WEMO24-Compiled Report-Interactive compressed (002) 4154-7882-8116 v.1 - Flipbook - Page 26
Global
Outlook
• Demonstrate the SMR economic competitiveness106 their local
acceptance and the strict control of the nuclear materials
scattered on multiple sites.
• Unlocking access to significant amounts of capital at
competitive rates.
Governments that support nuclear expansion should provide
access to financing. It is not always the case, for example,
in France, the financing of the first 6 EPR construction,
forecasted at €6.4 bn, is not yet assured.
However, the European Investment Bank has included nuclear
power financing in its June 21, 2024, document that outlines
its investment strategy for the period 2024-2027.107
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS108) is considered as one of the
solutions to decarbonize hard to abate industries (mainly gas
and coal fired plants, cement and steel industries). Deploying
massively CCS is also key for countries as China that accounted
in 2023 for 95% of the world’s new coal power construction.
It is part of the country critical technologies109 to reach their
objective of peak carbon emissions by 2030.
The USA has been the first region to push CCS development
supported by Oil and Gas majors. The federal government has
provided financial support for those projects and more recently
IRA has significantly boosted annual funding.110
• Ensuring a healthy and resilient supply chain. While the nuclear
industry benefits from an international nuclear supply chains
built up over 70 years, new nuclear technologies such as SMRs
• Full scale CCS clusters are actively developing.
In the USA,15 CCS facilities are currently operating. Together,
they have the capacity to capture about 22 million tons of CO2
per year, or 0.4 percent of the USA’s total annual emissions.
An additional 121 CCS facilities are under construction or
in development.
106 It is the cost overruns and delays of Nuscale, SMR (the first in in Western)
world that led to its construction cancellation https://www.eenews.net/articles/
nuscale-cancels-first-of-a-kind-nuclear-project-as-costs-surge/
107 https://www.sfen.org/rgn/
bientot-de-largent-public-europeen-pour-financer-le-grand-carenage/
108 https://www2.deloitte.com/fr/fr/pages/explore/climat-developpement-durable/carboncapture-and-storage.html
109 https://www.carbonbrief.org/
china-responsible-for-95-of-new-coal-power-construction-in-2023-report-says/
110 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59832#:~:text=Status%20of%20Carbon%20Capture%20
and,under%20construction%20or%20in%20development
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China has nearly 100 CCS projects in operation or under
construction, with over half already operational, according
to incomplete statistics. These projects have a combined CO2
capture capacity of 4 million tonnes and an injection capacity
of 2 million tonnes per year.
EU commission is pushing to expand CCS capacity from current
projects totalling 4 million tonnes per year111 to 100 million
tonnes per year by 2030. Consistently, European governments
are actively introducing regulations to grow the CO2 storage
capacity by a factor of 100 by 2030.
The Northern Lights project in Norway is building the world’s
first opensource CO2, transport and storage infrastructure.
Once the CO2 is captured from its source, it will be liquefied
and transported by custom designed ships, injected, and
permanently stored 2,600 metres below the seabed of the
North Sea.
• Financing: CCS projects are a multibillion capital projects,
which under present conditions, have a IRR in a range of a
medium to high single digit. In the USA, DOE funding and
WEMO 2024
• Delivering nuclear projects on time and on budget. Simplify
design and do not start the construction phase before the
detailed design is approved.
As mentioned above, this has been a challenge in Europe
and in the USA, less so in China, UAEs and probably Russia.
will require changes to use factory production instead of
on-site construction.
• Building and maintaining public confidence.
• Ensuring a skilled white collars and blue collars workforce.
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The main prerequisites for this successful development are:
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111 Which has taken Final Investment Decisions)
