![]() ![]() Well, that’s a bit of a curate’s egg of coverage, but at IJGlobal we tend to be wary of writing about nuclear as it’s a rabbit hole you can disappear down, never to return… all the while offshore wind farms are closing faster than you can scream tsunami.īut when it comes to nuclear, the chatter is dominated by small modular reactors (SMR) which will be wheeled out repeatedly as examples of what “should be done” over the coming year. The other is in the UK and focuses on the House of Commons voting in favour of the Nuclear Energy Financing Bill to provide a new financial support model for nuclear power infrastructure… because that’s been working so well to date. The first one focuses on the RWE decommission of 4 plants in Germany, taking a total of 2.2GW of nuclear capacity off the grid… which isn’t exactly getting us off to a good start, but does warrant a snort of derision as Deutschland leans ever more heavily on coal. Taking a look at what’s been written on nuclear by the IJGlobal news team in the first couple of weeks, a swift search of the site at Thursday lunchtime reveals a couple of stories published. So, with that in mind, let’s get 2022 off to a flying start with an editorial plucked from the very lowest branch of the news tree. Over the coming 12 months talking heads – you know who they are – will blab on relentlessly about plans for nuclear (kicking the can down the road), joint ventures in hydrogen (oh so many JVs), and pilot projects in tidal energy (time to scale up). It’s all about energy generation, really… and the more unproven the technology, the better – it would appear. There was also mention of battery storage, CCS, CCUS and a few other bits and pieces… but this trio dominated. As the conversation evolved, this was whittled down to nuclear, hydrogen and wave power. In this call, we agreed that the most interesting developments for 2022 would be in the energy space. It was this call that prompts today’s Friday Editorial, which is best enjoyed with a side portion of low-hung fruit. With that in mind, it was with the sense that a shower would shortly be required that I fielded a question in the new year round-robin of phone calls – this one with an old banker chum – that centred on what the theme would be for 2022. It’s journalistic low-hanging fruit… a bit like entering a deal at syndication. Have you noticed that journalists at this time of year have a nasty habit of churning out stories that are the equivalent of sticking a sucked finger in the air to test which way the wind prevails? ![]()
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