Remarks by John RitchDirector General, World Nuclear Association
Keynote Address WM Symposium 2005Tucson, Arizona28 February 2005
A few years ago, when my friends at the Nuclear Energy Institute began to speak of a "nuclear renaissance", the phrase conveyed a mixture of prediction and cautious hope.
Today, as a consequence of the industry's efforts here in America and the broader sweep of developments around the world, "nuclear renaissance" is no longer a wishful forecast. Rather, it is the apt description of a new chapter in human affairs. As a famous football coach was known to say, the future is now.
We have entered a nuclear century - a new chapter in history in which the power of the atom, which brought terror and dread to the 20th century, must now be harnessed peacefully, constructively, and on a vast scale.
The onset of the nuclear renaissance has resulted from the intersection of two historic trends: The first is an accelerating expansion in global need for clean energy. The second is a steady advance in our industry's ability to meet that need with the safe and reliable delivery of nuclear power.
The Imperative of a Clean-Energy Revolution
The urgency of our world's need for a clean-energy revolution is now evident to any literate person who is not in a state of psychological or political denial.
It is clear that human activity - energised by the combustion of fossil fuel - now poses a perilous danger to the very biosphere that enabled civilisation to evolve.
The facts are plainly stated, and the logic is inexorable:
Slowly but steadily, citizens and political leaders around the world are beginning to grasp the enormity of the crisis we face. If history is a river, we have reached the white water.
Slowly but steadily too, they are grasping that the nostrums propounded by old-style environmentalists - of wind and solar power and other renewables - may be valuable but simply cannot begin to provide the vast quantities of clean energy that the global crisis demands. Recognition of the immense value of nuclear energy is dawning around the world.
The paramount question today is not whether the use of nuclear energy will expand, but whether nations will expand its use rapidly enough to meet a global crisis without precedent.
Foundations for the Nuclear Renaissance
Those who discern the central role that nuclear energy must now play will also recognise the great debt we owe to the diplomats, scientists, and industry leaders whose contribution over recent decades has laid the foundations for the nuclear renaissance.
These contributions consist in achieving serious responses to legitimate public concerns:
1) Proliferation. First, in the area of proliferation, the regime surrounding the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - with its now nearly universal scope of membership and its extensive system of safeguards - constitutes one of the great diplomatic achievements in history.
Proliferation dangers will exist regardless of how many reactors we use for civil nuclear power. But today's global safeguards attain the pertinent goal, which is to ensure that the valuable use of nuclear energy does not abet illicit weapons production.
Indeed, it can be argued that peaceful nuclear activity - and our advanced systems for monitoring it - actually provides us with an invaluable global network to detect and thereby deter illegal activity.
2) Operational Safety. Second, the industry has met the challenge of safety with a combination of technological advance and an ever-improving global safety culture that draws on some 12,000 reactor-years of practical experience.
If the NPT is a great feat in traditional diplomacy, the creation of WANO - with its network of safety cooperation encompassing every power reactor worldwide - represents an extraordinary attainment in private-sector diplomacy.
3) Cost Reduction. Third, as to the cost of nuclear energy, the industry's achievement of steady reductions is carrying us toward a future in which nuclear power will emerge as a clear winner on the field of affordability.
Today nuclear is the cheapest clean-energy source, and in many locales has lower operational costs than carbon fuels.
Even more important, in the years ahead, nuclear power's higher capital costs will fall steadily - as simplified and standardised reactor designs allow for greater speed and efficiency in reactor construction.
Later this spring, the WNA will issue a comprehensive analysis of the economics of nuclear power in the 21st century. Building on other work in recent years, this study will demonstrate - with the authority of the most recent industry data - that nuclear power is developing an increasingly competitive edge.
These gains are occurring even without any consideration of environmental effects. Once governments begin to introduce serious emissions penalties - whether through emissions trading or carbon taxes - the balance will tilt even faster. Nuclear power can now easily dominate any market that imposes a real price for environmental damage.
4) Waste Management. Finally, as to waste, nuclear power has made enormous progress, both technically and politically.
Those attending this conference easily see the irony when environmentalists oppose nuclear energy using the argument that waste is the industry's insoluble problem. For you are the first to recognise that, in truth, waste is the greatest comparative asset of nuclear power - precisely because the volume is tiny and, unlike the waste from fossil fuel, it can be safely managed without harm to people or the environment.
