The global nuclear industry is facing “a time of urgency” as it prepares to deploy a new generation of nuclear power plants to meet energy demand that is growing vastly more quickly than expected, Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) director-general William Magwood said.

Magwood said challenges relate to areas such as licensing, nuclear liability, transportation, factory manufacturing, environmental reviews, public participation, international co-operation and maritime applications of nuclear energy.

He also said nuclear law related to small modular reactors is going to be an “extraordinarily important area because there are so many unresolved legal regulatory issues associated with some of these advanced technologies.

Magwood announced at the NEA’s recent Roadmaps to New Nuclear conference, which was co-organised with Sweden’s Ministry for Climate and Enterprise, that the Paris-based agency will be holding a conference in Stockholm in the summer of 2005 to analyse the legal issues facing the SMR sector, warning that “this is a time of urgency”.