International roundup: The Philippines, IAEA remarks, and EDF’s SMR plans

The Philippines resurrecting talks to bring nuclear power to the island country, notable remarks from the International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference, and Électricité de France's timeline for small modular reactors are among the notable recent international news you may have missed.

Bataan talks resurface: The Philippines has flirted with introducing nuclear power into its energy mix over the decades, but it has never materialized. In 2022, for instance, then president Rodrigo Duterte issued an executive order to develop and implement a civil nuclear program. The plan included looking into ways to resurrect the Bataan nuclear power plant.

For those unfamiliar with this piece of the nation's civil nuclear history, Bataan was announced in 1973 by then president Ferdinand Marcos, and construction was completed in 1985. However, fuel was never loaded into the reactor.

The Marcos regime was overthrown in 1986, and President Corazon Aquino, who succeeded Marcos, opposed Bataan because of concerns over safety and corruption, further exacerbated by the Chernobyl accident that same year.

The current Filipino president, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, is the son of the elder Marcos. Earlier this week, a New York Times article said his administration is exploring its options to bring nuclear power to the Asian country, including finally making Bataan operational.

Wright speaks in Vienna: Last week's IAEA General Conference drew more than 3,600 attendees to Vienna, including more than 3,200 representatives from 160 of the 181 IAEA member states. Among the attendees was Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, who gave the General Statement for the United States.

In his statement, Wright listed milestones and accomplishments achieved under the Trump administration, including the Reactor Pilot Program, the DOE Genesis Mission, reforming the nuclear regulatory process, and removing 13.5 kilograms of enriched uranium from the shut-down RV-1 research reactor in Venezuela. He also devoted a significant part of his time addressing Iran and its failure to uphold its safeguard obligations under the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). He said the stance of President Trump and the United States on Iran remains the same: Iran must never develop or obtain a nuclear weapon.

"Iran must fully cooperate with the IAEA, meet its safeguards obligations, and provide the access necessary for the agency to do its job," Wright said. "The choice before Iran is clear: continued defiance and isolation, or cooperation and a path toward greater security, prosperity, and integration with the international community."

Cameroon's nuclear power feasibility study: Dozens of countries made statements at the weeklong IAEA conference. Officials from Cameroon caught the attention of attendees when they announced the African country was conducting a feasibility study to determine whether it should pursue civil nuclear energy. Cameroon has no nuclear power plants; there is only one operating plant on the continent-in South Africa-with another under construction in Egypt.

Madeleine Tchuinte, Cameroon's minister of scientific research and innovation, said the decision came shortly after attending the IAEA Nuclear Energy Summit back in March.

"The global civil nuclear summit held in Paris, France, shed new light on the important role of nuclear power in the face of increasingly urgent demographic and economic pressures," she said (according to an English translation of the original Frenchstatement posted on the General Conference website). "Following this, Cameroon has decided to carry out a feasibility study on civil nuclear energy with the dual aim of ensuring its energy sovereignty and aligning with international environmental requirements related to the goal of carbon neutrality. I take this opportunity to express my country's gratitude to the [IAEA], which has already shown its willingness to support us in these studies."

EDF's SMR plans: Multiple news outlets reported that EDF intends to build 10 SMRs in Europe by 2035 through its subsidiary, Nuward, which was formed in 2023 to develop a reactor design for deployment across Europe.

According to a Reutersarticle, the first reactor would be built in France, with another expected in Italy. While Italy phased out nuclear power and in the 2010s had a temporary moratorium on nuclear power, elected officials recently have ramped up efforts and have proposed legislation to revive nuclear power in the country.

According to Nuward, the pressurized water reactor design it intends to deploy is a "simple, modular and prefabricated product" that can be deliverable within four years and generate up to 400 MWe.