In the safe management of nuclear waste, the industry has now amassed an impressive record that includes:
Challenges of a Nuclear Century
All of these achievements - in proliferation safeguards, operational safety, cost reduction, and waste management - have laid the foundations for a nuclear century.
As we seek to accelerate the renaissance, we can, of course, identify numerous challenges to be met. Today I will list five:
1) Sustaining a Robust Record of Nuclear Safety. First, it is axiomatic that the nuclear renaissance depends on sustaining the industry's well-established and robust record of safe operation.
It remains true, in psychological and political terms, that an accident anywhere is an accident everywhere. Thus, much depends on the continued commitment of nuclear operators to build and sustain a global nuclear safety culture of best-practices at each and every reactor in WANO's global network.
Their fulfilment of that operational commitment is nothing less than a prerequisite if we are to shape the global energy strategies that are now needed to preserve the biosphere.
2) Continuing to Enhance Public Understanding. Second, we must continue our patient, sometimes frustrating, but absolutely essential efforts to build public understanding.
Sadly, many environmentalists continue to act on instinct and habit, seeing a nuclear renaissance as the resurrection of an arch-foe. They have battled this spectre with new zeal and a fresh armoury of accusations and myths, and their resistance has no doubt added an element of delay by blurring the wisdom of pundits and weakening the resolve of politicians.
But the tide has nonetheless turned. Indeed, in countries where Greens have wielded particular influence, it is now possible to discern what can be called an "immunization effect". This occurs when the effort to convert environmentalist dogma into public policy precipitates a national debate that casts needed light on energy and environmental realities.
From the debates in countries like Sweden, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, publics and politicians there - and elsewhere - have been confronted with the essential truth that to turn away from nuclear power represents a perverse abandonment of a major environmental asset.
Meanwhile, a world tour d'horizon shows the gathering strength of national commitments to nuclear energy. A useful illustration is to examine the energy postures of the economic powers that form the G-8 group and also the policies being pursued by the new grouping of leading developing countries - India, China, South Africa, and Brazil - sometimes referred to as the G-4.
Among these twelve nations, which represent the preponderance of the world's current and future economic activity, the commitment to nuclear energy is evident throughout - with the exceptions proving the rule:
Among others in the twelve, we find a stream of positive developments confirming the nuclear renaissance:
This is not to say that the battle for public opinion is won. In the world's media, among the international development institutions, within world financial centres, and in the global negotiations on climate change, misinformation about nuclear energy is still rife and acts to prevent the galvanizing global commitment to nuclear power that our environmental crisis so clearly demands.
For those of us working to hasten the nuclear renaissance, the task of improved understanding among the public and policymakers represents an essential and ongoing challenge.3) Gaining Incentives for Nuclear Start-Up's. A third and closely related challenge is to achieve governmental incentives to stimulate early investment in advanced reactors.
This is not to say that nuclear power requires subsidy. But markets do not exist in isolation. Even so-called deregulated markets are governmental creations, and it has now become obvious that market deregulation, whatever the advantages, has tended to work to the detriment of rational long-term energy investment.
For reasons of energy independence and as an environmental imperative, it is essential that governments take the steps necessary to incentivize energy investments where the national value and economic yield are long-term. In so doing, they must find ways to "prime the pump" for major capital projects - either by absorbing some First-of-a-Kind-Engineering costs or at least by acting to distribute these costs equitably among pioneers and those who follow.Among the tools to be used are loan guarantees, accelerated depreciation, and production and investment tax credits. The goal, it bears emphasis, is not to subsidise the long-term operational production of nuclear power but simply to accelerate the renaissance for reasons of national interest and the global environment.
Success in enacting such provisions in U.S. energy legislation can be expected to set a valuable example for similar incentives elsewhere. Winning such widespread governmental support for long-term clean-energy investment - and not just in politically-correct renewables - remains a critical challenge for our industry.
4) Implementing Geological Repositories. A fourth key challenge is to achieve success in implementing the concept of deep geological storage of high-level waste and used nuclear fuel.
At some point, the functional need for repositories will become acute. But even more urgent is the political need. Building and implementing repositories in several countries will lay to rest, once and for all, the fatuous myth that waste is an insurmountable liability of nuclear power, both scientifically and politically.
The current state of play on this front is well known to those at this conference. Progress is most advanced in Sweden, Finland, and America. But forward movement is also under way in Japan, Russia, South Korea, and France.
