EU funding for French enrichment plant expansion

The Georges Besse II plant (Image: Orano)

The European Investment Bank and Orano have signed a loan agreement for EUR400 million (USD434 million) to partly fund the project to extend the Georges Besse II uranium enrichment plant in Tricastin in southern France. The project will increase the plant's capacity by more than 30%.

The Georges Besse II centrifuge enrichment plant - which superseded the Georges Besse I gaseous diffusion enrichment plant that ended production in June 2012 - was officially opened in December 2010 and reached its full production capacity of 7.5 million Separative Work Unit (SWU) in 2016.

In October 2023, the board of directors of Orano approved an investment of about EUR1.7 billion to raise the production capacity of the plant. The decision followed requests from some US and European customers who are seeking alternatives to Russian sources of supply.

The project consists of building a further four modules identical to the fourteen existing modules that use "the same recognised and proven technology, offering the best guarantees in terms of safety, competitiveness and energy savings, while having a reduced environmental footprint", the company said. The additional cascades will increase the plant's capacity by 2.5 million SWU.

This project was the subject of a notification under Article 41 of the Euratom Treaty on 7 September 2023. The European Commission issued a positive opinion on 9 October 2024, underlining the project's compliance with the Euratom treaty and its contribution to the security of supply in Europe.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) - the long-term lending institution of the European Union, owned by its Member States - has now agreed to lend Orano EUR400 million towards the Georges Besse II expansion project.

EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle said: "This significant EIB financing contributes to European energy independence. Decarbonised energies are essential to enable the European Union to meet the ambitious climate neutrality objectives it has set itself."

"We are very proud of this cooperation, which represents further recognition of the strategic value of our investment plan for the climate and for the production of sustainable and decarbonised energy," said Orano CEO Nicolas Maes. "The financing granted by the EIB for the capacity extension at our Georges Besse II enrichment plant is perfectly in line with this objective, as the project will make it possible to take the number of households supplied with low-carbon energy up to a total 120 million. Not least, in the current geopolitical context, this support for our activities from the EIB will help to strengthen security of supply in the European Union."Orano held a ceremony in October last year to mark the laying of the foundation stone of the Georges Besse II plant extension. The new modules are expected to begin operating in 2028, with complete commissioning of the extension in 2030. EU funding for French enrichment plant expansion

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Frenchman sails around the world in 80 days... on dry land

Bernard Poitau has made no headway on his yacht in nearly a month -- with good reason. The Frenchman is taking part in a famed round-the-world yacht race on dry land, raising money for charity as he goes nowhere.

For nearly a month, the 71-year-old has sat aboard his small vessel embedded in grass on a hillside in France's central Loire region, tracking his progress against some 700,000 virtual participants in the famous Vendee Globe.

His backyard some 300 kilometres from the sea offers smoother sailing than the rough southern Atlantic Ocean, where 38 actual skippers are making their way around the infamous Cape of Good Hope in the solo, non-stop, round-the-world yacht race.

The eventual winner of the genuine race will likely make the journey in just under the mythical period of 80 days.

AFP | Alex MARTIN

Poitau, who spends 22 hours a day on his wooden boat, said he hopes his adventure will bring "visibility" to the asylum seekers he has worked with for twenty years.

The cold days, cramped quarters, and sore legs are nothing compared to what refugees go through to reach Europe, he told AFP.

"Asylum seekers have been through much worse crossings. They're the heroes, not me," the 71-year-old said.

The tip of southern Africa is "not far off" for Poitau, who tracks his progress on the Virtual Regatta application from the deck of his five-metre-long wooden boat.

Never a sailor, the former court official said he discovered the 20,000 nautical mile (37,000 kilometre) Vendee Globe during the Covid-19 pandemic and decided to participate this year to raise funds for asylum seekers.

AFP | Alex MARTIN

"I'm not crazy, I'm defending a cause," said the Loire resident who has worked with refugees through the Anticyclone association for two decades.

The self-described "meadow-sailor" will return home the day the winner crosses the Vendee Global finish line, eager to see his family for the first time since getting underway on November 10."My wife is waiting for me, like all sailors' wives," he said with a smile. Frenchman sails around the world in 80 days... on dry land

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Researchers Discover 200-year-old Message in a Bottle: A ‘Magic Moment’

credit – Guillaume Blondel, Archaeological Service of the City of Eu

A team of student archaeologists in France received an amazing surprise while working on a site dating to Gaulic times.

Carried out under the direction of Guillaume Blondel, director of the municipal archaeological service of the city of Eu, the excavations delivered, among other things, a moving and very special testimony from the past.

Located in a previously investigated section of the site, a message was discovered in a small glass bottle from the 19th century accompanied by two coins: a “time capsule” buried almost 200 years ago, a statement from the service read.

“P. J. Féret, a native of Dieppe, member of various intellectual societies, carried out excavations here in January 1825. He continues his investigations in this vast area known as the Cité de Limes or Caesar’s Camp.”

The message in a bottle had been carefully placed in a ceramic pot dating to a much earlier century so that future archaeologists would be sure to find it.

“It was an absolutely magic moment,” Mr. Blondel told the BBC. “We knew there had been excavations here in the past, but to find this message from 200 years ago… it was a total surprise.”

credit – Guillaume Blondel, Archaeological Service of the City of Eu

“Sometimes you see these time capsules left behind by carpenters when they build houses. But it’s very rare in archaeology. Most archaeologists prefer to think that there won’t be anyone coming after them because they’ve done all the work!”

Local archives indeed place P. J. Féret in the area as a historical excavator at the time the letter was dated.

credit – Guillaume Blondel, Archaeological Service of the City of Eu

The work was funded and carried out in partnership with the Regional Archaeology Service to preserve archaeological sites that are endangered with the decline of the coastline. Already a part of the ‘oppidum’ or fortified Gaulic camp, has fallen away with the crumbling of the coastal hillside on which it was perched.

The Gauls were a series of interconnected feudal (at best) and tribal (at worst) societies that shared societal, cultural, and warrior practices, and who inhabited most of central and western Europe during the time of the Roman Republic.

