What a successful day full of information and networking! Over 250 people and hundreds of one-to-one business meetings scheduled and some still pending requests. A big thanks to everyone who participated and to our excellent speakers.
Here are our top takeaways from conference today:
- Nuclear energy’s importance in Finland’s energy production rises because of ambitious climate emission targets. Finland needs all carbon free and sustainable energy resources to reach its ambitious climate targets. That is why nuclear energy has an important role now and in the future energy production in Finland. Finnish legislation is under comprehensive reform to make it more clear and suitable for changing the operating environment. – Riku Huttunen, Director General, Energy Dept. , Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland
- Millions of people are still without electricity and the number is growing. Only nuclear power can help here. Nuclear energy is produced ⅓ from zero-emission energy today. 52 nuclear power plants are under construction and 30 countries are considering nuclear energy. – Mikhail Chudakov, Deputy Director General, Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy, IAEA
- Climate change is enormous and needs action. Also energy demand is growing. Nuclear energy is the solution for these challenges. Nuclear energy industry provides a large amount of business opportunities and in the future different nuclear energy applications like zero-carbon hydrogen will bring even new opportunities. Also the small modular reactors (SMR) market is growing and SMR’s bring several benefits compared to large scale plants. – Sama Bilbao y León, Director General, World Nuclear Association (WNA)
- In Finland roughly 4000 experts work in nuclear energy production and a multifold of this indirectly. It’s a large amount for a small country. Still we need to increase knowledge and skills, Liisa Heikinheimo, Deputy Director General, Energy Dept • Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland
- The most important issues the supply chain needs to take into account in nuclear energy industry are safety, building on the competencies, standardization, operational excellence, sovereignty, Frédéric Lelièvre, Senior Executive Vice President, Sales, Regional coordination and I&C, Framatome
- Evolution rather than Revolution, relying on experience, “safety first” principle. Floating and land-based solutions of Rosatom small modular reactors exist and are ready to be deployed, but there are still some challenges concerning e.g. electricity price. Economic effect of Hanhikivi 1 new build project is significant. Anton Dedusenko, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Rusatom Energy International, Rosatom
- SMR’s are new types of reactors for Finland and they bring new challenges like technology, ownership, organising nuclear waste management, funding and licensing challenges. Finland has started to take actions to solve these challenges. – Jaakko Louvanto, Senior Specialist, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland
- Tommi Nyman, Vice President, Nuclear energy from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland introduced the VTT solution of SMR that is designed for district heating. The benefits of a heating reactor are small size, low operating temperature and they are capable of serving networks where co-generation is not an economically viable option.
- SMRs enable to remove risks that are associated with nuclear power plant manufacture, contraction and installation. These are achieved because SMR production is repeatable, those are produced in protected canopy, fewer commercial interfaces are involved and more options for commercial innovation are available to reduce cost or remove risks. Sophie Macfarlane-Smith, Head of Customer Business – Civil Nuclear & SMR, Rolls-Royce
- In an interesting panel discussion concerning SMRs it was highlighted that SMRs production offers a lot of business opportunities to subcontractors. Panel was moderated by Juhani Hyvärinen, Professor, LUT-University. Panelists were Christopher Nitta, Manufacturing Manager, NuScale Power, Timothy Check, Senior Commodity Manager, GE Hitachi and Rich Everett, General Manager Civil Nuclear UK and Group Head of Supply Chain SMR, Rolls-Royce.
It’s not too late to join and if you missed some of the sessions its possible to watch the recordings in the Nordic Nuclear Forum 2021 event platform.
