NEI Nuclear Notes

Here’s a few tidbits of nuclear news to wonder about and inspire awe: The IAEA says that nuclear energy is an unstoppable runaway freight train kind of thing. Well, not precisely : Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yury Sokolov said on Tuesday that the economic crisis would not change the driver for the development of the nuclear power industry. And why not? Sokolov said that the expansion of energy demand, the need of improving energy security, the requirement of environment protection as well as the prevention of climate change, which were the "external drivers" to the development of nuclear industry, were not changed by the economic crisis. True, but plants still need access to capital to get built and it’s the collapse of the credit market fueling the economic downturn. So we think Sokolov is perhaps confusing the abstract drivers of the industry – and we agree with him about those – and the practical drivers – and...