Considerable new capacity could be available in the insurance-linked securities market for the transfer of nuclear third-party liability risks, a study conducted on behalf of the European Commission has concluded. However, this new capacity would only be available under the right structures and terms.

Iran has no credible civilian use for uranium metal and must reverse its latest move towards increased enrichment, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK - the E3 countries - said on 16 January. In response, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said it wanted the International Atomic Energy Agency to "avoid mentioning unnecessary details".

The European Repository Development Organisation was launched yesterday by Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, with other countries expected to join soon. It aims for member countries to work together to address the common challenges of safely managing long-lived radioactive wastes, including establishing shared multinational geological repositories.

The completion of the third and fourth power units at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant is "the future of Ukraine", Petro Kotin, acting president of Energoatom, said in an interview with Liga-Business at the end of last month. The project places Ukraine alongside other countries in Europe that are experiencing a "nuclear renaissance", since France, Poland, Slovakia and Romania are all now considering the further development of nuclear power, he said.

A Brussels-based alliance of NGOs, weCARE, has written to the European Commission, Parliament and Council to urge "a more favourable evaluation at EU level" of nuclear energy for a larger projected share in the future very low-carbon energy mix, in combination with renewable sources, "thereby avoiding a gas lock-in effect".

The UK-EU post-Brexit deal has been signed into UK law. The EU (Future Relationship) Bill first moved through the House of Commons, where it was passed in a vote split 521 in favour and 73 against, was then moved to the House of Lords, where it was passed without a vote, and the Queen then gave the final approval, Royal Assent. The deal takes effect at 23:00 GMT on 31 December.

The UK and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) have signed a Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. This is separate from the wider UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement that was also announced on 24 December and which has since been approved by ambassadors from the 27 EU Member States, paving the way for it to take effect on 1 January. UK lawmakers will tomorrow return to the House of Commons, the lower chamber of parliament, to vote on the so-called post-Brexit trade deal.

The European Commission aims to be a model for promoting sustainable development, building on its demonstrated success in being a low-carbon region among developed countries, but the EU Taxonomy could damage that ambition, writes Philippe Costes, senior adviser at World Nuclear Association.

Nuclear-produced hydrogen, using electrolyser technology, could have a "sizeable contribution" to make in the development of the hydrogen economy, according to a new report from the New Nuclear Watch Institute think-tank. However, it says the realisation of those benefits will depend on the adoption of technology-neutral policies, which do not discriminate against nuclear power.

The European Commission should include nuclear among the clean energy technologies that will be financed under the Green Deal low-carbon policy, EDF chairman and CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy said today in an online chat with International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol. Several European countries, he noted, are relying on nuclear generation to help them meet their energy and climate goals.

The European Commission will consider hydrogen produced from nuclear power as "low-carbon", Paula Abreu Marques, head of unit for renewables and CCS policy at the European Commission's energy directorate told the European Parliament on 16 November.

The European Union's clean energy transition "leaves a number of legacy technologies on the side" with an approach that is "more political economy than market economy", an analyst from S&P Global Ratings’ Infrastructure and Utilities practice said this week.