Since yesterday, the city of Santander has hosted the celebration of TopFuel 2021, the most important international congress in the nuclear sector, which is also being held in hybrid format. The Palacio de la Magdalena is being the in-person setting chosen to celebrate, until next Thursday the 28th, the different plenary sessions in which experts from all over the world are already addressing the hottest topics in the sector and sharing the most notable advances in information management. nuclear fuel.
Gracias a la labor conjunta de la empresa pública ENUSA y la Sociedad Nuclear Española (SNE), y con la colaboración de ENSA (ubicada en Maliaño, Cantabria), Santander consiguió alzarse con la designación de sede de este evento que organiza la Sociedad Nuclear Europea (ENS) con la cooperación de la SNE y del Organismo Internacional de la Energía Atómica (AIEA).
TopFuel 2021 began yesterday Sunday afternoon with the official reception for the congressmen. The president of the ENS, Emilio Mínguez; the mayor of Santander, Gema Igual; the vice president of Cantabria, Pablo Zuloaga; the president of ENUSA, José Vicente Berlanga; and the president of the Congress Organizing Committee and director of Business Development of ENUSA, Roberto González, dedicated a few words of welcome to the people who were gathered there in which the importance of this event and the professional quality of the participants, among whom are electrical companies, nuclear power plants, fuel suppliers, technologists, universities and reference laboratories.
Already this morning the Plenary Session was held in which the future of the nuclear industry was discussed from the perspective of its sustainability and future options. This session was moderated by José Emeterio Gutiérrez, advisor, senior consultant and former CEO of Westinghouse, and included the participation of four panelists from the main European fuel suppliers: ENUSA, Westinghouse Europe, Framatone and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.
Roberto González, president of the Organizing Committee and director of Business Development at ENUSA, advocated in his speech for "joint work to develop the solutions needed by the nuclear market." For her part, Carina Önneby, vice president of Fuel Development for EMEA at Westinghouse, highlighted that “we must demonstrate and explain to society that nuclear technology is safe and part of the solution.” For his part, Ala Alzaben, senior vice president of Framatome, stated that “even with fuel being a small part of the real costs of the plants, we can, by investing in innovation, achieve enormous final savings in generation.”
Throughout these days and in different technical sessions, experts from around the world will continue to address issues such as fuel design; the development of codes and methodologies; the behavior of the fuel in operation; fuel management; logistics and nuclear medicine.
