Skip to main content

Global Nexus Initiative to Explore Links between Climate Change, Nuclear Energy and Global Security

By
Mary Pietryzk
The following is a guest post by Mary Pietryzk, Manager of Policy Development at NEI.

What if a thoughtful group of accomplished professionals decided to explore the issues and linkages around climate change, nuclear power and global security? The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and the Partnership for Global Security (PGS) have teamed up for a two year project to explore those linkages. Today marks the launch of the Global Nexus Initiative (GNI): Where Climate, Nuclear, and Security Meet. You can follow the work of the Initiative on Twitter using the #globalnexusinitiative hash tag.

Putting their heads (and contact lists) together, PGS and NEI have created a working group of 17 highly accomplished, multidisciplinary policy professionals from the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. This is a team of energy, nuclear, climate change, and security experts that boast impressive resumes and well-earned reputations for finding creative solutions to challenging global problems.

The group includes three ambassadors from the Middle East, Europe and the United States (Amb. Hamad Alkaabi, Amb. John Bernhard and Amb. Kenneth Brill), the co-founder and executive director of the Clean Air Task Force (Armond Cohen), the first director of the IAEA Office of Nuclear Security (Dr. Anita Nilsson) and a former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Dr. Richard Meserve). Their goal is to develop a set of realistic and actionable policy recommendations for international leaders and policymakers on these issues.

Keep an eye out for the results of the GNI’s first workshop this September where the working group will consider the role of nuclear power in a carbon constrained world. This will be the first in a series of workshops at which the GNI members explore how to ensure the safe and secure use of existing and new nuclear energy sources, support economic vitality, and protect people and the environment.

For more information about the project and Working Group, please visit the Global Nexus Initiative website. The project organizers will post additional content, including presentations, videos, and short policy memos from the workshops.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

By
Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
7 comments
Read more

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

By
You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...
6 comments
Read more