| WNE2021 SHOW PREVIEW


from the only country to offer nuclear technology, as a walk around the WNE2021 exhibition will show. As for nuclear’s role in enabling clean, new energy


vectors, Macron is not alone in considering whether hydrogen will replace liquid fuels for road transport. US President Joe Biden is eyeing the same opportunity, and in October the US Department of Energy announced that it would spend $20 million on research into the production of clean hydrogen from nuclear power. That investment will help pay for a demonstration project by PNW Hydrogen at the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona. Although the new-build opportunity is of key importance


to the world, the nuclear industry has its other task of maintaining and improving performance at existing reactors and – another major theme of the meeting – minimising and managing the industry’s waste. For the industry, a nuclear site remains of importance after plants have closed, both as a potential site for follow-on units and as a focus for decommissioning and remediation work – an area where immense strides have been taken since early nuclear units were shut down. Lessons have been learned and technologies and techniques developed to manage end-of-life that can reduce the life-cycle costs of nuclear. And in a ‘virtuous circle’, that has fed back into the design and operation of new plants to make them fit for a longer service life and more economical post-closure management.


What do you want to talk about? The nuclear industry is able to meet face to face at WNE, as well as digitally, and with the organisers expecting up to 18,000 participants – what will be the new conversations that are struck up? At NEI we are looking forward to the opportunity to talk with industry members taking nuclear forward in the Post COP26 and Post Covid world. The global opportunity is crystalised at WNE2021 in the enthusiasm countries have shown in inviting the global industry to meet their industries in person, after two years when most contact has necessarily been by remote means. Along with exhibitors from hundreds of nuclear


organisations, the show’s national pavilions give delegates


In Westinghouse, we are shaping tomorrow’s energy for a carbon-free


future by applying constant innovation to our nuclear technologies and services. From designing and building new plants, to operating and servicing existing plants, and ultimately decommissioning and decontamination, we provide best-in-class products, services and technical expertise to our customers around the world. Our energy solutions range from the AP1000®, the world’s most advanced fully operational reactor, to our new Welding and Mechanics Solutions state-of-the-art centre in Europe. We believe that nuclear energy is critical to achieve a carbon-free world in 2050.


As a recognised international operator in the field of nuclear


materials, Orano delivers solutions to address present and future global energy and health challenges. Its expertise and mastery of cutting- edge technologies enable Orano to offer its customers high value-added products and services throughout the entire fuel cycle. Every day, the Orano group’s 16,500 employees draw on their skills, unwavering dedication to safety and constant quest for innovation, with the commitment to develop know-how in the transformation and control of nuclear materials, for the climate and for a healthy and resource- efficient world, now and tomorrow.


an opportunity to talk face to face with colleagues, and later in this preview we have used those pavilions as a focus to remind delegates of the nuclear history and ambitions of each country. We’ve invited some comment from organisations who will be at the show and from the major sponsors.


Nuclear electricity is indispensable to reach the climate related goals as it remains the single


largest source of low-carbon schedulable generation in advanced economies.”


Colette Lewiner, Energy and Utilities Senior Advisor at Capgemini It has been particularly positive to see the investment


in nuclear signalled by pavilions from countries that have relatively little current nuclear generation – or even none at all.


That signals a wish to expand an existing industry, as in


the representatives from Slovenia and Romania. In the case of Wales, it shows a wish to retain the nuclear option in a region that has benefitted from the investment in industry and people that came along with past nuclear plants. In Poland, it signals a fundamental shift in priorities that will eventually see expertise and major industrial investment shift from the coal to the nuclear sector. All the pavilion organisers invite delegates to ‘come and talk’ in the live exhibition.


The WNE organisers have identified several important


strands of discussion, on the opportunity for nuclear in meeting low-carbon objectives and progress on small modular reactors (SMRs), both of which we discuss in detail elsewhere in this special issue. Decommissioning and waste management are also high on the agenda, no surprise with a phaseout looming in Germany. But equally, the exhibition runs hard on the heels of life extension applications in the USA, illustrating that in some countries the value of existing nuclear has been firmly accepted.


www.neimagazine.com | WNE Special Edition | 13


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