[en] An effective regulatory framework is essential to the success of a national nuclear power programme. The IAEA has developed the Milestones approach to help Member States embarking on nuclear power to understand and develop the necessary infrastructure requirements in a phased way. The regulatory framework is one of the 19 infrastructure issues that are described in the Milestones approach. The primary objective of this publication is to present the experiences of selected Member States that are in the process of building or expanding their regulatory framework for a nuclear power programme, including the challenges they faced. The publication also provides insights on IAEA safety requirements and guidance on establishing an effective regulatory framework with reference to the IAEA Safety Standards Series, the IAEA Nuclear Security Series, and IAEA Safeguards guidance publications. In addition, it demonstrates how these requirements fit into the overall development of a nuclear power programme through the IAEA Milestones approach.

[en] The following text summarizes the development by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of its peaceful nuclear energy programme during the ten-year period beginning in 2008 with the initial consideration by the Government of the potential development of a peaceful nuclear energy programme, up to the substantial completion of the 4 x 1400 MWe Barakah nuclear power plant.

[en] Following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 11 March 2011, the IAEA set out to review and strengthen nuclear safety globally, drawing on lessons learned from the accident. IAEA Action Plan for Nuclear Safety: Efforts began at the IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety convened in June 2011. There, the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety was developed. Endorsed by Member States in September 2011, the Action Plan defined a programme of work to strengthen the global nuclear safety framework in response to the accident. Since the adoption of the Action Plan, significant progress has been made in several key areas, including assessments of the safety vulnerabilities of nuclear power plants; strengthening of the IAEA’s safety peer review services; as necessary, revision of the relevant IAEA safety standards; improvements in emergency preparedness and response capabilities; capacity building in nuclear and radiation safety, as well as strengthening of safety culture; enhancements in communication and information sharing with and among national authorities; international cooperation; and strengthening of relevant international legal frameworks.

[en] RTE is the mainspring in enhancing energy transition and developing renewable energy in France. To further knowledge on the subject, RTE publishes a detailed inventory of existing and projected wind and photovoltaic installations. This vast overview was achieved with the help of ENEDIS (ERDF), SER (Association of renewable energy industrialists), and ORE Agency (Power network operators). The outstanding facts of this 24. edition of the renewable electricity synthesis are: 50% of renewable energy production capacity are from solar or wind origin. Solar and wind parks power reached almost 28 GW by December 31, 2020. With more than 25.7 GW of installed power, hydroelectricity remains the first renewable energy source in France. The bio-energy power generation park exceeds now 2.1 GW. All sources included, the renewable energy sources have grown by 637 MW during the last quarter 2020, reaching 55.9 GW at December 31, 2020. Power distribution systems are continuously evolving in order to meet the 40% renewable electricity production goal by 2030.

[en] With the Covid-19 crisis and its health, social and economic consequences, 2020 has demonstrated the urgent need to act to support the development of more just, united and sustainable societies. Unfortunately, the long-awaited leap has yet to come. As the world will need to decrease fossil fuel production by roughly 6% per year between 2020 and 2030 to follow a 1.5 deg. C consistent pathway, it is crucial that financial players put an end to their support to fossil fuel companies. They should both stop any support to coal and act with zero tolerance towards the companies expanding the most climate-damaging sectors, such as shale oil and gas. One year ago, on January 14, Larry Fink announced BlackRock was finally on its way to investing sustainably. The largest investor in the world, with $7.8 tn in assets under management, also published a coal policy, aiming at 'exiting thermal coal producers' but only excluding mining companies with more than 25% of revenues from coal production. To this day, BlackRock still has no policy regarding its investments in other fossil fuels. Reclaim Finance has conducted research on BlackRock's holdings (as of October 2020) to verify the real-world consequences of these announcements and assess the investor's exposure to the coal sector. Unfortunately, results show that even with this new policy, BlackRock remains a massive investor in coal companies and even in companies planning new coal projects, despite research showing that such projects are incompatible with any serious climate commitment. BlackRock has a major problem with its passively managed investments, which make it widely exposed to coal assets likely to become stranded. They also massively expose it to other fossil fuels, as even the most polluting companies are not excluded from BlackRock's investments. BlackRock's half-hearted steps in 2020 to invest more sustainably have proven to be superficial. Our analysis shows that the action taken is utterly insufficient to truly curb investments in the sector most problematic when it comes to climate change: fossil fuels. 2021 is a critical year for climate action, with new commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions expected by private and state actors ahead of COP 26 in Glasgow. As a first step towards the necessary phase-out of fossil fuels investments, BlackRock must immediately step up the ambition of its global coal exclusion policy, by extending its scope to the entire coal value chain and to all its assets.

