The role of nuclear energy during COVID-19 and beyond

The Coronavirus (COVID‑19) pandemic has had significant impacts on the global economy and energy sector. It has also underlined the importance of electricity reliability and resilience during major disruptions. With governments considering a broad range of options for economic recovery and job creation, it is becoming increasingly clear that stimulus packages have the opportunity to support energy systems that both fulfil these criteria while meeting long‑term environmental goals and energy security.

The NEA is examining the regulatory and operational impacts of the crisis, and working closely with its members to enable exchanges of policy approaches and best practices around the world. As part of these efforts, the NEA issued four policy briefs and hosted a series of discussions around these policy briefs to explore the role that nuclear energy can play in the post‑COVID‑19 recovery, whilst also supporting the path towards a truly sustainable and environmentally responsible energy future.

Chernobyl’s nuclear fuel is ‘smoldering’ again and could explode

Researchers monitoring the plant — which infamously exploded in a deadly 1986 meltdown — have detected a steady spike in the number of neutrons in an underground room called 305/2. The room is full of heavy rubble, concealing a radioactive mush of uranium, zirconium, graphite and sand that oozed into the plant’s basement like lava, before hardening into formations called fuel-containing materials (FCMs). Rising neutron levels indicate that these FCMs are undergoing new fission reactions, as neutrons strike and split the nuclei of uranium atoms, creating energy.

For now, this radioactive waste is smoldering “like the embers in a barbecue pit,” Neil Hyatt, a nuclear materials chemist at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., told Science magazine. However, it’s possible that those embers could fully ignite if left undisturbed for too long, resulting in another explosion.