclear accounted for over half of the zero-carbon resources which together generated about 38% of US electricity in 2020.