Gaius Julius Caesar waged a campaign to pacify Gaul, hence the name “Caesar’s Camp,” which brough Spain, France, and Belgium, under Roman control. Researchers Discover 200-year-old Message in a Bottle: A ‘Magic Moment’

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Where in the world is closest to becoming a '15-minute city' ?

PARIS - Paris and Milan are among the cities closest to reaching the urban planning goal of being a "15-minute city," while car-dependent metropolises in the United States and elsewhere lag behind, a worldwide analysis said Monday.

In fact, the central areas of many cities already meet the definition of a 15 minute-city, which means that residents are within a quarter-hour walk or bike ride from everything they need to a lead a good life, the analysis found.

But even within a city, there are often stark differences between the wealthy inner cities and the urban sprawl on their outskirts, according to the Italian researchers behind the new study.

The concept of the 15-minute city gained traction during the Covid pandemic, when lockdowns put more focus on local neighbourhoods.

It has since been embraced by dozens of mayors around the world -- and become the target of conspiracy theorists online.

For the new study, published in the journal Nature Cities, the researchers built an online database looking at roughly 10,000 cities globally.

Paris ranked as one of the big cities closest to being a "15-minute city", a new global analysis found

AFP/File | Eric Feferberg

They used open source data to map out how far of a walk or cycle residents were from different services, including shops, restaurants, education, exercise and healthcare.

"A lot of people already live in a 15-minute city," study co-author Hygor Piaget Monteiro Melo told AFP.

But it depends on where you look within a city, he said, because of the inequality in access to services between the centre and periphery.

- No 'utopia' -

What is clear, the researchers noted, is that population density is a crucial factor -- if enough people are living close enough to each other, it is much easier for them to have easy access to services.

This meant that somewhat smaller yet relatively dense cities such as Italy's Milan or Spain's Barcelona scored well on their map, which was made available online.

When it came to the biggest cities, "Paris is an outlier," lead study author Matteo Bruno told AFP.

The mayor of Paris embraced the concept in 2020, and a "considerable fraction" of the city is below the 15-minute mark, the study said.

Few cities provide easy access to key services

AFP | Ioana PLESEA, Valentina BRESCHI, Thierno TOURE

Some European cities have a head start because they were built centuries ago at a time before cars -- when basically all towns had to be 15-minute cities, the researchers said.

Cities built more recently with cars specifically in mind -- particularly in the United States -- fared far less well on the map.

Atlanta in particular stood out as being a long way from being a 15-minute city. Future Olympic host Los Angeles also lagged behind most others for walkability, as did several Chinese cities including Chongqing.

But when it comes to cities, there are always trade-offs -- and there is no single right answer, the researchers said.

"The 15-minute city is often presented as a utopia -- it's not," Bruno said.

Americans in sprawled-out cities usually have their own houses and backyards, while Europeans in densely populated cities tend to live in apartments, illustrating the important role played by culture, Bruno said.

And central parts of US cities such as New York, San Francisco and Milwaukee were under the 15-minute threshold.

"Manhattan is definitely one of the most 15-minute places ever in the world," said Bruno, a researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome.

- 'Conspiracy mongers' -

There has been confusion about the concept in the past, the researchers lamented.

For example, "traffic has nothing to do with the 15-minute city," Bruno said.

Atlanta ranked low among global cities for residents being able to walk or cycle to services

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/Getty Images via AFP/File | DAVIS TURNER

In fact, slow traffic could indicate an area is more pedestrian friendly, he added.

Yet it was new "low-traffic zones" in the UK that turned the ire of conspiracy theorists towards 15-minute city proponents.

Confusing the two ideas, online groups including vaccine and climate sceptics falsely claimed that 15-minute cities were part of a secret plot to restrict the movement of citizens.

The Italian researchers, who have themselves been targeted by "Twitter haters," emphasised that nothing about the 15-minute city concept involves confining anyone.

Researcher Carlos Moreno, a high-profile proponent of 15-minute cities who has advised Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, was also "attacked by the worldwide conspiracy mongers," he told AFP.

Moreno welcomed the new study, praising how the idea had swiftly become a topic of interest for researchers around the world.

Just last week, Valerie Pecresse, the right-wing head of the greater Paris Ile-de-France area, presented a plan for a 20-minute region, he pointed out.

Bruno said that the 15-minute metric is just one element in the "recipe" that makes a good city.

Other parts of the recipe include tackling inequality and segregation, improving public transport, reducing traffic and so on, he said.

By Daniel Lawler. Source: https://www.enca.com/lifestyle/where-world-closest-becoming-15-minute-city

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Paris Paralympics 2024 concludes with closing ceremony in French capital

Paris Paralympics 2024 concluded with a sparkling closing ceremony in the French capital last night. Twenty-four artists from the French electronic music scene led a party atmosphere despite heavy rain at the Stade de France in front of 4,400 athletes from 168 Paralympic delegations from around the world. The ceremony featured a dynamic hour-long set with 20 DJs, introduced by 76-year-old French electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre.

The International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons said France set a benchmark for future games. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo handed the Paralympic flag to International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons, who then passed it to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Los Angeles will be hosting the next Paralympic Summer Games in 2028. Andrew Parsons said the Paris Paralympics demonstrated that change starts with sport, highlighting how the competition, organisation, and gender parity of the athletes had set new benchmarks for the Paralympics.

The Indian contingent produced their best performance at the Paralympics this year, securing a total of 29 medals, including 7 golds, 9 silvers, and 13 bronzes. Paris Paralympics 2024 concludes with closing ceremony in French capital

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How the Paris Olympics could become a super-spreader event for dengue

Mark Booth, Newcastle University

In September 2023, several people came down with dengue fever in Paris, France. The presence of this mosquito-borne disease was notable for two reasons. It was the most northerly outbreak ever recorded, and none of the people had travelled recently. This demonstrated it is now possible for dengue to be transmitted locally in northern Europe.

These facts are important in 2024 because of the Olympics. France waits in anticipation of more than 10 million athletes, spectators, officials and tourists descending on the city for the event. The French government knows there is a risk of dengue. In Paris, hundreds of sites are being regularly checked for the presence of the dengue-carrying mosquitoes. Will this be enough?

