In the early stages of the nuclear power industry, some oil & gas majors entered the uranium industry, but their interest in nuclear power projects is rare, with Total's bid for the Barakah project in 2009 one of the few recent examples. Are these instances historical footnotes, or might there be a role for OGMs in the nuclear power industry today, even considering the current pandemic and overall market conditions, write Amjad Ghori, Melissa Hersh, Edward Kee, Paul Murphy and Xavier Rollat.

Ashot Sargsyan, a lead engineer in the quality assurance department at Armenian Nuclear Power Plant, participated in the World Nuclear University Summer Institute of 2016, in Ottawa, Canada, as a World Association of Nuclear Operators’ scholarship winner.

A sustainable energy supply is crucial for ensuring stable economic growth and improving social welfare while at the same time preserving the ecosystems we live in, writes Evgeny Pakermanov, president of Rusatom Overseas, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

In 2020, the world has encountered a new global challenge that has affected a record number of people - the coronavirus pandemic. In a matter of weeks, it caused the biggest social and economic upheaval in decades. From the very start, a joint effort was required to combat both this life-changing infection and its consequences.

As the COVID-19 pandemic makes governments and international organisations consider new ways of conducting business and protecting communities, we need to turn the recovery into an opportunity to safeguard the future, writes Christer Viktorsson, director general of the UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation.

"Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in December 2019, and the World Health Organisation declared it a pandemic in March, it has triggered shock waves across the globe, locking down over 190 countries and affecting every-day life. The world is experiencing unprecedented challenges."

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented demand for personal protective equipment (PPE), part of which must be sterile, i.e. exempt from any microorganism such as bacteria or moulds that can compromise the wearer’s or the patient's safety. It was realised that whilst irradiation is routinely used to sterilise medical products it might also be possible to use the technology to increase the available supply of PPE, writes Paul Wynne, chairman of the International Irradiation Association.

The effect on jobs globally as a result of COVID-19 has been uneven to say the least. While some industries and organisations are booming and hiring thousands, others are being hit hard. The nuclear industry employment situation could be best described as behaving like a nuclear power plant - continuing reliably without creating much attention while competently adapting to the needs of the current situation, writes Callum Thomas, CEO of Thomas Thor Associates.

One of the benefits of safety being at the heart of the culture in the nuclear industry is that consideration for the health and well-being of workers is already the primary objective

World Nuclear Association Director General Agneta Rising and Chairman Kirill Komarov have written to the London-headquartered organisation's members to describe their vision for the future of the nuclear industry following the coronavirus pandemic.

"Dear Member, We write to you in what can only be described as uniquely challenging times, to thank you for the crucial work you do to keep nuclear power online and in development around the world. We praise your efforts and the dedication of your people and we will continue to provide you with any support we may offer."

Nuclear power has responded to the call to action in the public health crisis that each and every one of us is facing, writes World Nuclear Association Director General Agneta Rising.

"At this time more than ever we need to be able to rely on electricity supply. The huge efforts of medical staff worldwide depend on the ventilators, the monitors and all the other electrical equipment that is proving so vital to giving people the chance to recover from this disease."

Leading the World Association of Nuclear Operators at a time when respect is growing for nuclear energy as a reliable and low-carbon source of electricity is an exciting prospect, its new CEO and chairman, respectively, Ingemar Engkvist and Tom Mitchell, said in an interview with World Nuclear News. Speaking at the organisation's London headquarters recently, they said their enthusiasm in leading WANO into its fourth decade reflects not only their passion for the industry but also their optimism about its future.

The nuclear industry cannot assume that the words and phrases it commonly understands as scientific or engineering terms have positive connotations for the public, writes Neil Alexander, principal consultant at Bucephalus Consulting.

"We have all heard that a picture paints a thousand words. This should not be surprising because our mind was always designed to handle images, the face of our mother, the outline of a lion in the savannah, the route from our cave to the berry bush. Images have always been essential to our survival and are bound to be powerful.

Less appreciated is the power of words to create mental pictures and how that affects perceptions of nuclear power."

The main challenges facing the nuclear industry are not in the production and delivery of electricity, but in securing the policy support required for it to expand its contribution of sustainable and low-carbon energy. This was the message of Philippe Costes, senior advisor at World Nuclear Assocation, to delegates at the Nuclear Power Plants Expo & Summit in Istanbul this week. "Nuclear energy has a vital role to play in a global sustainable energy mix, which must first of all meet the world's growing need for electricity. Over the next 30 years, the global population will rise towards nine billion, the global economy will continue to grow and technological developments will create greater demand for electricity. There is an underlying need for dispatchable electricity. We live in a world that requires a 24/7 supply of electricity and nuclear is uniquely placed to provide this."