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All countries in Europe have a common interest in ensuring that radioactive waste management is done in a way that guarantees safety and security today and also in the long term, writes Charles McCombie, president of Arius Association.

Finnish power companies are looking for ways to streamline licensing and qualification processes through a new project started last year called KELPO. The first part of the project has been completed and it is moving ahead to the pilot phase, writes Tuomo Huttunen, senior advisor on nuclear power at industry group Finnish ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß.

With the anticipated increase in decommissioning-related activities over the coming decades, significant challenges lie ahead. By viewing nuclear back-end management through a sustainability lens, a set of principles that offer tremendous benefits for a wide range of stakeholders emerges, writes Kristina Gillin, a principal consultant in nuclear waste and decommissioning at Lloyd's Register. 

Policymakers have unreasonably and unfairly overlooked the role of nuclear energy in the fight against climate change, writes Borislav Boev, a PhD student at D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics in Bulgaria.

Climate change and its effects on Earth continue to be a hot topic in the media these days. A lot of organisations, both international and governmental, claim that they are putting their best efforts into tackling the issue of greenhouse gas emissions.

Nuclear plant decommissioning is simpler, faster, and less expensive when taken into consideration during the siting, design, construction, and operation phases of the nuclear plant life-cycle. This is also true for radioactive waste management.

Since 2012, the OECD Nuclear ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß Agency has produced very useful reports on the cost of electricity generation with the aim of finding the most efficient and least expensive ways of decarbonising the energy system. The Paris-based organisation recently presented the conclusions of its latest report, The Costs of Decarbonisation - System Costs with High Shares of Nuclear and Renewables, which was published on 25 January. Philippe Costes, senior adviser at ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß Nuclear Association, here presents his review of the document.

There is growing interest in nuclear power across several African countries. The USA could be more engaged to create more equitable and sustainable deployment of clean nuclear power on the African continent, write Jessica Lovering and Kenton de Kirby of the Breakthrough Institute.

Many observers were surprised this year when Uzbekistan announced its decision to build a nuclear power station, which will be the first in Central Asia in the last 30 years, writes Jurabek Mirzakhmudov, director general of UzAtom, the state nuclear agency which was established in July.

Germany already knows that it will fail to achieve the CO2 emission reduction targets set for 2020, and the gap will be quite significant. That’s why it is postponing the closure of coal-fired power plants and is building Nord Stream 2, writes Józef Sobolewski, director of the Nuclear ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß Department in Poland's Ministry of ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß.

Agneta Rising, director general of ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß Nuclear Association, urges policy makers gathered at COP24 - the 24th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - to recognise the longstanding role of nuclear power in the low-carbon energy mix.

The nuclear power industry must continue to work hard to increase its share of the global energy mix, Kirill Komarov told delegates at the IFNEC-NICE Future conference last week. The theme of the conference, held in Tokyo on 12-14 November, was 'Challenges and Opportunities Facing Nuclear ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß in an ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß Transitions Context: Innovation and Actions to Advance Clean Nuclear ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß'.

Political support for nuclear power is crucial if this proven, sustainable and zero-carbon source of electricity is to play its part among other clean energy technologies in the fight against climate change. This was the message of ministers and industry leaders at UNECE’s 9th International Forum on ¶¶Òõ´«Ã½ÔÚÏß for Sustainable Development.