They want to pay a sensible price for energy, they want to stop their foreign energy dependence and they support the fight against climate change – these were the arguments of the French President, when he told that France is going to construct new nuclear power plants. Emmanuel Macron announced in a TV speech the decision, highlighting that in order to meet these goals, they need to go in this direction. France has az excellent track-record in NPP operation, as they have 56 operating NPP units, they are the second – after the Unites States – in nuclear energy generation world ranking. 

There’s such news coming from the Netherlands: hirado.hu reported based on an article from de Volksrant, the governing parties plan to build nuclear power plants, as they think this could be a breakthrough in achieving their ambitious green energy targets. The justification is that nuclear power plants have the advantage of not emitting greenhouse gases during their operation, so they operate in a climate-friendly way, unlike coal- and gas-fired power plants. There is currently one nuclear power plant in operation in the Netherlands, but the parliamentary majority has voted in favor of more nuclear power.

Great-Britain also decided to further use atomic energy in the future. Beside already constructing Hinkley Point C NPP, the British government supports the design of one of the world’s first small modular reactor’s (SMR) next steps. 

Previously Poland, Bulgaria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Romania also declared that nuclear energy will be part of future energy mix. Poland is in a unique position, as they decided to construct six NPP units as the first step on order to replace their polluting coal-fueled power plants. 

Not only Europe has such ideas, China also has a grandiose plan. In the next 15 years they plan to construct 150 nuclear power plants in order to reach climate neutrality. There are 442 nuclear power plants operating currently, with 50 more already under construction, several of them in Europe: beside Hungary, also in the United Kingdom, Finland, Slovakia and Belarus. 

The Contractor of the Paks II. project, Rosatom is constructing new NPP units worldwide. In terms of foreign orders, they are world leaders, with orders for 35 new units in 12 countries, which are in various stages of implementation.