The US nuclear energy sector went through a very successful spring outage season in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic with 20 or so of the country’s nuclear plants shut down to refuel and take care of other maintenance, American Nuclear Society chief executive officer Craig Piercy said.

In an interview published on the society’s website, Mr Piercy said there were “not a lot of Covid-19 cases and no disruptions to operations – it’s kind of a success story of the times”.

Mr Piercy said the pandemic might be “changing our perspective on what’s important as we look at the future and our future energy system”. He said the value and the attributes of nuclear fit well within that new conception of what we want. “I think resiliency and cleaner air are going to be much more important coming out of this.”