Nuclear foresight workshop in partnership with the World Nuclear Association.

On Monday 18th of March 2019, the World Energy Council (the Council) with support of the World Nuclear Association hosted the Nuclear Foresight Workshop with over 20 experts joining in a discussion on the future of Nuclear energy.

In 2016, the Council published three exploratory scenarios called Modern Jazz, Unfinished Symphony and Hard Rock with a long-term horizon of 2060, aimed at informing discussion on the transition to low carbon economy.

This workshop is part of the Council’s strategic initiative to refresh its global foresight and support energy leaders to define and drive successful energy transition. The focus is on an ‘innovation twist to 2040’ and the use of scenarios to explore and navigate new exponential growth opportunities for accelerating successful energy transition in an era of disruptive innovation.

As part of this strategic initiative, the World Energy Council with support of World Nuclear Association conducted a joined project to explore changing perspectives on nuclear energy’s role in the future energy system to 2040.

Staying true to the Council’s guiding principle of helping participating leaders achieve a better grasp of the energy future, the workshop shared the findings of stocktaking exercise conducted as a preparatory work before the workshop, which includes synthesis of selective set of strategic deep-dive interviews with senior energy leaders in nuclear and beyond, Council’s Issues Monitor insights, etc.

Objectives of the workshop:

• Facilitate strategic knowledge exchange on key challenges and disruptions coming from nuclear and beyond

• Identify key drivers of change that will be shaping energy system and nuclear development by 2040

• Explore new and emerging narratives for nuclear and develop elements of plausible pathways to 2040 for nuclear in each of the Council’s scenarios

Expected outcomes

The results from the workshop will be used for intro development of a Nuclear Insights Brief. The insights synthesis will also feed the World Energy Council’s Global Energy Foresight Refresh Workshop (April 2019, London, UK), which will focus on new global energy narratives that will be featured as part of the 24th World Energy Congress (September 2019, Abu-Dhabi).