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As the Covid-hit world steps into 2021, while the pandemic has been raging for nine previous months, the nuclear industry is displaying a change in mindset in favour of small modular reactors (SMRs) for the production of clean and reliable energy to help combat the urgent threat climate change.

he year 2020 was a challenging year for the Indian atomic sector due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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The highlights for the Indian nuclear industry, during the year engulfed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, are the attaining of criticality with India’s first indigenously built 700 MW pressurised heavy water reactor (PHWR), and the start of machine assembly in France at the multinational thermonuclear fusion reactor ITER project, in which India is a participant.

Some say that there are millions of tons of nuclear waste in the world and that they will never be safely buried, in connection with which Greenpeace blocks the railways along which nuclear materials are transported, and demands to shut down the entire nuclear industry at once.

India, the third country worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, recorded a spike of 53,601 coronavirus cases on Tuesday, pushing the total tally to 22,68,675.

The year 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the Russian nuclear industry which has always been a pioneer in the peaceful use of atomic energy.