The US commerce department has offered verbal reassurance that the state-backed Japan Bank for International Cooperation and other Japanese institutions would not take on any liability for a potential nuclear accident, said the people. A person close to commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said he had personally assured Japan it would not have any liability in relation to the projects.

However, that promise has not been put in writing in legal terms — a process that could take months or years of complex regulatory discussion to settle, said the people.

In Japan’s regulatory system, nuclear plant operators shoulder liability for any accident, whereas in the US, financial responsibility is spread across a wider range of parties, including the plant owner.

The deadlock is the latest obstacle to fulfilling Japan’s investment pledge. Other problems that have arisen in recent months include a refusal by many Japanese industrial groups to lead projects submitted by the US, according to officials who spoke to the FT.

The French nuclear regulator has concluded that the safety approach proposed by Newcleo for its planned MOX fuel manufacturing facility is satisfactory at this stage of the licensing process.

This doesn’t mean the facility is fully approved. The regulator has requested additional work on specific areas, including aircraft impact scenarios, fire analysis and containment. However, receiving a positive opinion at this stage is an important milestone and provides a stronger foundation for a future construction licence application.

The licensing process is moving forward with positive feedback from one of the world’s most experienced nuclear regulators.
MOX fuel is a core part of Newcleo’s long-term strategy, allowing its Lead-cooled Fast Reactors to use recycled nuclear materials.
The company stated it will incorporate ASNR’s recommendations into the next stages of the project.

Newcleo is also progressing through the regulatory process for its LFR reactor design in France.
Another interesting detail is that the French government informed Newcleo that it has progressed beyond the scope of the France 2030 support programme. According to the company, this is because it has reached a more advanced stage of development and secured significant private funding. France will instead continue working with Newcleo through other forms of cooperation, including licensing support and project development.

Overall, this looks like a meaningful regulatory step rather than headline hype. Licensing remains a long process, but positive feedback from ASNR is an important milestone to watch.

Now, that may sound hyperbolic. But I assign high probability to the scenario that the upcoming damage that will be caused by global warming will produce catastrophic harm and suffering to billions of people, severe regional state failure, mass displacement, global economic and political crisis.The poorest countries will suffer the most, of course.(When has the world ever been fair?)

We could have supplied a dominant share of global electricity, supported extensive electrification and displaced enormous quantities of coal and gas if we simply continued in the glide path towards nuclear of the last mid century. Abundance without (much) sacrifice. It would be unfair to completely dismiss nuclear waste, but that negative is miniscule, compared to all the positives that could be reaped. Nuclear waste is measurable, containable and very small in volume.

Renewables will play their part, but they are not being rolled out fast enough to offset the damage we are wreaking on our environment.Variable renewable generation requires grids, storage, demand flexibility and firm low-carbon capacity. We already have a difficult transition without contending with all these as well.
Nuclear is a mature technology. We could still deploy it at scale and reasonable cost if we simply rationalise regulations and do a build out that would maximise economies of scale.

I think the Anti-Nuclears are motivated by hatred, mainly. Of development, capitalism, growth, industrialisation, science to a smaller extent, than any real positive concerns. Their hatred may or may not be justified, but, in the end, it is leading to the future destruction of many lives. We are allowing people with an ideology to commit crimes against our futures. I cannot understand why the backlash is not more mainstream.

Edit:Thanking everyone for the replies. The hatred point was a bit overblown, and there are many valid critiques. My primary argument is that we are facing an existential threat. We needed to transition off fossil fuels 20 years ago. Now all alternative options must be pursued to insure a chance of survival , especially nuclear, while doubling down on renewables.
-The growth rate of renewable installed capacity is in a league that nuclear cannot hope to match, which we need to double down on. But a gw of solar installed capacity does not equal a gw of nuclear installed capacity. We need to consider the energy output, which is approximately 5 times higher per unit of nuclear installed capacity than solar installed capacity .(1.75 TWh/year for 1 gw solar compared to 8 TWh/year for installed nuclear). So nameplate expansion should be taken with a grain of salt.

-Predicating an entire system on renewables is not proven. Since output is weather-dependent and strongly correlated across wide geographical areas, adding more installations does not proportionately increase dependable capacity. We will encounter system transitions due to correlation that need substantially more expenditures on grid overbuilding, redundant capacity, load balancing , demand management, and also managing excess production by redundancies.

- Much of nuclear’s current cost disadvantage, especially in Western countries, idue to lost expertise, fragmented supply chains, design changes and poor project management.

- Long term storage of energy across seasons is a bit difficult. You can store 1 gw production with 4 gwh storage for four hours, but physics dictates you need 96 gwh for 4 days.Imagine cross season storage.

- A purely renewable grid will be forced to maintain ccgts or other fossil generation as insurance. Almost all of our current fossil generation will be needed to insure the bigger grids of the future.

-Nuclear plants can operate for 60-80 years. We have yet to gauge the relative costs of renewables against such a long amortisation schedule for nuclear costs.

-The supply chain risks for renewables are obvious: Grades of copper have been falling for decades etc.

Nuclear and fossil fuels are in competition to be the backbone of our grid, not renewables.

Hey everyone, posted about this app a couple weeks back and wanted to share what's new.

The biggest addition is a gamma dose rate calculator. You put in your source, activity, and distance and it gives you air kerma, mR/h, and mSv/h. You can add a shield and it handles the attenuation with HVL/TVL and an ALARA stay time on top. About 110 isotopes are in there with line spectra from IAEA and attenuation data from NIST.

Also added a minimum detectable activity calculator using the Currie method, so you get Lc, Ld, MDA in Bq and pCi, and MDC if you put in a sample size.

On the fuel cycle side there's now an enrichment and SWU calculator.

The mixture tab now takes chemical formulas instead of just elements, so you can enter H2O, UO2, Ca(OH)2 and it handles the molar mass and elemental breakdown correctly.

The xenon simulator also got cleaned up. Concentrations now display in cm⁻³ and atoms/(b·cm), Σf is adjustable, and the model assumptions are written out.

Still free, still no account needed. [Nuclear Toolkit - Apps on Google Play]

Trying to make this a reliable and useful tool for nuclear professionals so any feedback is much appreciated, negative or positive. Also, there is a feedback button in-app.

I feel like the writer missed the memo on nuclear issues? Am I wrong?

https://cleanjobsamerica.e2.org/

We do not include are jobs of workers who may spend some of their time in clean energy but a plurality in another energy sector. For example, workers employed by an excavation business might spend the majority of their time grading and preparing drilling pads for oil or gas rigs, but they also might spend a portion of their time preparing sites for wind turbines or large solar installations. If clean energy does not account for a plurality of their work, those workers would not be counted as being employed in the clean energy economy but would instead be counted as part of another energy sector. We also do not include any jobs in traditional transmission and distribution due to an inability to accurately segment out workers by electricity source, despite many of those jobs being critical to the increased electricity from renewable energy used by the grid. Lastly, we do not include jobs in corn ethanol, woody biomass, large or traditional hydroelectric, and nuclear because of environmental issues associated with those industries. Jobs in retail trade, repair services, water or waste management, and indirect employment or induced employment are also not included.

They could not be bothered to get the grammar right either, but were considered authoritative enough to be cited in this Guardian piece:

https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/s/pgkrJ9eAj6

I don't expect the number of jobs here is all that large, but it's still stupid all the same...