The main trends that have been shaping the global nuclear landscape throughout 2024 manifested at COP29 held in late November in Azerbaijan. Interest in nuclear power is growing, with nuclear capacity additions announced and project financing raised. Politics continues to divide the global nuclear industry, but Russia initiates new integration opportunities.
Interest awakened
The role of nuclear power in the green energy transition is strengthening. This trend was commented by Kirill Komarov, First Deputy Director General for Corporate Development and International Business at Rosatom, speaking at COP29: “Rosatom sees demand for nuclear technologies growing in many regions of the world. Increasingly more countries are seeking to adopt nuclear power or expand its share in the energy mix. The increase in nuclear generation should be accompanied with an appropriate expansion of production facilities to supply the necessary amount of core equipment for large and small nuclear power plants, with staff training, and with support from the financial sector. All this requires governments and businesses to join forces.” Kirill Komarov also emphasized that nuclear power plants, wherever they operate, provide both low-carbon energy and energy security, being reliable sources of electricity with a predictable cost per kilowatt hour for decades.
The growing interest in nuclear power was reiterated right at the forum. Six countries — Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Turkey — joined the 25 nation ministerial declaration to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. The goal had been stated a year before at COP28 in Dubai. The signatories to the declaration acknowledge: “Analyses from the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and World Nuclear Association show that global installed nuclear energy capacity must triple by 2050 in order to reach global net-zero emissions by the same year.” No less important is that the analysis from the International Energy Agency shows nuclear power more than doubling from 2020 to 2050 in global net-zero emissions by 2050 scenarios and shows that decreasing nuclear power would make reaching net zero more difficult and costly.
Turkey, it should be noted, is already contributing to the tripling of nuclear energy capacity. This is the country where Rosatom is building a four-unit nuclear power plant with a total electric capacity of 4,800 MW. Each unit of the plant will be equipped with a VVER 1200 reactor.
Kazakhstan’s support for the initiative are not mere words either. In October this year, Kazakhstan residents voted at a national referendum in favor of building a nuclear power plant in the country. The government has set up an ad hoc commission to study proposals from technology vendors. Russia, which has long been Kazakhstan’s reliable partner in the nuclear sector, has repeatedly declared its readiness to provide Russian nuclear technologies, maintenance services, and training support for the construction of a nuclear station.
Financing proposals
Nuclear project finance is a sore point for the industry. After the Fukushima accident, nuclear had not been favored by investors for a long time. It is not until recently that the attitude has begun to change, with a clear trend emerging this year.
At COP29, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi signed a memorandum of understanding with Odile Renaud-Basso, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). “Collaboration with financial institutions such as the EBRD is essential to attract investments needed for a low-carbon future and to make the exceptional benefits of nuclear energy safe, sustainable and affordable for everyone,” Rafael Grossi said.
Earlier in September, 14 financial organizations made statements at the Climate Week in New York, expressing support for the long-term goals of increasing nuclear power generation and expanding nuclear industry as a whole to accelerate clean electricity generation.
This year has also become remarkable for the nuclear sector as IT giants have for the first time ever shown interest in investing in it. For instance, Google signed an agreement with the American start-up Kairos Power to purchase electric power from a yet-to-be-deployed fleet of small modular reactors with a total capacity of 500 MW (the financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed). Amazon led a USD 500 million funding round for X-energy. Microsoft signed a 20 year agreement with the US energy company Constellation to purchase power from the Three Mile Island nuclear power station. However, the station needs to be restarted first, which will require obtaining regulatory approvals and around USD 1.6 billion in finance, according to initial estimates.
Judging by Rafael Grossi’s social media post after signing the memorandum with the EBRD, support for the nuclear industry from the financial community is still far from desirable: “Finance institutions must adapt and keep pace with what the market calls for — and there’s a clear demand for nuclear. At the COP29 event on financing low-carbon tech, I stressed the urgent need to mobilize capital to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050.”
Activity in Europe
Europe is an illustrative example of how the two trends outlined above are manifesting. As little as a few years ago, many European countries were lukewarm about nuclear, but the attitude is changing, and some projects have already secured funding.