The concept of the super-spreader in infection epidemiology is not new. In essence, it means that a small fraction of a population, maybe just one person, is responsible for most of the cases. A famous historical super-spreader was “typhoid Mary”. Mary Mallon was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid who may have infected over 100 people.

A study published in the journal Nature suggests that about 15% of people were responsible for 85% of cases of COVID in Hunan Province, China. In terms of dengue, one analysis from Peru of super-spreading suggests 8% of human-occupied spaces are responsible for over half of cases. (It should be noted that dengue cannot be caught directly from another human, only from the bite of a dengue-carrying mosquito.)

This is not the first time the Olympics has been identified as a risk factor for viral epidemics. The 2016 Olympics in Brazil were almost postponed because of fears about Zika - another virus transmitted by the Aedes mosquito.

In the end, any worries were put to bed, because there were no reported cases.

Fear about COVID spreading via the Tokyo Olympics brought about drastic measures to limit transmission. At that event, few infections occurred inside the Olympic bubble, but there was an increase in cases among the general population.

So what is different about Paris?

Aedes has spread considerably further than in 2016, and the number of dengue cases worldwide has increased dramatically in the same period. In 2016 there were 5.2 million cases reported worldwide. Halfway through 2024, there have already been 7.6 million cases.

Visitors from more than 200 countries are expected in France for the Olympics. Many of those countries are already experiencing dengue this year.

For the Paris Olympics to become a super-spreader event, several factors must overlap. There needs to be enough mosquitoes, enough susceptible and already-infected people, enough time and enough mosquito bites.

Perfectly adapted

The tiger mosquito is perfectly adapted to the urban Paris environment. It needs just the smallest amount of water in a small container to lay its eggs. It preferentially feeds on humans, at dawn and dusk. The eggs themselves can withstand dry conditions for months. Once wet again, the eggs will hatch.

What makes this situation potentially dangerous for Paris is that some of these mosquitoes may have dengue already inside them, passed down from their mother. This could significantly reduce the number of bites needed to start an epidemic.

Within the time frame of the Olympics, an infected athlete or spectator could be bitten once by a mosquito and seed an epidemic in a week or so. Each female mosquito can lay up to 200 eggs at a time.

Most dengue cases are asymptomatic. People infected before or during the Olympics may have no idea they are carrying the virus. They might take the virus back home and seed an epidemic there without ever knowing it.

Whether people get sick or not, they are carrying the virus and can transmit the infection onwards if they get bitten by an Aedes mosquito.

At the Rio Carnival this year, a dengue outbreak just days before the event led to a public health emergency being called, but the event wasn’t cancelled.

There will be no public health emergency in Paris because the event itself is the risk factor. Anyone living, working, visiting, competing, volunteering or even just passing through Paris during the Olympic period is going to be part of a huge natural experiment – whether they know it or not.

Mark Booth, Senior Lecturer in Parasite Epidemiology, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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How breakdancing became the latest Olympic sport

Mikhail Batuev, Northumbria University, Newcastle

“Breaking” is the only new sport making its debut at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Breaking is probably better known to most of us as breakdancing. So why is the sport officially called breaking, and how is something so freestyle and subjective going to play out as a scored sport in Paris this summer?

The origins of breaking are somewhat debatable, although most agree its roots can be traced to 1970s house parties in the Bronx area of New York hosted by DJ Kool Herc, the founder of hip-hop. Breaking was performed on the dance floor by so-called B-boys and B-girls when the music tracks were “breaking” – meaning all that could be heard was the percussion track.

Throughout the 1980s the phenomenon garnered international exposure via music videos and movies such as Flashdance (1983), Breakin’ (1984) and Beat Street (1984). This is also when the media started to use the term “breakdancing”. However, breakers never add “dance” on the end, as this term came from outsiders rather than the hip-hop community, as one of the breaking pioneers Crazy Legs has pointed out.

While the idea of testing each other in format-free “cyphers” (when people gather in a circle and somebody freestyles in the middle) has always been fundamental to breakers, the importance and the number of organised breaking competitions has steadily grown with commercialisation and codification of the activity.

There have always been two main formats: crew competitions and one-on-one solo battles, which have manifested the individualism, creativity and self-expression of breakers. Still, as with many alternative activities evolving into sports, like skateboarding or surfing, the governance and competition frameworks have remained fragmented until recently.

It was not until 2018 that breaking became officially governed by the World DanceSport Federation. However, major competitions still exist outside the official governance, such as Red Bull BC One and the Battle of the Year, that arguably carry more credibility within the breaking community.

Why the Olympics?

Since the Olympic Agenda 2020 – a road map for the Olympic movement based on the three pillars of credibility, sustainability and youth – the IOC has continued to modernise the Olympic programme to make it more attractive to a wider and younger audience.

Undoubtedly, the inclusion of breaking fits well with that overall strategy – there has been nothing similar to breaking on the programme in terms of its creativity, affordability (no tools or equipment needed) and its urban nature. It is also fair to say though that breaking made it to Paris 2024 thanks to the insistence of the host country.

Apart from the usual core Olympic programme, the host country of each Olympics has five additional slots that they can fill with the sports of their preference. I analysed the Tokyo 2020 Games to find that when it came to its medal tally, Japan benefited from local favourites like karate, skateboarding, baseball and softball.

Los Angeles 2028 will add flag football (a variant of American football), lacrosse, cricket and squash. Bizarrely, Paris 2024 may well be the only time we will see breaking in the Olympics in the foreseeable future, although the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) is determined to ensure it returns in Brisbane 2032.

What we will see in Paris?

There are a lot of odd new terms to learn if you have never watched a breaking contest, such as “turtle freeze”, “six-steps” and “coin drop”. However, the format of Olympic competition is very straightforward: 16 B-boys and 16 B-girls will battle it out head-to-head under the lights of the Place de la Concorde.

There is a three-part qualifier for the games, so no doubt each of those qualifying athletes will be in the history books. Already qualified through WDSF World and continental championships are some heavy favourites, such as B-boys Victor (US) and Danny Dan (France), and B-girls India (Netherlands) and Nicka (Lithuania).

