Nuclear Issues

Each year, the Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School welcomes new pre- and post-doctoral fellows and visiting researchers to a select team of scholars exploring the critical role that science and technology play in everyday life.

Presentation at the 13th PIIC Beijing Seminar on International Security: Building a World of Sustainable Peace and Stability, Oct.31 – Nov.3, 2012, Beijing, China

Before the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, China had big nuclear expansion plans, with more than 40 reactor units under construction or in planning. The Fukushima disaster led China to conduct safety inspections of all its reactors and to suspend nuclear project approvals until a new nuclear safety plan could be adopted. Under Beijing's new safety regulatory system, reactors that are operating or under construction will be spared major redesign, but future projects will face re-engineering, perhaps leading the Chinese to adopt safer third-generation reactor designs created by Chinese firms.

China's approach to civil nuclear power reactor development will determine the overall tenor of its nuclear power programme long into the future. Its approach, both domestically and through imports, is analyzed, with a focus on the next decade of deployment.

The Advanced Small Pressurized Water Reactor (ASPWR) can be used in remote power grids and replaces mid/small size fossil-fuel plants economically. Current ASPWR deeply adopts modular and integrated pressure vessel design—and a passive safety system—which effectively improves plant safety and economy. This paper performs the comparative study of safety and economy features in ASPWR and large PWRs. The authors suggest that China should start R&D programs in ASPWR.

Matthew Bunn presented "Expected – or hoped for – outcomes of the Seoul nuclear security summit" to the 10th Annual RoK-UN Joint Conference on Disarmament and Nonproliferation in Jeju, Republic of Korea.

Matthew Bunn presented "Nuclear Security: What is Required" to a joint Harvard/Peking University workshop in Beijing.

Recent national trends in investments in global energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) are inconsistent around the world. Public RD&D investments in energy are the metric most commonly used in international comparative assessments of energy-technology innovation, and the metric employed in this article. Overall, the data indicate that International Energy Agency (IEA) member country government investments have been volatile: they peaked in the late 1970s, declined during the subsequent two decades, bottomed out in 1997, and then began to gradually grow again during the 2000s.

In the 1970s, nuclear-power boosters expected that by now nuclear power would produce perhaps 80 to 90 percent of all electrical energy globally. Today, the official high-growth projection of the Organization for Economic Co‑operation and Developments (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) estimates that nuclear power plants will generate about 20 percent of all electrical energy in 2050. Thus, nuclear power could make a significant contribution to the global electricity supply. Or it could be phased out — especially if there is another accidental or a terrorist-caused Chernobyl-scale release of radioactivity. If the spread of nuclear energy cannot be decoupled from the spread of nuclear weapons, it should be phased out.

China's recent nuclear energy ambitions have put it in the forefront of research and development in the nuclear industry.This paper will first discuss the status of China's current spent fuel management methods and storage capability. Second, this paper will estimate and calculate the accumulated spent fuel and required spent fuel storage up to 2040 based on three different nuclear development scenarios. Third, future spent fuel management scenarios from now to 2040 are designed and financial costs and proliferation risks are evaluated and discussed associated with each scenario. Last, policy recommendations will be provided for the future spent fuel.