[en] This publication presents a quarterly review of power generation from photovoltaic power plants connected to the French grid (continental France, Corsica and overseas territories): number of facilities and total connected load, quarterly and annual distribution of new connections, distribution of existing and new photovoltaic power plants per power range, trend of the photovoltaic solar power growth, pending projects (number and power), detailed regional results (number of facilities, power, newly connected loads), annual and quarterly evolution of power generation and connected loads, results revision.

[en] In this paper, translated from an article published by Nuclear Engineering International (NEI), the author presents his views on the future of civil nuclear propulsion: nuclear powered container ships have returned after a decade in the doldrums, nuclear energy already present at sea with more than 200 naval reactors, the development of Floating nuclear power plants, the question of docking of nuclear-powered ships, the possible resistance from incumbent interests at sea in future.

[en] The IAEA’s statutory role is to “seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world”. Among other functions, the IAEA is authorized to “foster the exchange of scientific and technical information on peaceful uses of atomic energy”. One way this is achieved is through a range of technical publications including the IAEA Nuclear Energy Series.The IAEA Nuclear Energy Series comprises publications designed to further the use of nuclear technologies in support of sustainable development, to advance nuclear science and technology, catalyse innovation and build capacity to support the existing and expanded use of nuclear power and nuclear science applications. The publications include information covering all policy, technological and management aspects of the definition and implementation of activities involving the peaceful use of nuclear technology.The IAEA safety standards establish fundamental principles, requirements and recommendations to ensure nuclear safety and serve as a global reference for protecting people and the environment from harmful effects of ionizing radiation.When IAEA Nuclear Energy Series publications address safety, it is ensured that the IAEA safety standards are referred to as the current boundary conditions for the application of nuclear technology.Safe, reliable and productive performance in the nuclear industry results from a systematic consideration of human performance. A plant or other facility consists of both the engineered system and the human user of that system. It is therefore crucial that engineering activities consider the humans who will be interacting with those systems. Engineering design, specifically instrumentation and control (I&C) design, can influence human performance by driving how plant personnel carry out work and respond to events within a nuclear power plant. As a result, human–system interfaces (HSIs) for plant operators as well as the maintenance and testing of the I&C system cannot be designed by isolated disciplines.The focus of this publication is to integrate knowledge from the disciplines of human factors engineering (HFE) and I&C to emphasize an interdisciplinary approach for the design of better HSIs and consequently improved human performance in nuclear power plants. This publication provides practical explanations of the HFE processes and corresponding outputs that inform the I&C development.The framework outlined in this publication takes into consideration the I&C life cycle described in IAEA Safety Standards Series No. SSG-39, Design of Instrumentation and Control Systems for Nuclear Power Plants, and the HFE programme guidance in IAEA Safety Standards Series No. SSG-51, Human Factors Engineering in the Design of Nuclear Power Plants, for easing the inclusion and application of these two disciplines within an engineering design process. This publication specifically addresses points in the design process where collaboration between HFE, I&C and other important disciplines and stakeholders is paramount, and it identifies key tools and tasks for exchanging inputs and outputs between different design disciplines, particularly I&C and HFE.The primary intent of this publication is to provide Member States with practical information to improve their approach to I&C through the consideration of HFE. This publication may also be useful to design and technical support organizations, as well as to regulatory authorities, by providing background information to support their activities.

[en] Illustrated by many maps, graphs and tables, this publication proposes a rather detailed overview of the status and development (production and location, employment, sector turnover, market and tariffs) of the different electricity-producing renewable energies: wind energy, photovoltaic energy, hydraulic energy, solid biomass, biogas, renewable urban wastes, geothermal energy, marine energies). This issue includes a chapter on the Regional plan for land use and sustainable development (sraddet), and a regional overview of the different electricity-producing renewable sectors. A focus is proposed for each French region.

[en] Offshore floating nuclear power plant (OFNPP) is a significant solution for marine electricity shortage. In this study, the optimized activated carbon for decay technology was studied in the experiment bench and engineering prototype respectively. The results show that ZLCYK001 activated carbon has better properties. The adsorption coefficient for krypton can be improved when the pressure is increased, the temperature and relative humidity are decreased and the flow velocity is controlled between 0.12 and 5 cm/s. The adsorption property has good reliability and stability in engineering prototype which is significant for the design and operation of the waste gas treatment system. (author)