The last 14 will be decided by the top-ranked 80 breakers at the dedicated Olympic qualifier series in Shanghai in May and Budapest in June. To make the competition diverse, the IOC has limited each country to a maximum of two B-boys and two B-girls, while introducing two universal places that provide opportunities to smaller and emerging nations.

As in any creative sport, there are inevitable questions about scoring in breaking. Indeed, there is always going to be a substantial degree of subjectivity, but not drastically more than in established Olympic sports like gymnastics, synchronised swimming or figure skating.

Traditionally, three or five judges have been used in major breaking contests. However, this number has increased to nine in the Olympic framework, presumably to minimise subjectivity and risk of errors.

The trivium judging system that will be used in Paris was developed by influential B-boy Storm and DJ Renegade for the 2018 Youth Olympics, and has been fine-tuned through the series of WDSF events since.

It is based on six criteria to decide the winner of each battle: creativity, personality, technique, variety, performativity and musicality – this means connecting to a musical track that is not known in advance.

The breaking community has always been very close and informal, and some breakers and judges might find the new formalities of sporting frameworks unusual. However, there is still one unique feature that will hopefully survive the formalisation – it is the only sport where the judges have to perform for the athletes and spectators.

This usually happens before the competition starts and is called “the judges’ showcase”. University lecturer Rachael Gunn, aka B-girl Raygun, (who won the Oceania Breaking Championships and qualified for the Olympics) sees this unique practice as a symbolic gesture, a demonstration that underscores the unity and shared passion between contestants and those judging them.

So don’t forget to tune in early on August 9 and 10 to witness this special celebration before following this exciting contest when we will see the first-ever Olympic breaking champions crowned.

Mikhail Batuev, Lecturer in Sport Management, Department of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation, Northumbria University, Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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French reactor using full core of recycled uranium fuel

The Cruas-Meysse plant (Image: EDF)

Unit 2 of the Cruas-Meysse nuclear power plant in south-eastern France was recently restarted with its first full core of recycled uranium fuel. The move marks a major milestone in France's efforts to revive its domestic uranium reprocessing industry.

Reprocessed uranium (RepU) is derived from used fuel from nuclear reactors that has been processed at Orano's La Hague reprocessing plant. Once enriched, this uranium can be used again to fuel nuclear power reactors.

In France, only the four reactors at the Cruas-Meysse plant in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes are certified to use Enriched Reprocessed Uranium (ERU).

Historically, the enrichment process, requiring centrifuges solely dedicated to RepU, was carried out for industrial and economic reasons by Russia's Rosatom at its Seversk site. However, the new geopolitical situation since the onset of the war in Ukraine may lead to a reevaluation of these contracts.

For many years, EDF's Fuel Division has been developing a strategy for the management, recycling and reprocessing of used nuclear fuel assemblies, as well as the diversification of sources of supply, to ensure energy independence and the preservation of natural resources.

On 5 February, Cruas 2 was restarted with its first entirely recycled uranium fuel load.

"A decade-long effort has been made to revive a uranium reprocessing sector, which was suspended in 2013 (and resumed in 2018), and has just reached a historic milestone," Cédric Lewandowski, Senior Executive Vice-President, Nuclear and Thermal at EDF, said on LinkedIn.

He noted: "Reprocessing spent fuel to extract the energy-potential material (which constitutes 96% of the spent fuel's mass composition), namely uranium, for its second use is a circular economy approach that will save 25% of natural resources in the coming decades. Moreover, this sector emits 30% less CO2 than the natural uranium sector and reduces environmental impact."

Fuel containing RepU has the same general characteristics as natural uranium fuels. Worldwide, 75 reactors have used, or currently use, RepU.

Lewandowski said EDF's goal was to be able to reuse RepU in certain 1300 MWe reactors by 2027, aiming for over 30% RepU usage in the French nuclear fleet by the 2030s.

In May 2018, Framatome signed a contract to design, fabricate and supply fuel assemblies using enriched reprocessed uranium to EDF between 2023 and 2032. The fuel assemblies were to be produced at Framatome's facility at Romans-sur-Isère in the Drôme region of France.

EDF studied the possibility of recycling reprocessed uranium in pressurised water reactors in the early 1980s. The utility has demonstrated the use of reprocessed uranium in its 900 MWe power plants. The first enriched reprocessed uranium manufacturing campaign took place at Romans in 1987 on behalf of EDF. Precursor fuel assemblies were loaded into Cruas unit 4 from 1987 to 1990 and a first enriched reprocessed uranium fuel reload was introduced in the same reactor in 1994. EDF used RepU between 1994 and 2013 in the four Cruas reactors, allowing 4000 tonnes of RepU to be recycled.

EDF has made provision to store reprocessed uranium for up to 250 years as a strategic reserve. Currently, reprocessing of 1100 tonnes of EDF used fuel per year produces 11 tonnes of plutonium (immediately recycled as mixed-oxide fuel) and 1045 tonnes of reprocessed uranium converted into stable oxide form for storage.

According to Orano, there are currently nearly 34,000 tonnes of RepU being held in interim storage on the Tricastin site.Researched and written by World Nuclear News. French reactor using full core of recycled uranium fuel : Waste & Recycling - World Nuclear News

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Women in the UK miss out on 1 million pay rises

Women in the UK are less likely to have been given a pay rise or a bonus in the last six months than men, a new study from Randstad has found.

The recruiter polled the views of 2,000 people across the UK and found that, over the last six months, only 43 per cent of women reported having received a pay rise (in the form of higher wages, a salary increase, and / or a bigger bonus) — compared to 50 per cent of men. The seven percentage point gap in the UK is far wider than the average gap of four percentage points recorded by Randstad internationally.

Furthermore, while 9 per cent of men say they have received a “significant” pay rise in the last six months, only 4 per cent of women say the same.

With approximately 15.7 million women employed across the country, women in the UK have been shortchanged to the tune of over 1 million pay rises over the last six months.

Victoria Short, chief executive of Randstad UK, said: “This study’s findings are disheartening and shed light on a stark reality — pay inequality persists in the UK. It’s alarming to see that a significant number of women in the UK are being denied well-deserved salary increases and bonuses, further amplifying the existing wage gap. Gender pay equity is still a long way off when pay rises are being orchestrated and awarded so unevenly.”

