Nuclear Issues

45 Items

Cranes near Reactor Unit 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in October 2011.

IAEA Imagebank/Wikimedia Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Highly Enriched Shareholders Mean Disasters Down the Line: Why Utilities Like TEPCO Need New Corporate Governance

| Mar. 11, 2021

Ten years on, the lessons learned from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident continue to focus on improving safety culture and regulatory oversight. However, the executive decisions that failed to prevent the disaster also demonstrate the necessity to re-examine the legal entities most often relied on for producing nuclear power: corporations.

Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns and former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes join Andrea Mitchell to talk about Biden's next steps on Iran and Russia.

MSNBC

Analysis & Opinions - MSNBC

'Back on center stage globally': Fmr. foreign policy officials on Biden's agenda

| Feb. 19, 2021

Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns and former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes join Andrea Mitchell to talk about Biden's next steps on Iran and Russia. Burns says that Biden's "speech today at the Munich Security Conference has put the United States squarely back on center stage globally."

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani

Wikicommons

Analysis & Opinions

The Unimportance Of New Oil Sanctions

| Apr. 25, 2019

For the Islamic Republic, resistance to Washington has become a cultural norm, and it considers independence (esteghlal) as the main achievement of the 1979 revolution.  According to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Iran would have to meet 12 conditions before the United States will renegotiate the nuclear deal and consider removing its sanctions. These conditions, which are nothing short of surrender on Iran’s part, are either set to force Iran out of the nuclear deal and therefore trigger the return of UN sanctions, or they are a thinly veiled call for regime change.

Three Mile Island nuclear power plant

cdc.gov/phil

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

How to Deal with Increasingly Complex Safety-Critical Technologies

| Mar. 28, 2019

The authors analyze the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the recent back-to-back crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets and make policy recommendations for the regulation of increasingly complex technologies.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns discusses US President Trump's Foreign Policy

WGBH

Analysis & Opinions - WGBH

Former Ambassador Nicholas Burns Discusses Trump’s Foreign Policy

| Nov. 15, 2018

It's been six months since President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said they came to an agreement on denuclearization, but new satellite images published this week by an independent Washington think tank showed at least 13 previously undeclared missile operating bases in North Korea.

Report - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

American Nuclear Diplomacy

| August 4, 2016

In this report, American Nuclear Diplomacy: Forging a New Consensus to Fight Climate Change and Weapons Proliferation, Former Deputy Secretary of Energy and Belfer Center Senior Fellow Daniel Poneman writes that we face two existential threats: nuclear annihilation and catastrophic climate change. Each, he says, stems from human origins. Both must be fought aggressively.

"Multiple studies confirm the grim truth that, even if all nations fulfill their Paris Climate Agreement emissions pledges, the world will still far overshoot the 2°C warming limit scientists say we must not exceed to prevent devastating climate impacts. Carbon-free nuclear energy can help close the gap. But can we expand its environmental benefits without increasing the risks of nuclear terror?"

Poneman outlines a diplomatic strategy and tough-minded, bipartisan policies to get us there.