NEI Nuclear Notes

U.S.-Russia relations have been increasingly strained in recent years over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election. An unfortunate casualty of these tensions has been U.S.-Russia nuclear cooperation. Despite shared critical interests that range from nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation to research and development in civil nuclear energy, bilateral cooperation has all but ceased. President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise – welcomed by President Vladimir Putin – to improve bilateral ties. But a closer relationship between the presidents will not be sufficient to overcome disagreements. What is required is a road map for incremental progress, based on mutual national interests. For the critical area of nuclear cooperation, such a road map has just been published. Developed by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) in partnership with Russia’s Center for Energy and Security Studies, and with contrib...

Ted Jones The following is a guest post by Ted Jones, Director of International Supplier Relations for NEI. This week, the U.S. Congress received for review a renewal agreement for nuclear energy cooperation with Norway. When the pact comes into force, it will restore nuclear cooperation that lapsed when the original agreement expired in July 2014. Commonly known as a Section 123 agreement after the part of the Atomic Energy Act that governs international nuclear energy cooperation, a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement secures nonproliferation guarantees and provides a framework for nuclear energy commerce. Given that Norway has no plans to operate a commercial nuclear power plant, some may ask, “What is the importance of Norway to the U.S. nuclear industry?” The answer lies 75 miles southeast of Oslo in the town of Halden, where the United States helped to build a 20 megawatt test reactor in 1958. Now supported by 19 member countries and partly financed by the OEC...

Industries are dynamic entities that are always in process. That means they don’t lend themselves to top 10 lists, which work better for finished objects such as movies and books. We may say that Godzilla was the best 2014 movie to feature Yucca Mountain (built not for used fuel but to imprison a malevolent insect), but that’s a different kind of judgment. Some of the items we’ll include here started earlier than 2014 or started in 2014 but will not reach a milestone until 2015 or beyond. That’s how it goes. With that in mind, let’s look at 2014: From a financial  viewpoint, two items stand out: the President’s  request to revive the Decommissioning and Decontamination tax on nuclear plants was turned back in the appropriations bill that passed for 2015. The industry has no problem paying that tax – in fact, it’s paid the full amount two times over. It just was not eager for a third go-round – and Congress agreed. Similarly, the court-ordered end of the Nuclear Waste Fe...

Richard Myers The following post was submitted by Richard Myers, NEI’s vice president of policy development, planning and supplier programs. It addresses the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with Taiwan submitted to Congress for review on Jan. 7. The agreement was signed by the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office. The agreement will be reviewed by Congress for 90 days of continuous session before entering into force.  The U.S. nuclear energy industry thanks the Obama Administration for concluding negotiation of an agreement to continue nuclear energy cooperation between the United States and Taiwan. The industry is eager for the renewal of the agreement for cooperation with this longstanding strategic partner. U.S. exports of nuclear technology, equipment and services to Taiwan support thousands of U.S. jobs. Two General Electric nuclear energy facilities are under construction in Taiwan at Lungmen, and other U.S. c...

At the beginning of June, I recorded a short video with Dan Lipman, Senior Vice President with Westinghouse Electric Company , concerning the need for Congress to renew an agreement for peaceful cooperation on nuclear energy between the U.S. and South Korea. Without these arrangements -- known as 123 agreements -- the ability of companies like Westinghouse to export nuclear technology around the world would be severely compromised. Just a few weeks later, Dan had an opportunity to return to that same topic when he was interviewed by Alan Ahn of the Global America Business Institute . You can listen to the 28-minute interview by clicking the player below. Podcast Powered By Podbean Alternately, you can click here to download the interview to your PC. It was in 2009 that a Korean government consortium led by KEPCO won a contract to build four nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates . Just last week, the UAE's Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation awar...