Meanwhile, the research also found that three in every ten women in work (30 per cent) say their job does not provide the pay they need to live the life they want — compared to one quarter of men (25 per cent).

This is not a function of women attaching less importance to their pay than men. Marginally more women than men say pay is important to them when thinking about their current job and / or potential future employment — 94 per cent compared to 93 per cent of men.

Randstad’s research found that 21 per cent of women in the UK had requested or campaigned for better pay at work; that one in eight women (13 per cent) agreed “I have threatened to quit to negotiate better pay”; and that a fifth of women (20 per cent) reported having actually quit due to low pay.

However, women in similar G7 economies were more likely to take similar action. Almost half (47 per cent) of women in Italy had requested or campaigned for better pay at work; that one in five women in France (20 per cent) agreed “I have threatened to quit to negotiate better pay”; and that three in ten women in Canada (30 per cent) reported having actually quit due to low pay.

Victoria Short said: “It’s not the fault of women not wanting it enough. We care. Women have told us that they are taking action to minimise the effects of the discrimination. They’re asking for more pay. They’re threatening to leave unless they get it. And in many cases, they’re jumping ship to organisations that value them more highly. Unless the attitude of employers changes, they will have to do this more often and take their lead from employees in Italy, France, and Canada.”

Randstad also asked employees, “What do you consider to be most important in an employer’s equality, diversity, inclusion, and belonging policies?”. While more than four in ten women (41 per cent) named Gender Pay Equity as their top priority, only a quarter of men (25 per cent) said the same. In France, 64 per cent of women said gender pay equity — as did four in every ten men (42 per cent).

Victoria Short said, “On the one hand, the gender pay gap does not necessarily reflect how well companies treat women. On the other, if so many women are saying their top equality, diversity, and inclusion priority is gender pay equity — there’s clearly still a problem.”

In a bid to improve equality in the workplace, Theresa May’s government made it mandatory for bigger companies to publish a comparison of the average pay earned by men and women at their organisations in 2017. This year, the deadline for gender pay gap reporting will fall on 5th April, 28 days after International Women’s Day.

All organisations, including charities, with 250 or more employees were asked to publish their median and mean “gender pay gap” data in the hopes that transparency would incentivise businesses to reduce disparities.

The gender pay gap is not the same as equal pay, which measures whether men and women are paid the same for the same job. Instead, it compares the difference in women and men’s average earnings across an organisation at a point in time, regardless of their role. Even if an employer pays women and men equally, it could have a gender pay gap if the majority of women are employed in lower-paid jobs.

Victoria Short said, “A company with a few well-remunerated men and lots of less-well paid women on the payroll will show a large gender pay gap, despite the organisation treating men and women doing the same job exactly the same. We’ve come across organisations with large levels of disparity trying extremely hard to eliminate gender pay gaps — while less committed organisations recording lower gender pay gaps simply because of the composition of their workforce. “But if an employer’s workforce consists of lots of women at the bottom of the payscale and none at the top, year after year, then it’s likely they need to hire and promote more women.” Women in the UK miss out on 1 million pay rises

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What is this thing called love?

Researchers are divided about the nature of love, and whether it is universal or changeable. Shutterstock Sarah Pinto, Deakin University

Love it or loathe it, Valentine’s Day is a celebration of romantic love. But what exactly is romantic love? Researchers are increasingly interested in this question, and the answer is not at all clear.

What is an emotion?

Everyone from Plato to Taylor Swift has pondered the meaning of love. But, in the last two decades, researchers in the humanities and across the social, behavioural and cognitive sciences have also investigated romantic love.

Most – though not all – researchers are happy to call romantic love a human emotion. But what researchers mean by “emotion” varies.

Some explain emotions as hard-wired biological processes that are innate to humans. Others talk about them as behaviours or experiences that involve cognitive judgements. And still others think emotions are socially constructed, meaning they are social rather than natural phenomena.

Romantic love: universal or changeable?

Almost everyone separates out romantic love from other kinds of love or intimacy. This separation is usually about sex: when most people talk about romantic love, they mean love that involves sexual desire.

Many researchers think this kind of love is experienced by all people across time and place, and there is research to support this. Anthropological studies of romantic love across cultures show that love is likely to be a universal human emotion. Neuroscientific investigations of romantic love find similarities in the brain activity or chemistry of people who report being in love.

But the historian William Reddy cautions us not to “make too much of” similarities in romantic love across cultures, and with good reason. There is ample evidence that romantic love varies over time and place.

Cross-cultural studies of romantic love show significant differences in the emotion. And historical investigations almost always demonstrate changes in how people experience or imagine romantic love over time. Is romantic love universal or changeable? There is research to support both viewpoints.

Radical or conservative?

Some of the most interesting research into romantic love looks at its personal and political effects. As the sociologist Mary Evans explains, falling in love is meant to take lovers to a new and different place. Studies of people who are in love report that we understand romantic love as transformative.

And researchers sometimes talk about romantic love as a radical or subversive emotion with the potential to transform society. We can see this particularly in investigations of courtly love. Courtly love was a model of “aristocratic courtship” found in the literature of medieval France. Historians of courtly love often talk about it as a kind of radical resistance to the power of the church.

Others talk about romantic love as a deeply problematic emotion in desperate need of critique. These researchers would say that we may think romantic love is the site of personal freedom, but in fact we are living under “government by love”.

This critique was more common in the 1970s, when radical second-wave feminists attacked heterosexual romantic love as oppressive. But some researchers continue to explain romantic love as one of the ways our lives are regulated and controlled, limiting our intimate possibilities.

I want to know what love is

Some might say all this proves is that we should stop thinking we can research and understand emotions, and just experience them. But I don’t think so. Emotional experiences are a very significant part of our everyday lives, but they also have public and political effects.

Research into emotions gives us insight into the shape of these effects. It shows us the way that war widows were mobilised by their grief in 20th-century Australia, or how acknowledgements of national guilt for past injustices might lead to restitution for the disenfranchised.

Research into romantic love is built on people’s experiences and understandings of their intimate lives. What if love seems muddy in this research because people’s understandings and experiences of intimacy are muddy? What if the diverse ways that people live their intimate lives cannot be explained by a specific singular category, “romantic love”?