At COP29, EnergoNuclear, a subsidiary of the Romanian energy company Nuclearelectrica, signed an EPCM contract with a consortium of American, Canadian and Italian companies for the construction of Cernavodă Units 3 and 4 with CANDU reactors. The money for the project was also raised as the USA, Canada, and Italy offered over USD 7 billion in export finance.
Poland, which is planning to build its first nuclear power plant, also received confirmation that it would be provided with financial support. The nuclear station with three AR1000 reactors is expected to be constructed in the north of Poland (on the Baltic Sea coast). The US Eximbank has expressed interest in providing USD 17 billion, the Polish government has promised to allocate about USD 15.7 billion, the US International Development Finance Corporation has signed a letter of interest for over USD 970 million. However, these agreements with the American banks are still preliminary, and the total amount promised is not enough to finance the new construction, which is estimated to cost USD 40 billion.
Paks II in Hungary is yet the most advanced nuclear construction project in Europe. Being built by Rosatom, Paks II will have two power units with VVER 1200 reactors. Much work has been done on the site to prepare it for the foundation concreting. To date, workers have installed an impervious blanket to prevent groundwater ingress and are proceeding with excavation and soil compaction operations, erecting auxiliary buildings, and so on. The first concrete is expected to be poured in the first quarter of 2025.
Advanced reactor territory
Attempts continue to divide the nuclear community. The US and UK have signed a framework agreement to allow the Generation IV International Forum (GIF IV) to continue after the current agreement expires in February 2025. It was stated after the signing that GIF IV would exclude Russia from future nuclear R&D collaborations.
Given the sluggish progress in developing and deploying truly advanced reactor technologies in the US and especially in the UK, which intends to take a ‘leading role’ in GIF IV, the agreement can only cause a sense of embarrassment. For example, two units are currently under construction in the UK, but both of them are being built by France’s EDF. The UK no longer has its own advanced technology for large reactors. The United States, in its turn, has no more reactors under construction after the much-troubled Vogtle 3 and 4 were finally commissioned.
It is of fundamental importance for the global nuclear industry how Rosatom interprets the term ‘Generation IV’. A vigorous discussion of what it is took place at the Atomexpo forum in Sochi, Russia, in April this year. Alexander Lokshin, First Deputy Director General for New Nuclear Energy Products at Rosatom, said at the forum that Generation IV should not include reactors alone, but systems that would address the two main challenges of the present-day nuclear industry, minimizing waste and maximizing the use of energy contained in natural uranium. This is the principle followed by an experimental power production facility, which is being built in Russia, The facility will include a fast neutron BREST-OD 300 reactor, and fuel reprocessing and fuel fabrication modules.
Important is that Rosatom has initiated a new nuclear power platform. In October, heads of the largest nuclear companies and agencies from the BRICS member countries held their first meeting in Moscow. “We propose to join forces under the BRICS Nuclear Platform, a voluntary alliance of companies, professional nuclear communities and NGOs supporting the development and deployment of nuclear technologies,” Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev explained the purpose of the new association at the meeting. The primary goal of the new platform is to introduce and promote best practices and advanced approaches in the energy and non-energy applications of civil nuclear technology in the BRICS and BRICS+ markets, and to develop mechanisms and models that would stimulate nuclear projects. “I am confident that the cooperation within the new association will be fruitful for the BRICS and BRICS+ countries,” Orpet Peixoto, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Brazilian Association for the Development of Nuclear Activities (ABDAN), said at the forum in support of the initiative.
In addition, Rosatom’s Deputy Director General for Human Resources Tatiana Terentyeva presented an international mentoring and cooperation platform at the COP29 youth session on climate change education. “The platform will enable young people to share knowledge, dreams and opinions, meet like-minded people and even take on leadership roles for the next generations. Young leaders are the cornerstone of tomorrow’s energy landscape, and their enthusiasm can solve the most complex challenges,” Tatyana Terentyeva said and invited the session attendees to visit the World Atom Week 2025, which will be dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Russian nuclear industry.