The Third Way’s report on the future of nuclear energy, which we excerpted yesterday, focuses a good deal on trade issues and how to  ensure that the United States retains its primacy as a exporter of nuclear technology, goods and services. Bolstering that subject, NEI’s Everett Redmond has offered a blog post to Public Interest Report that tackles some of the thorny issues involved in trading American nuclear energy technology and goods with other countries. Bilateral agreements on nuclear energy cooperation are vital to advancing global nonproliferation and safety goals as well as America’s interests in global nuclear energy trade. A 123 agreement, named after section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, establishes an accord for cooperation as a prerequisite for nuclear energy trade between the United States and other nations. The agreement contains valuable nonproliferation controls and commitments. 123 agreements are not in themselves particularly controversial; still, the...

There’s been a lot of work done to expand the relationship of the United States and India, one part of which allows nuclear trade and technology to flow between the two countries. President George W. Bush’s administration worked through a lot of the issues, culminating in a so-called 123 agreement in 2008 opening nuclear trade. This agreement took so much effort because India has avoided anti-proliferation treaties and harbors nuclear warheads – resulting in a two decade moratorium – so the determinative factor was whether India in the interim had proved to be a good actor on the international stage. Answer: good enough. But one remaining piece of the puzzle was about liability concerns – whether most liability should lie with the supplier (which might be American) or with the operator (most certainly Indian). While every country hoping to operate in India wants to contain liability on suppliers, it’s especially true for the United States, which does not have a state-run nuclear i...

NEI has been supportive of the US-India nuclear trade agreement and worked to help it along its winding trail through the international and national thickets where it could. The Indians have noticed this, as this story from NDTV demonstrates: Nuclear Energy Institute, the policy arm of US nuclear energy industry, has welcomed the Congressional ratification of the historic US India Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement and said that it has the potential to strengthen the American economy. "The agreement holds the potential to strengthen the US economy while fostering within India increased use of nuclear energy to cleanly provide the reliable electricity that is so vital in modern society," said Frank Bowman, president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute. ...  [NEI] was part of the US nuclear industry delegation, which visited India last year to have a preliminary round of talks with the Indian Government officials and also the private...

We always found at least one aspect of Soviet culture amusing and that was its tendency to use the most muscular language imaginable to make its points. "Cast off your chains," "Proletarians of all nations, unite," and our favorite, "Let live forever in the people's memory the unparalleled achievement of the Leninist guard of October." Piquant, yet slightly salty - makes you want to beat up a landlord or something. So while roaming around the Web to see how Indian newspapers were responding to the news of the US-India nuclear agreement, this popped right out: "India is committing to buy a minimum 10,000 MW from the dying US nuclear industry, which has not received any new order for the last 30 years." True, not as pithy as Let live forever, etc. but that "dying U.S. nuclear industry" seemed familiar. "Dying" was a big go-to word for Soviets when describing the west in general and the U.S. specifically - along with ...

The McCain campaign press office has just released this statement, "Yesterday, the U.S. Congress passed legislation clearing the way for the U.S.-India Civil-Nuclear Agreement to come into force. Governor Palin and I congratulate the Congress on moving this important legislation forward. India has been a responsible democracy and this agreement allows it to become further integrated into the global effort to control proliferation of dangerous technologies. The agreement will also allow the U.S. and India to cooperate in taking maximum advantage of new technologies that can provide energy without relying on greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels. "Our friendship with India is rooted in the norms and values we hold in common with the great democracies of Asia. Indian Prime Minister Singh has called liberal democracy 'the natural order of social and political organization in today's world.' When Governor Palin met with Prime Minister Singh in New York last week, they o...

Last night, the Senate voted 86-13 to approve the U.S.-India Nuclear Agreement ( H.R.7081 ). The deal, agreed to in principle in July 2005, passed in the House last week , 298 - 117. Here's a breakout of the Senate vote. Alabama : Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shelby (R-AL), Yea Alaska : Murkowski (R-AK), Yea Stevens (R-AK), Yea Arizona : Kyl (R-AZ), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Yea Arkansas : Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea California : Boxer (D-CA), Nay Feinstein (D-CA), Yea Colorado : Allard (R-CO), Yea Salazar (D-CO), Yea Connecticut : Dodd (D-CT), Yea Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea Delaware : Biden (D-DE), Yea Carper (D-DE), Yea Florida : Martinez (R-FL), Yea Nelson (D-FL), Yea Georgia : Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Yea Hawaii : Akaka (D-HI), Nay Inouye (D-HI), Yea Idaho : Craig (R-ID), Yea Crapo (R-ID), Yea Illinois : Durbin (D-IL), Yea Obama (D-IL), Yea Indiana : Bayh (D-IN), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea Iowa : Grassley (R-IA), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Nay Kansas : Brownback (R-KS), Yea Roberts (R...