If that’s the case, then we don’t really need to worry about fitting into any particular romantic ideal this Valentine’s Day. And romantic love can be whatever we want it to be. Embrace it, avoid it, remake it in your own way. Love your partner, your cat, your friends, everyone, nobody. And don’t apologise for it.

Sarah Pinto, Lecturer in Australian Studies, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Nuclear output to reach new record by 2025, says IEA

Unit 1 of Turkey's Akkuyuy plant is due to start up later this year (Image: Akkuyu NPP)

Global nuclear power generation is forecast to grow by almost 3% annually on average through to 2026, reaching a new record high by 2025, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). More than half of new reactors expected to become operational during the outlook period are in China and India.

According to the IEA's Electricity 2024, which provides forecasts for electricity demand, supply and CO2 emissions up to 2026, global electricity demand is expected to grow at a faster rate over the next three years as the clean energy transition gathers speed, with all the additional demand forecast to be covered by technologies that produce low-emissions electricity.

While global growth in electricity demand eased slightly to 2.2% in 2023 due to falling electricity consumption in advanced economies, it is projected to accelerate to an average of 3.4% from 2024 through to 2026. About 85% of the increase in the world's electricity demand through to 2026 is expected to come from outside advanced economies - most notably China, India and countries in Southeast Asia.

However, record-setting electricity generation from low-emission sources - including nuclear power - should reduce the role of fossil fuels in providing power for homes and businesses. Low-emission sources are expected to account for almost half of the world's electricity generation by 2026, up from a share of 39% in 2023.

By 2025, nuclear power generation is forecast to reach an all-time high globally - exceeding the previous record set in 2021 - as output from France climbs, several plants in Japan are restarted, and new reactors begin commercial operations in many markets, including in China, India, South Korea and Europe. The IEA expects global nuclear generation to be almost 10% higher in 2026 compared with 2023.

Between 2024 and 2026, an additional 29 GW of new nuclear capacity is expected to come online globally. Asia remains the main driver of growth in nuclear power, with the region's share of global nuclear generation forecast to reach 30% in 2026.

The IEA says the increase in electricity generation from renewables and nuclear "appears to be pushing the power sector's emissions into structural decline". Over the next three years, low-emissions generation is set to rise at twice the annual growth rate between 2018 and 2023. Global emissions from electricity generation are expected to decrease by 2.4% in 2024, followed by smaller declines in 2025 and 2026.

"The power sector currently produces more CO2 emissions than any other in the world economy, so it's encouraging that the rapid growth of renewables and a steady expansion of nuclear power are together on course to match all the increase in global electricity demand over the next three years," said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. "This is largely thanks to the huge momentum behind renewables, with ever cheaper solar leading the way, and support from the important comeback of nuclear power, whose generation is set to reach a historic high by 2025. While more progress is needed, and fast, these are very promising trends."

In its updated Net Zero Roadmap, released in September last year, the IEA revised upwards the role of nuclear power. In the updated net-zero emissions (NZE) scenario, nuclear generating capacity more than doubles to reach 916 GWe in 2050.

At the COP28 climate change conference that concluded in December 2023, more than 20 countries signed a joint declaration to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050. Globally, that would mean an addition of 740 GW of nuclear capacity to the current stock of 370 GW.

According to the IEA, achieving this goal will require tackling the key challenge of reducing construction and financing risks in the nuclear sector. It also notes that momentum is also growing behind small modular reactor (SMR) technology. While technology's development and deployment "remains modest and is not without its difficulties", R&D is starting to pick up, it said.Researched and written by World Nuclear News. Nuclear output to reach new record by 2025, says IEA : Energy & Environment - World Nuclear News

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Women aren’t failing at science

Female scientists are often more productive than their male colleagues but much less likely to be recognised for their work. Argonne National Laboratory/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA Lorena Rivera León, United Nations University

Female research scientists are more productive than their male colleagues, though they are widely perceived as being less so. Women are also rewarded less for their scientific achievements.

That’s according to my team’s study for United Nations University - Merit on gender inequality in scientific research in Mexico, published as a working paper in December 2016.

The study, part of the project “Science, Technology and Innovation Gender Gaps and their Economic Costs in Latin America and the Caribbean”, was financed by the Gender and Diversity Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The ‘productivity puzzle’

The study, which looked at women’s status in 42 public universities and 18 public research centres, some managed by Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), focused on a question that has been widely investigated: why are women in science less productive than men, in almost all academic disciplines and regardless of the productivity measure used?

The existence of this “productivity puzzle” is well documented, from South Africa to Italy, but few studies have sought to identify its possible causes.

Our findings demonstrate that, in Mexico at least, the premise of the productivity puzzle is false, when we control for factors such as promotion to senior academic ranks and selectivity.

Using an econometric modelling approach, including several macro simulations to understand the economic costs of gender gaps to the Mexican academic system, our study focused on researchers within Mexico’s National System of Researchers.

We found that women produce higher quality research than men, often publishing in more prestigious scholarly journals with longer term impacts in the field.

A presentation on Mexican government funding for scientific investment. How many women can you count? Government of Aguascalientes/flickr, CC BY-SA

Additionally, despite the common belief that maternity leaves make women less productive in key periods of their careers, female researchers in fact have only between 5% to 6% more non-productive years than males. At senior levels, the difference drops to 1%.

Nonetheless, in the universities and research centres we studied, Mexican women face considerable barriers to success. At public research centres, women are 35% less likely to be promoted, and 89% of senior ranks were filled by men in 2013, though women comprised 24% of research staff and 33% at non-senior levels. Public universities do slightly better (but not well): female researchers there are 22% less likely to be promoted than men.

Overall, 89% of all female academics in our sample never reached senior levels in the period studied (2002 to 2013).

In some ways this data should not be surprising. Mexico ranks 66th out of 144 in the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Global Gender Gap Report and a 2015 report by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed that among OECD countries Mexico has the widest overall gender gap in labour participation rates.