It is well worth noting that the placement of a geological repository does not inevitably require its imposition on an unhappy local populace. In Sweden, we have witnessed quite the opposite, as a careful process of public education and open deliberation has caused two different communities to recognise the safe nature and economic benefit of a repository, leading each to offer itself as a potential site.
In every country with nuclear power, the debate over repositories will have its own trajectory. But once the principle of successful implementation has been established, we have reason to expect a strong domino effect. The pairing of American technological leadership with the moral leadership associated with Sweden and Finland will send a strong and positive message throughout the world, inviting emulation.
I am pleased that the World Nuclear Association has made a modest contribution on this topic by working with its worldwide membership to develop a unified industry Position Statement on "The Safe Management of Nuclear Waste and Used Nuclear Fuel". This may seem like a simple matter. But in fact the industry has never previously managed to express a unified view on this delicate topic, which involves nuances and sensitivities that are heightened by some basic disagreements over the merits of reprocessing.
We developed this Position Statement through the WNA Working Group on Waste Management. The Working Group's director, Sylvain Saint-Pierre, a secondee to the WNA from Areva, is here at the conference and presented the WNA Position Statement to a conference session this morning.
Copies are available both here and on the WNA website, and I offer it for your consideration and possible use, with an invitation for comments and feedback.
5) Preparing the Nuclear Profession for a Nuclear Century. A fifth and crucial challenge is to prepare the nuclear profession for a nuclear century by stimulating and supporting enrolments in the study of nuclear science and technology and related disciplines.
There is today an enormous disparity between the fact of the unfolding nuclear renaissance and the pace at which we are educating a new generation of nuclear scientists and engineers. In many nations, the decisions of students choosing career paths are not yet being informed by a recognition of the value of nuclear energy and of the inevitability of its sharply expanding use worldwide.
Eventually, of course, a disparity between the demand and supply for skilled nuclear personnel will tend to be self-rectifying. But a failure to be pro-active in stimulating nuclear education will make the correction inefficient and slow and thereby delay the nuclear renaissance.
Nuclear education is a challenge that must, for the most part, be addressed by companies in collaboration with national governments. In the United States, where the fall-off in nuclear enrolments grew alarming a decade ago, the NEI and DOE have worked together to reverse the trend, and similar action is needed elsewhere.
Meanwhile, at the international level, the World Nuclear Association has sought to make a contribution by working with the IAEA, WANO, and the NEA to create the new World Nuclear University, which was inaugurated 18 months ago.
The WNU is not itself an institution of learning. Rather, it is a global partnership of leading institutions of nuclear science and technology, supported by the four global nuclear organisations that joined together to support this educational initiative.
The WNU's essential aims are:
With assistance and support from the new WNU Coordinating Centre in London, these goals are being pursued by a variety of WNU working groups composed of academic leaders, industry professionals, and inter-governmental experts.
A major manifestation of this newly established global partnership is the first annual WNU Summer Institute, to be held during 6 weeks this July and August at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The WNU Fellowship will be an intense, innovative educational experience designed to develop and inspire a new generation of global leaders in the realm of nuclear technology.
The Summer Institute curriculum will feature leading world experts on topics ranging from climate change to nuclear law to power plant management to the hydrogen economy, and will include team-building exercises and challenging projects.
To attend the first Summer Institute, an extremely impressive group of 74 Fellows from 30 nations has been selected from a much larger body of highly qualified applicants.
Half of the WNU Fellows are sponsored by their employing companies; half will attend with financial support from the IAEA. The average age is 30, one-fourth are women, and 50% have doctorates or are doctoral candidates.
Over time, the WNU Fellows will form an expanding worldwide network that can be a major contributor to leadership in our globalising industry. I invite you to encourage promising young nuclear academics and professionals to apply for this unique educational experience.
At a Perilous Point in History, a Profession of Indispensable Value
I have sought in these brief remarks to underscore that we stand at a perilous and challenging point in human history. We face, in ever more intense form, the paradox that has been evident since the industrial revolution began: that man's ingenuity can also be the source of his undoing.
Today the use of technology is propelling a global crisis by spurring a growth in both world population and energy consumption that now jeopardizes the very future of our biosphere.
But technology can also be our salvation - if we use it wisely. As we confront a crisis that has no precedent in human experience, wisdom will consist in a major global commitment to the expanded use of nuclear power.
Those of you engaged in the activities that are the focus of this conference can draw confidence and even inspiration from the knowledge that your profession is now crucial to the survival and success of humankind.
That is a lot to say, and it gives us much work to do. Thank you.