atw - International Journal for Nuclear Power | 05.2020

atw Vol. 65 (2020) | Issue 5 ı May
298
NUCLEAR TODAY
John Shepherd is a
freelance journalist
and communications
consultant.
Sources:
NEI’s response
to Covid-19
https://bit.ly/2JEJiDL
Rosatom
announcement
https://bit.ly/2JUscC1
Dr Fatih Birol
statement
https://bit.ly/2ReYKup
Energy Providers Deserve Our Gratitude
Now More Than Ever
What a strange and unnerving time we live in at the moment. As I write this article, tens of thousands of people have
lost their lives as Covid-19 sweeps across the world.
According to the director-general of the World Health
Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, world
leaders are confronting “the defining health crisis of our
time… at war with a virus that threatens to tear us apart –
if we let it”.
The world is indeed at war with a common enemy and
the ‘soldiers’ confronting the virus on the front line are
undoubtedly health service workers.
Tributes have been paid to healthcare professionals in
many countries by members of the general public who
have emerged from lockdowns and isolation only to show
their appreciation by applauding, singing and waving
national flags from their windows and balconies.
Beyond the medics, there are many others who are
rightly identified as essential workers, those whose day- today
jobs in supporting services and infrastructure take on
far greater significance at this unsettling time.
I suspect many of us now depend more than ever on our
internet-connected devices to work from home, to stay in
contact with family and friends, or to order shopping and
to pass the time with films and games. And for that, we
owe a debt of gratitude to some of the unsung essential
workers of this crisis – the energy sector employees who
ensure electricity continues to reach our homes, hospitals
and other services.
Electricity, whether derived from nuclear, fossil fuels,
wind or solar, is always taken for granted in the developed
world, but it should not be so during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The multifaceted benefits of peaceful nuclear power activities
deserve particular recognition and praise at this time.
For example, the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) is currently part of the United Nations’ Crisis
Management Team on Covid-19. The agency recently
announced that it had dispatched the first batch of
equipment to more than 40 countries to enable them to use
a nuclear-derived technique to rapidly detect the
coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
The IAEA said dozens of laboratories in Africa, Asia,
Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean will receive
diagnostic machines and kits, reagents and laboratory
consumables to speed up national testing, which is crucial in
containing the outbreak. They will also receive biosafety
supplies, such as personal protection equipment and
laboratory cabinets for the safe analysis of collected samples.
The first batch of supplies, worth around €4 million,
will help countries use the technique known as real time
reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (real
time RT-PCR). The IAEA said that this is the most sensitive
technique for detecting viruses currently available.
The nuclear-derived DNA amplification method
originally used radioactive isotope markers to detect
genetic material from a virus in a sample, the IAEA said.
Subsequent refining of the technique has led to the more
common use today of fluorescent markers instead.
Meanwhile, the nuclear industry continues to keep the
power flowing to essential services while also increasing
already stringent safeguards for employees. The Nuclear
Energy Institute (NEI) said measures in the US included
setting up screening points before people can enter nuclear
plants, to identify those who have symptoms.
The NEI said it was committed to maintaining “safe,
reliable operations in times of challenging national
circumstances”. “Our industry has had pandemic guidelines
since 2006, and these were updated early this year,”
the NEI said. “They include keeping masks on hand and
exercising social distancing.”
In the UK, the Nuclear Industry Association said there
was a “strong focus on protecting personnel by keeping
only essential workforce on-site and adapting working
practices to make sure social distancing is possible –
including the approach to worker transport and
accommodation and increased temperature monitoring at
construction sites like Hinkley Point C”.
The UK’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research
Centre is also supporting a national effort to step up
production of vital medical equipment such as ventilators.
In common with other nuclear sites worldwide, Sellafield
Ltd in the UK said it had donated items including disposable
respirators and protective clothing to health care workers.
In Russia, a subsidiary of Rosatom’s nuclear fuel company
TVEL, Rusatom-Additive Technologies, said it had started
producing prototypes and was set to start 3D printing valves
for Venturi oxygen masks – a component of ventilators.
Rosatom said the need for the valves had increased
substantially as a result of the pandemic. Rosatom said
production facilities had the capacity to produce about
300 valves per week using a biocompatible polymer “that
does not require additional processing”.
The China National Nuclear Corporation announced
that it was sending tonnes of personal protective equipment
to a number of countries to support the fight against the
virus.
Covid-19 has focused minds as never before in modern
times on the importance of maintaining and expanding
critical power systems in the developed world, while
helping less-developed regions acquire the infrastructure
needed to connect to electricity grids.
The executive director of the International Energy
Agency (IEA), Dr Fatih Birol, has said in response to the
pandemic that baseload electricity generating capacity
such as that provided by nuclear is “a crucial element in
ensuring a secure electricity supply”.
Birol has urged policymakers to already be thinking
and preparing for beyond the crisis and to “design markets
that reward different sources for their contributions to
electricity security, which can enable them to establish
viable business models”.
The IEA chief’s analysis is spot on. Covid-19 can and
will be beaten, but its legacy should include a commitment
to ensure that more and not less is invested in clean
nuclear-generated electricity systems to help protect and
prepare the world for whatever future challenges we may
face.
Author
John Shepherd
Nuclear Today
Energy Providers Deserve Our Gratitude Now More Than Ever ı John Shepherd