Some efforts are being made to improve gender equality in research. In 2013 Mexico amended four articles of its Science and Technology Law to promote gender equality in those fields, adding provisions to promote gender-balanced participation in publicly funded higher education institutions and collect gender-specific data to measure the impact of gender on science and technology policies.

Several CONACYT research centres have launched initiatives to promote gender equality among staff, but many of these internal programmes are limited to anti-discrimination and sexual harassment training.

More aggressive programmes include: the Research Centre on Social Anthopology’s graduate scholarship programme, in collaboration with CONACYT and the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, to promote higher education and training among indigenous women; and policies to increase women’s participation in higher academic ranks and management at the CIATEQ technological institute, which also gives childcare subsidies to female staff.

But such examples are rare. Overall, women hoping to succeed in Mexican academia must work harder and produce more than their male colleagues to be even considered for promotion to senior ranks.

This persistent inequality has implications not just for women but for the country’s scientific production: if Mexico were to eliminate gender inequality in promotions, the national academic system would see 17% to 20% more peer-reviewed articles published.

A global glass ceiling

Mexico is not alone. Our previous research in France and South Africa, using the same econometric model, found that gender inequalities there also prevent women scientists from being promoted to higher academic ranks.

Examining French physicists working in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and in French public universities, we learned that female physicists in CNRS are as productive as their male colleagues or more so. Yet they are 6.3% less likely to be promoted within CNRS and 16.3% within universities. This is notable in a country that ranks 17th in the world in gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum.

In South Africa, race plays an important role in explaining gender inequalities in science. Examining the career paths of researchers from 2002 to 2011, we observed that there are not large differences in the promotion patterns of white researchers by gender: 60.1% of white men were not promoted (even in cases where they applied for promotion), compared to 60.6% of women in the same period. But the gap widens dramatically when you account for ethnicity: 70.4% of non-white men and 69.2% of non-white women are not promoted.

Black women face more barriers to advancement in the sciences than white women. World Bank Photo Collection/flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

In Uruguay the same IDB gender gaps project identified a glass ceiling as well. There women are underrepresented in the highest academic ranks and have a 7.1% less probability than men of being promoted to senior levels.

Moreover, from Mexico and Uruguay to France and South Africa, a vicious cycle between promotion and productivity is at play: difficulties in getting promoted reduce the prestige, influence and resources available to women. In turn, those factors can lead to lower productivity, which decreases their chances of promotion.

This two-way causality creates a source of endogeneity biases when including seniority as a variable to explain productivity in an econometric model. Only when we control for this, as well as for a selectivity bias (that is, publishing occurrence), do we find that female researchers are more productive than their male counterparts. Without these corrections, a gender productivity gap of 10% to 21% appears in favour of men.

The view that women are failing at science is commonly held, but evidence shows that, across the world, it’s science that’s failing women. Action must be taken to ensure that female researchers are treated fairly, recognised for their work, and promoted when they’ve earned it.

Lorena Rivera León, Economist and Research Fellow, United Nations University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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One year to go: Will the Paris 2024 Olympics see a return to normalcy?

A group of tourists walk past the Olympic rings in front of Paris City Hall with one year until the Paris 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony, on July 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Angela Schneider, Western University; Alan C Oldham, Western University, and Richard Baka, Victoria University

We haven’t had a “normal” Olympic Games since the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. The 2020 Tokyo Summer Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games were both affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in significant changes and schedule disruptions. There were virtually no spectators, strict COVID-19 protocols for anyone involved in the Games, budget issues, no corporate hospitality, reduced community engagement and a lackluster atmosphere in the two host cities. But there is hope for a return to a more traditional and enjoyable Games with the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics. With 10 million tickets available, spectators will be back in stadiums.Up to 600,000 spectators will be allowed at the opening ceremony in July 2024 which, for the first time in history, won’t take place in a stadium, but along the Seine River in northern France. Athletes will parade six kilometres along the river before arriving at the Trocadéro, where the final parts of the ceremony will take place. Athletes and sports: Since pandemic restrictions are no longer in place, competing at the Olympics and living in the Athlete’s Village will be a much better experience for athletes, who will be able to freely mix and mingle again. There will be 32 sports and 329 events at the Paris Games. Karate, baseball and softball have been dropped. Hoping to attract a youthful audience, breakdancing — known as “breaking” — will make its first Olympic appearance. Sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding, all of which made their debut at Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021), will remain in Paris. In the continuing push for gender equity, there will be equal numbers of male and female athletes for the first time. In the hopes of having as clean a Games as possible, strict doping controls will once again be in place for Paris. Due to sophisticated laboratory testing, some cheats will inevitably be caught — if not during the Games, then afterwards. The Canadian men’s 4x100-metre relay team, for example, just received their upgraded silver medals for the Tokyo Games after the British team tested positive for doping. Aaron Brown, from left to right, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and Andre De Grasse pose with their upgraded Tokyo Olympics silver medals during a ceremony in Langley, B.C., on July 29, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Russian and Belarusian athletes: A chief question is whether, and on what terms, athletes from Russia and Belarus will compete at the Games. Athletes from both countries have been effectively banned from international competition in the aftermath of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) strongly recommended banning athletes from both countries from the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, with the International Paralympic Committee following suit days later. Since then, the IOC has faced pressure from both sides. On the one side, several Baltic leaders have threatened to boycott the Games if Russians and Belarusians are allowed to compete. On the other, human rights groups have been advocating that individual athletes not face discrimination based on their nationality. The International Olympic Committee has attempted to strike a balance between continued support for Ukrainian athletes without “punishing athletes for the acts of their governments,” as IOC President Thomas Bach stated. The IOC has the ultimate authority as to who will not receive formal invitations to compete in the Paris Games, and it had earlier stated that it will not invite Russia and Belarus to the 2024 Olympics. While a final decision about the situation is unlikely to be made before the fall, Ukraine’s recent about-face to allow its athletes to compete against Russians and Belarusians reveals the situation’s complexity.

