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The Future is Nuclear at Davos

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Stockholm (NordSIP) – The first ever public panel discussion on nuclear energy to be held at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting in Davos took place on 21 January 2025. The session was moderated by Kirsty Gogan, Founding Director and Co-CEO of non-profit energy consultancy Terra Praxis, with a panel of speakers comprising Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Wen Shugang, Chairman of China Huaneng Group, Luc Rémont, Chairman and CEO of EDF, Darryl White, CEO of BMO Financial Group, and Ebba Busch, Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Energy, Business and Industry.

As Grossi points out in his opening remarks, until recently he would have expected the WEF to host a panel on phasing out nuclear energy rather than the current focus on radically boosting capacity in the sector. This goal emerged from the 2023 COP28 conference in Dubai, during which more than 20 nations co-signed a Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy capacity by 2050 as a means of supporting the decarbonisation targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. This commitment was strengthened during 2024 with the total number of signatory nations rising to 31 at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and 14 financial institutions issuing a supporting statement during New York’s Climate Week.

The declaration involves the addition of 750 GW of nuclear capacity, which far exceeds the provision of current development plans. As Terra Praxis’ Gogan explains, much of the expected growth is likely to be met by Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which can be located either on sites previously used by fossil fuel facilities, or next to hard-to-abate heavy industry as dedicated low-carbon energy sources. Gogan’s firm was a participant in the creation of a new WEF white paper on a Collaborative Framework for Accelerating Advanced Nuclear and Small Modular Reactor Deployment, which was published in November 2024. This intends to provide guidance for regulators, policymakers, capital markets, and other stakeholders for the creation of the right environment for more rapid deployment of nuclear energy.

Sweden’s nuclear rediscovery

“I am on a global mission to take politics out of energy policy and put physics back in,” says Sweden’s Deputy PM Busch, explaining that growth expectations are likely to be accompanied by at least a doubling of electricity demand. Given her government’s commitment to decarbonisation, Busch sees no other option than a renewed focus on nuclear energy. She considers it as a solution to baseload electricity generation alongside the more intermittent provision from wind and solar. Nevertheless, financing the commensurate long-term infrastructure projects presents a serious challenge for Sweden’s government, with Busch suggesting it could involve the construction of ten new large-scale reactors by 2045. A package combining state loans, long-term contracts for difference and a risk-sharing mechanism will be presented to parliament imminently, suggests Busch.

Although progress is being made within the industry and financial institutions to a degree, Busch believes governments in Europe are not yet working in concert on the topic of nuclear energy. In her view hesitation and misplaced caution are preventing the large-scale coordinated development that could bring common standards, economies of scale, and the possibility of meeting low-carbon energy targets in time.

Notably absent from the panel discussion is an exploration of the underlying factors delaying progress in the nuclear energy sector. This may reflect the composition of the panel, composed of speakers seemingly unanimous in their support of what Gogan refers to as a “Dense, compact, reliable, and clean source of heat and power.” In its Beautiful Nuclear report, Gogan’s firm Terra Praxis describes how it believes nuclear energy helps to meet all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs). The question of how to handle ever larger quantities of nuclear waste is not addressed by the WEF panel, nor are the safety concerns regarding nuclear facilities and the proliferation of nuclear technology throughout the globe. Finally, although Busch states that SMRs must form a significant part of Sweden’s energy plans, the economic and practical viability of these is still a point of contention among the scientific community.

Image courtesy of Markus Distelrath from Pixabay

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