US microreactor developer Last Energy will invest £300 mln into a nuclear power station at the site of the old Llynfi coal-fired power station in Wales. The four 20 MW pressurised water reactors can be fabricated, transported and assembled on site within 24 months. The company has reached commercial agreements for 80 units worldwide.

Google has ordered 6-7 small modular nuclear reactors, each with a 75MW capacity, from Kairos Power to provide electricity for its data centres. Kairos has received a construction permit from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a 50MW demonstration reactor. This was the first approval for a new type of reactor in the US in 50 years.

A bespoke financial instrument would give investors a stake in the nuclear power station. Its total cost is £47.9 bln. The first reactor will be operational with a 5-year delay in 2030. EDF is in talks with sovereign wealth funds and large infrastructure funds like Centrica. The costs and the long timescales for nuclear projects make it difficult to attract investors.

An oversupply of solar power in Spain, at times, pushes prices below zero. This reduces profitability and it means that some projects may not be built. Batteries can absorb excess generation during the day and distribute it at night, but only 3.8% of the 76 GW of planned projects are co-located with batteries. The cost of batteries is not addressed in the article.

The venture is developing a new production method for high-assay low-enriched uranium (Haleu), which is more powerful than standard nuclear fuel and is used in small modular reactors. Currently, only Russia and China have the infrastructure to produce large volumes of Haleu. Peter Thiel has also backed the nuclear fusion start-up Helion.

Nuclear power projects prove too tricky to fund through normal project financing methods. Upfront costs are high and construction is lengthy. If the company set up to construct the project defaulted, a half-built nuclear plant would be pretty worthless as security. The interest lenders would demand for that level of risk would simply make projects unviable.

Czech power utility CEZ AS selected Rolls-Royce Holdings as a potential supplier of small modular nuclear reactors with a view to building an SMR in the first half of the 2030s. The ministry gave no cost estimate on Thursday. In July, the government picked Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. as the preferred supplier of at least two large nuclear reactors.

Germany rejected €18 mln worth of carbon credits after finding “irregularities” in China-based projects that were meant to lower emissions. German companies that funded them were allowed to report lower emissions. Authorities will also prosecute the verification bodies that check the projects. The investigation was triggered by a whistleblower.

Of the 1,600 green hydrogen plants planned worldwide, the vast majority of projects don’t have a single potential customer. Businesses need expensive new equipment to replace fossil fuels with H2, H2 produced from water using clean energy costs 4-times as much as H2 made from natural gas, and the infrastructure to move the H2 around is not available.

The world’s largest commodity trader, paid 450 senior employees a record $6.4bn last year. Volatility in commodity markets brought about by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to a boom for trading companies. Vitol, along with rivals Trafigura and Gunvor, made a combined $46bn in profits in 2022 and 2023.

The world’s largest publicly traded fund manager that focuses on sustainability (with £37 bln under management) reported its largest-ever outflows of £2.7 bln in 2024. The returns of its funds are well below their benchmarks. Clean energy companies in its portfolio have taken a beating in the market. Impax' share price fell by 70% since 2021.

Tianqi Lithium and Ganfeng Lithium, two of the major Chinese producers announced that they slipped deep into the red in the first 6 months of 2024. Chinese EV market has cooled and globally, new players and a chronic oversupply are pushing the price down. Although the demand for batteries is improving, the lithium market remains weak.