Most of the nuclear plants in the PJM Interconnection wholesale electricity market - covering 13 US states and the District of Columbia - will not produce enough revenue to remain economically viable in the coming years, an independent economic evaluation has concluded.

An independent financial audit requested by the state of Illinois has found the Byron and Dresden nuclear power plants face "real risk" of becoming uneconomic in the near term. State support could help provide security for the plants to be part of a strategy for Illinois to transition to less carbon-emitting resources, the report finds.

Policymakers who ignore nuclear energy are not serious about meeting climate goals, delegates said at an Atlantic Council webinar last week. The first in the Raising Ambitions series, the event highlighted the attributes of this clean source of electricity and heat ahead of the Leaders’ Climate Summit, which the US Administration is hosting on 22-23 April.

A working paper published by the International Monetary Fund last week uses multiplier analysis to determine the impact that investment in clean energy would have on the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.  The document - Building Back Better: How Big Are Green Spending Multipliers? - states clean energy sources are: solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass and nuclear, which it then divides into renewable and non-renewable.

Greening our economies is not just smart for the planet; most likely it is also the surest and cheapest route back to a prosperous global economy. This is the conclusion of a working paper the International Monetary Fund will publish tomorrow, one of its co-authors said today during World Nuclear Association's Strategic eForum on Sustainable Finance. The virtual conference examined the measures needed to ensure nuclear energy can make its fullest contribution to the twin goals of decarbonisation and economic recovery from the pandemic.

The workshop the International Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency held jointly last week was very timely because the European Union is at an important juncture, and must consider the role of a variety of energy sources in its electricity mix if it is to achieve its decarbonisation goals, said Massimo Garribba, deputy director general of DG-Energy at the European Commission, adding that those sources include nuclear energy.

Exelon Corporation plans to separate its regulated utility and competitive energy businesses into two publicly traded companies, creating the USA's biggest fully regulated transmission and distribution utility, as well as its largest carbon-free power producer.

The European Union should embark on a "nuclear renaissance" programme if it is to achieve its climate objectives, a new study on the bloc's climate policy has concluded. Commissioned by ECR Group and Renew Europe, the report says it is practically impossible to generate sufficient energy with wind and solar energy as there is not enough available land to meet electricity demand.

Incorporating a circuit to produce by-product base metals has the potential to improve the "already strong" uranium economics of the Mulga Rock project in Western Australia, Vimy Resources CEO Mike Young says. Vimy plans to complete an assessment of the potential impact of the base metals plant during the first half of this year.

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.

Ringhals 1 today became the fourth reactor to close in Sweden in the last seven years. The unit, on the west coast of the country, was permanently disconnected from the national grid after 44 years of operation, according to data from its operator, Ringhals AB, which is owned by Vattenfall (70.4%) and Sydkraft Nuclear Power (29.6%).