The application and interpretation of the same safety objectives into specific national regulatory requirements and guidance result in significant differences between the same reactor design when deployed in different countries, writes Claude Mayoral. A more harmonised approach to regulation will be needed to enable the widespread deployment of small modular and advanced reactor designs.

Nuclear power can play a key part in addressing African energy poverty while mitigating against climate change and helping to solve the triple threats of poverty, inequality and unemployment, but policymakers, decision takers and the general public need to be educated on its benefits, says Princy Mthombeni.

US electricity grids, especially deregulated grids with auctions, have become fragile and unreliable due to over-dependence on intermittent renewables and just-in-time delivery of natural gas, together with a reliance on imports, writes Meredith Angwin. Nuclear energy, she says, could break the trifecta and prevent rolling blackouts.

Net-zero needs nuclear, UK minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change Greg Hands told the country's industry at the Nuclear Industry Association's Nuclear2021 conference in London last week in a strong message of support. The following is the text of his speech.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi talks about the Nuclear Saves Partnerships through which industry and others can partner with the Agency to expand its efforts to support development projects in low- and middle-income countries.

While pledges made during the recent COP26 climate change conference show that governments are committed to limiting the rise in global temperature, the nuclear industry is ready to play its part in achieving those objectives, says World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León.

World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León has called for more action, not more rhetoric, to come out of the ongoing COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland. In a video address, she said the important role nuclear energy plays in combatting climate change still needs more recognition. A transcript of her video message follows.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has said he will bring a simple message to the COP26 climate change conference: Nuclear is and will be part of the solution to our climate crisis. The conference, which begins next week in Glasgow, could be one of our last best opportunities to agree on concrete steps to ensure prosperity for all, and nuclear power needs a place at the table, Grossi said. A transcript of his video message follows.

The global nuclear industry and governments must work together to make it easier for those countries wishing to launch nuclear energy programmes in order to decarbonise their energy system, writes Milton Caplan, president of MZConsulting Inc and chair of the World Nuclear Association Economics Working Group.

Given the EU's legally binding 2050 comprehensive decarbonisation policy with adequate CO2 pricing, the closure of many large nuclear power plants in Belgium and Germany, and an EU-wide coal power phase out by 2030-2050 and the inability of intermittent renewable energy to supply the scale and quality of energy needed for continent-scale decarbonisation, there is a strong business case to deploy small modular reactors in the EU by 2040, writes Kalev Kallemets, co-founder and CEO of Fermi Energia.

Representatives of the main political parties running in the forthcoming Czech parliamentary elections agreed the country needs nuclear energy in its future energy mix, Tomáš Kovalovský, chairman of the Czech Nuclear Association, and Tomáš Měřínský, chairman of Sekurkon, write in an overview of the Nuclear Power - New Nuclear Builds conference, held on 23 September in Prague.

Both demonstration and test reactors are necessary to support the development and commercial deployment of the new reactor technologies that will expand access to reliable, clean energy, writes Kathryn Huff, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the US Department of Energy. This article was first published by the Office of Nuclear Energy on 30 July.