Olympic culture As the host city, Paris will be buzzing with excitement, offering a variety of Olympic activities. These include special fan zones, free viewings of the Olympic Torch Relay and opening ceremonies, access to hospitality houses and opportunities to visit sponsor sites like Samsung, Visa and Pride House. Plus, there is the Cultural Olympiad program that began just after the Tokyo Games finished. This program provides opportunities for host countries to “start new conversations between sporting and cultural circles during the four years building up to the Games then until the closing ceremony.” Record-breaking media coverage: While the Tokyo and Beijing Games still had extensive media coverage, the upcoming Paris Games are expected to have the most coverage out of any Olympics. By May, Paris organizers had sold 6.8 million tickets — about 70 per cent of the total inventory. And in July, the president of the Paris Olympics organizing committee said they had passed the €1 billion (C$1.5 billion) mark in secured sponsorship revenue. International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach delivers a speech during the IOC invitation ceremony on July 26, 2023 in Saint-Denis, outside Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Coca-Cola, the longest standing Olympic sponsor since 1928, is an official non-alcoholic beverage sponsor and the major sponsor of the Olympic Torch Relay and pin trading centres. Coke’s marketing agreement extends to 2032 and is estimated to be worth a whopping $3 billion. The return of corporate sponsorships will also include extensive corporate hospitality and packages from major sponsors, including Visa, Coke, Samsung and others. Security at the Games: From the French Revolution to the modern day, Paris undoubtedly has a strong history of social demonstrations. Recent events have raised the question of whether this propensity will play out during the Paris 2024 Games. In July, widespread protests and demonstrations took place after police shot and killed 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, a French citizen of Moroccan and Algerian descent, illustrating how fraught tensions are between racialized communities and law enforcement in France. As for the possibility of demonstrations occurring during the 2024 Olympics, it still remains to be seen. Whether or not they are to be expected, a heavy anti-terrorism security presence can be expected, as has become the norm in recent decades at mega sport events. On the positive side, recent investigations into corruption at French sport’s highest levels may lead to improved transparency regarding corruption in organizing committees as the Games approach. One year to go: The 2024 Paris Olympics should see a return to normalcy compared to the last two games. Although trepidation exists, with one year to go anxieties are normal. As Paris prepares to host its third Olympics (1904, 1924, 2024) — only the second city to achieve this milestone after London (1908, 1948, 2012) — there is optimism the event will run smoothly. The legacy of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the French founder of the modern Olympic Games, and the Olympic Movement should continue unabated. Angela Schneider, Director, International Centre for Olympic Studies, Western University; Alan C Oldham, PhD Student, International Centre for Olympic Studies, Western University, and Richard Baka, Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Research Centre, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Nuclear leaders issue call for action from G7 : Energy & Environment

World Nuclear Association and nuclear trade associations from Canada, Japan, Europe, the UK and the USA have issued a declaration calling on G7 governments to support the long-term operation of existing nuclear power plants and to accelerate the deployment of new nuclear power plants

The declaration was signed by the leaders of the trade associations, watched by the ministers from Canada, Japan, the USA, France and the UK during a first-of-its-kind industrial forum (Image: World Nuclear Association)

The declaration was issued at the Nuclear Energy Forum, held in Sapporo, Japan, alongside the meeting of G7 ministers on climate, energy and environment which took place on 15-16 April. It was signed by the leaders of World Nuclear Association, the Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA), Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF), nucleareurope, Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) of the USA and the UK's and Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), watched by ministers from five G7 nations.

Nuclear energy must serve as a cornerstone of the just transition to a clean and sustainable energy future, the declaration says: "To support decarbonisation at the scale required, the international community must work to extend the operating period of existing nuclear generation resources, develop the policies to enable new nuclear deployment and accelerate the development of a new portfolio of reactor technologies."

Nuclear energy is uniquely positioned to provide energy systems with clean, affordable, low-carbon electricity, from a compact footprint which reduces habitat and biodiversity loss. It provides high-quality long-term jobs that drive economic growth, as well as energy security against geopolitical, economic and social challenges, the declaration says: "Taken together, these characteristics enable nuclear energy to be the foundation of a clean energy future that meets climate goals, improves public health and quality of life, and contributes to energy security and economic prosperity."

Recognising the "positive steps taken by most of the G7 countries", the industry associations "encourage G7 Climate, Energy and Environment Ministers to take additional meaningful actions to maximise the benefits of nuclear energy for people all over the world" by:Maximising the utilisation of existing nuclear power plants

• Accelerating the deployment of new nuclear plants
• Supporting international cooperation and the nuclear supply chain
• Developing a financial environment that promotes investment in nuclear power
• Supporting innovative nuclear technology development
• Promoting public understanding of nuclear energy
• Collaborating internationally to share best practices, including working toward the realisation of final nuclear waste disposal
• Supporting countries that have newly introduced, or are considering, nuclear energy.

The declaration was signed by World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León, George Christidis, representing CNA President and CEO John Gorman, JAIF President Arai Shiro, NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick, NIA Chief Executive Tom Greatrex and nucleareurope Director General Yves Desbazeille in the presence of energy ministers from Canada, France, Japan, the UK and the USA.

Speaking at the forum, Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura said the meeting is taking place at a "historical turning point" as ministers and industry work together. "As the presidency of the G7 meeting I have truly felt that we are really discussing the balancing of decarbonisation and the stable supply of energy, and the focus on nuclear has never been stronger," he said.

That nuclear energy was selected for the first industrial forum of its kind ever to be held in conjunction with a G7 ministerial meeting shows a "real seriousness of purpose among the G7 or 5 of the G7 to focus on nuclear," US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said: "We are really standing at the dawn of a new nuclear age...nuclear is a critical, clean, baseload power."

Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson said the "existential threat" of climate change is urgent and requires the G7 nations to show "leadership" to the rest of the world, in a context where energy security has become even more important. "We need to ensure that we are developing a grid that will be reliable, affordable and non-emitting, and in that context nuclear energy is a key part," he said.

French Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher said nuclear is "without doubt a major asset to achieve both energy independence and an effective fight against climate change," while Grant Shapps, UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, said there is a "renewed buzz" around nuclear: "Deployment of proven, reliable, safe nuclear technology demonstrates that we are serious about energy security and climate action."

The half-day Nuclear Energy Forum, which also included panel discussions with senior figures from the global nuclear industry, can be watched on-demand on YouTube.Researched and written by World Nuclear News Source: World Nuclear News

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