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: Aaron Arnold, Associate Project on Managing the Atom; Assistant Professor at Curry College

Over the past two decades, the United States has increasingly turned to targeted sanctions and export restrictions, such as those imposed against Iran and North Korea, in order to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). One vexing problem, however, is how to contend with jurisdictional hurdles when the violations occur overseas, in countries that are unable or unwilling to assist US enforcement efforts. To solve this problem, US prosecutors are turning to strategies with significant extraterritorial implications— that is, exercising legal authority beyond national borders. One such tool is to use civil legal procedures to seize assets linked to sanctions or export control violations in jurisdictions that lack cooperative arrangement with US enforcement agencies. While this may be an attractive strategy to bolster enforcement efforts against overseas illicit procurement such tools are not without consequence.

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: Daniel Salisbury, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

Individuals and entities from the private sector have long contributed to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), acting as middlemen and suppliers. Over the past decades, trade in WMD-related goods has become increasingly regulated, and illicit trade increasingly criminalized. Despite the clear role that these actors have played in recent proliferation cases, supplying North Korea and Iran among others, the conceptual literature on proliferation behavior has largely continued to focus on the state level. This seminar will draw on concepts from criminology, and particularly the study of white collar crime, to provide insights into the behavior of these non-state suppliers and middlemen, and to generate more effective means of countering their activities.
 

Speaker: Hassan Abbas, Ph.D; Professor of International Security Studies Chair of the Department of Regional and Analytical Studies

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: Elmar Hellendoorn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

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