Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has renewed its 2017 Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy with Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom. The document was signed by Mohamed Al Hammadi, CEO of ENEC, and Alexey Likhachov, Rosatom director general, in Abu Dhabi during Russian President Vladimir Putin's official visit to the United Arab Emirates.

“I’m worried about the decline of nuclear in the energy mix if governments don’t change their policies,” Birol said referring to new capacity and lifespan extensions.

"UAE-Russia relations are historic and based on ties of friendship, cooperation and respect for common interests. These relations are now further developing across all levels, a reflection of the leaderships keenness to enhance continuous cooperation,"

"Developed countries have witnessed sluggish growth of nuclear power - except for six units in Finland, France, the US and the UK, no other nuclear power plant had been built in North America and the EU area for about 30 years. Over the same period however about 100 units were built in developing and emerging economies."

Global efforts to tackle climate change are futile as long as opposition to nuclear power persists, delegates heard at the opening session of the International Atomic Energy Agency's International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power. It is the Vienna-based agency's first conference on this topic.

"Greater magnitudes of uncertainty lead to volatility," he said, "and for a capital-intensive sector like ours, this means less investment and more risk to security of supply. This is especially true in power markets that are open to competition: their market design must be adaptive, and long-term contracts used for all types of generation."

"The global nuclear industry today is becoming a factory of new technologies. These are IT-technology, supercomputers and new materials. These are nuclear medicine and new types of power generation, including wind energy. We not only see the modern agenda and participate in it, we form this agenda. And new technologies are what makes people's lives better, more comfortable and safer," Likhachov said.

Rusatom Overseas JSC and The Department of Energy of the Republic of Philippines and signed Memorandum of Intent on cooperation in the sphere of small modular reactors.

The new projections to 2030 see generating capacity declining by some 8% in the low case and increasing by 25% in the high estimate. By 2050, it’s seen falling by 6% in the low scenario and rising by 80% in the high case. Compared with last year, the new estimates to 2050 are down by 33 GW(e) in the high case and up by 15 GW(e) in the low case.

Rosatom in February 2011 signed an agreement for two 1000 MWe-class reactors to be built at Rooppur for the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission. The initial contract for the project, worth USD12.65 billion, was signed in December 2015. The Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority issued the first site licence for the Rooppur plant in June 2016, allowing preliminary site works, including geological surveys, to begin.