Inching, yes, but given that congress has been otherwise engaged during the last week, we'll take it : The US House of Representatives has approved a landmark nuclear deal with India, removing one of two final obstacles to a foreign policy victory for the Bush administration. While the House approved the deal 298-117 on Saturday, it still faces a hurdle in the Senate. Several senators oppose the deal and could attempt to block a vote in the few days left before Congress recesses ahead of the November elections. As The Financial Times' Demetri Sevastopulo points out above, The Senate still has to come through and may not : But the final clinching step remains the approval of the Senate where a senator anonymously put a ``hold’’ on consideration of the bill in a tactic aimed at delaying the vote. Sources were confident that the Senate step would be completed soon and that there could be movement in the Senate as early as Monday. As of right now, though, no...

With conversations in DC being dominated by the federal bailout of the financial industry, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the White House later this week runs the risk of being overshadowed. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is taking notice; sending this letter to members of Congress. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation representing more than three million businesses of every size, sector and region, strongly supports the U.S.-India 123 Agreement and urges Congress to approve it before the close of the 110th Congress. The U.S.-India civil nuclear initiative will bring India into the international nuclear nonproliferation mainstream and enhance the safety of India’s civil program. The initiative will also help to revitalize the U.S. nuclear industry and create thousands of high-tech American jobs. Congress affirmed India’s worthiness as a partner in civil nuclear trade in December 2006 when it passed the “Henry J. Hyde United States ...

The New York Times and the Washington Post have both put up editorials on the pending agreement to allow the India and the United States to share nuclear technologies. The Times doesn't like it : The nuclear agreement was a bad idea from the start. Mr. Bush and his team were so eager for a foreign policy success that they gave away the store. They extracted no promise from India to stop producing bomb-making material. No promise not to expand its arsenal. And no promise not to resume nuclear testing. The Post is all in : For all its flaws, the agreement would create more international supervision of India's nuclear fuel cycle than there would be without it. If Congress backs out now, the only victims will be American nuclear suppliers, who would have to stand aside while French and Russian companies expand India's nuclear power system. Although we agree more with the Post, we find its arguments a rather weakish tea. American nuclear suppliers can take care ...

In a statement released earlier today, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that President Bush has rescinded the U.S. - Russia 123 Agreement . Per Reuters , President George W. Bush on Monday froze a lucrative civilian nuclear pact with Russia, the first big penalty imposed on Moscow after its war with Georgia but one that can be reversed. "The president intends to notify Congress that he has today rescinded his prior determination regarding the U.S.-Russia agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation, the so-called 1-2-3 Agreement," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. While Bush's decision to withdraw the agreement from congressional review was seen as punitive, it was also meant to preserve the deal, a senior U.S. official said. That official said the administration wanted to ensure the accord did not go to a vote in Congress, where it could have been rejected following Russia's military action in Georgia. If rejected, it would be difficult for a new...

Dan Yurman has the story : It took the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) nearly three days of protracted negotiations in Vienna to reach agreement. Austria, New Zealand, and Ireland, were the last three countries holding out on approval due to reservations about granting a waiver to India since it has not signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. ... Austria, New Zealand and Ireland lifted their objection to the US proposal after India made a formal pledge to not share sensitive nuclear technology or material and to uphold its moratorium on testing nuclear weapons. The breakthrough reportedly came after US President George W Bush lobbied members of the NSG. ... Bush administration must now push it through Congress before legislators break for the November elections. ... Congress, starts its next session on Sept. 8, but it may not be able to approve the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement. House Foreign Affiars Committee Chairman Howard Berman, (D-Calif), who opposes the deal,...