With 10 research and innovation actions linked to nuclear, the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) is "really stimulating new partnerships" across the 18 SET countries that are participating in them, Rosalinde van der Vlies, 'clean planet' director at the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation at the European Commission, said this week. Speaking in the plenary session of SNETP Forum 2021, she said all EU Member States have "very high standards" in safety, radiation protection and security.

Poland's Council of Ministers yesterday approved an energy policy to 2040 (PEP2040) that aims to reduce the share of coal in the country's electricity generation mix from 72% in 2020 to 56% in 2030. The policy includes construction of six nuclear power units.

Japan's energy minister has said he considers nuclear energy "indispensable" if the country is to meet its target of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Speaking to the Financial Times, Hiroshi Kajiyama said power shortages last month due to heavy snowfall highlighted Japan's need for nuclear.

Speakers at the US Energy Association's 17th Annual State of the Energy Industry Forum last week called for the reimagination of the electricity grid and likened the efforts needed to develop alternative energy carriers, particularly for hard-to-decarbonise sectors, to a "moonshot".

The Republic of Ireland has a legislative ban on nuclear power, but the climate emergency is an opportunity to look with fresh eyes at this untapped potential. 18for0 estimates that introducing 18% nuclear energy to the country's electricity mix could eliminate fossil fuels from the power sector and achieve decarbonisation by 2037. 18for0 is a group of professionals, all volunteers, concerned about the credibility of Ireland's current proposals to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Jerry Waugh, one of its members, describes the group's preliminary study on how this could be achieved.

US President Joe Biden yesterday signed executive orders to follow through on his promise to take aggressive action to tackle climate change and build on the executive actions that he took on his first day in office, including re-joining the Paris Agreement and the immediate review of "harmful rollbacks" of environmental standards under his predecessor Donald Trump. Meanwhile, a UN survey has found that almost two-thirds of people around the world now view climate change as a global emergency.

Using nuclear plants to generate heat as well as electricity for non-grid industrial applications could be central to deep decarbonisation efforts beyond being a source of zero-carbon electricity. Speakers at the fifth Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum last week looked at how hydrogen - and nuclear - can contribute to carbon abatement efforts in areas that have so far been hard to decarbonise.

Following his inauguration yesterday, US President Joseph Biden has formally signed an executive order to re-enter the Paris Climate Change Agreement and directed US departments and federal agencies to "immediately commence work to confront the climate crisis". The USA's re-entry will come into force in 30 days.

The UK government must continue to support nuclear power generation if the country is to meet an expected doubling of electricity demand by 2050 while meeting its Net Zero ambitions, according to a new report from the Centre for Policy Studies. The think tank recommends the government explore innovative financing methods for the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Access to affordable, technology-neutral financing is essential if energy-poor countries are to enjoy the benefits of nuclear power in the way the Western world already does, World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León told the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum today. The following is her statement to the panel titled Delivering energy access in the developing world.

The challenges the nuclear industry faces are largely external and must be overcome if it is to help tackle the existential threat of climate change, panellists in the Nuclear Energy and its Future session of the Reuters Next conference on 11 January said. These challenges include: the notion nuclear is an out-dated technology; the cost of finance; market design; political changes; perceived competition with renewable energy; and the public's misconceptions about radioactive waste.

The International Energy Agency will later this year publish the world's first comprehensive roadmap for the energy sector to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. It is among a number of projects for 2021 announced by the IEA yesterday to support efforts to reach global energy and climate goals.