Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Speaker: Jacopo Buongiorno, TEPCO Professor and Associate Department Head, Nuclear Science and Engineering, Director, Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (CANES), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

MIT has recently completed a multi-disciplinary study, to assess the prospects for new nuclear technologies, policies, business models, and regulatory governance to accelerate the transition to a lower-carbon global energy system in the U.S. and around the world.  In this seminar, we will present a set of findings from the MIT study that are focused on (a) cost competitiveness of nuclear in various markets with and without carbon constraints, (b) technology innovations that could substantially reduce the capital cost of new nuclear plants, and (c) regulatory pathways to accelerate the deployment of advanced reactors.

Speaker: Michael Ford, French Environmental Fellow, Harvard University Center for the Environment.

In this seminar, we will briefly examine the history of the U.S. Department of Energy in advanced nuclear research and development and propose an alternative path that is better suited to the market and technical realities of advanced nuclear concepts. We will also examine broader issues of institutional capacity that may impact the wider deployment of nuclear power to meet carbon mitigation goals.

Speaker: AMB Laura S. H. Holgate

Advanced nuclear reactors offer enormous promise as carbon-free solutions for a range of energy and development challenges due to their potentially lower cost, flexibility, and enhanced safety. To meaningfully influence climate change, these reactors will need to be widely deployed, including in countries without extensive nuclear experience and in designs using novel fuel cycles. And policymakers, regulators, and civil society will need to have confidence that these reactors are designed not only with safety and cost in mind but also with due consideration to whether terrorists, insiders, or even governments can sabotage a facility or acquire or divert nuclear material that could be used for weapons. Meeting these challenges requires more than a slogan of “proliferation resistance” and relates to security- and safeguards-by-design as well as fuel cycle characteristics. Reactors that incorporate security- and safeguards-by-design could become more attractive exports, maximizing economic and national security benefits for the United States.

Speaker: Robert Swartz, National Nuclear Security Administration

This talk will be a discussion of the S. Asia facing engagement programs sponsored by NNSA with the goal of building nuclear stability and reducing the nuclear danger in South Asia.

Speaker: Corey Hinderstein, Senior Coordinator for the Nuclear Security Summit & Nonproliferation Policy Affairs at the National Nuclear Security Administration

Speaker: Ji Yeon-jung, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

This seminar will examine India’s strategy, agenda setting, and coalition-building to gain membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as well as India’s broad efforts to build a reputation as a major stakeholder in the nuclear nonproliferation regime as a de facto nuclear weapons state. For the last two decades, India has been steadily working to gain international acceptance of its de facto nuclear status. Following the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008, India concluded eleven civil nuclear agreements creating an unofficial forum for India’s bid for membership in the NSG. Although India’s setback to its NSG bid at the Vienna meeting in November 2016 highlighted the challenges that India must continue to address, Ji Yeon-jung will argue that the number of achievements and engagements that New Delhi addressed in the past few years explicitly demonstrates India’s transitional status in the changing global nuclear order.

Nuclear governance at the regional level in Asia-Pacific is alarmingly fragmented and feeble. An array of disparate, small bodies with varying memberships seek to address safety, security, nonproliferation, and disarmament, but without adding much to the global arrangements. Dr. Findlay will examine the future likely trajectory of nuclear energy in the region, the regional drivers of and constraints on strengthened regional governance, and the likelihood of a comprehensive, integrated nuclear governance regime emerging.

In this MTA seminar, MTA/ISP Fellow Behnam Taebi will argue that nuclear safety governance should move towards a more robust regime including elements of international monitoring and verification.

Although most nuclear security commentators are focused on Iran and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, an accelerated three-way rivalry in the production of nuclear explosive plutonium is in the making in East Asia between Japan, China, and, South Korea. Join MTA to learn more about what this portends and what might be yet done to head it off from former Department of Defense Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. The Belfer Center's Will Tobey will moderate this seminar. Both Tobey and Sokolski will have just returned from a series of discussions on these issues with senior Chinese and Japanese officials in Beijing and Tokyo.

In this Nuclear 101 Managing the Atom Seminar, Professor of Practice Matthew Bunn will provide an introduction to nuclear power plants and some of the key nuclear safety issues, including a brief discussion of what happened in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.