News & Announcements

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News - BBC News

Ukraine Conflict: How Dangerous Is Russia's Nuclear Plant Attack?

| Mar. 04, 2022

Russian forces have seized the largest nuclear plant in Europe, Ukrainian authorities say. It comes hours after a fire broke out at the Zaporizhzhia plant following a Russian attack. The fire has since been extinguished, and officials say the site is safe but Western powers have condemned Russia for what they called a "horrific" and "reckless" act, and Ukrainian President Zelensky says the attack could have caused "six Chernobyls". Mariana Budjeryn is a Research Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom  at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center. She says that as far as we know, the shelling hit a number of facilities but that the flow of electricity must be kept constant to allow the fuel to keep cooling. She goes on to say that reactors are protected to withstand a certain level of impact, but none have been designed to withstand sustained artillery fire. She says there is concern that at this level of hostilities, there is a risk of a serious nuclear accident, or one that is planned to stop the war quickly and on Russia conditions. "You can't just hit a switch on a nuclear reactor - there are still a number of procedures that have to be followed quite closely to keep that reactor safe."

In this March 6, 2013 photo, a warning sign is shown attached to a fence at the 'C' Tank Farm at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, near Richland, Wash.

(AP Photo)

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

Belfer Center Experts Provide Analysis and Commentary on 2016 Nuclear Security Summit

April 5, 2016

Leading up to and during the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, Belfer Center experts released reports, published commentary, and provided insight and analysis into global nuclear security. In advance of the Summit, the Project on Managing the Atom set the stage for discussion with the report Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: Continuous Improvement or Dangerous Decline?

An in-progress compilation of the expert commentary and analysis is available here.

U.S. DOE Energy RD&D Spending, FY1978–FY2017 Request

News - Energy Technology Innovation Policy Project, Belfer Center

DOE Budget Authority for Energy Research, Development, & Demonstration Database

| March 2016

This document contains March 2016 updates to our database on U.S. government investments in energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment (ERD3) through the Department of Energy. The database, in Microsoft Excel format, tracks DOE appropriations from FY 1978–2016 and the 2017 budget request and includes funding for ERD3 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It also includes several charts.

Seeking Student Associates for Summer 2016

Announcement - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

Seeking Student Associates for Summer 2016

| Mar. 08, 2016

The Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government seeks Student Associates for the summer of 2016. These internships provide opportunities for undergraduate or graduate students to meet experts in nuclear policy, attend lectures and seminars, and assist MTA project faculty, staff, and fellows with their research. MTA will provide a modest hourly wage or academic credit for the internship.

New York Times reporter Coral Davenport speaking at the event "Controversy! A Reporter’s Perspective On Global Climate & Energy Debates."

Benn Craig

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

Climate Change: The Story About Everything

    Author:
  • Casey Campbell
| February 18, 2016

For journalism, the 21st century is an era where public trust drops yearly, and reporters face competition to reach a growing Internet audience. Adding these challenges to a beat as controversial and global as climate and energy policy creates a job that seems near impossible.

The New York Times’ Energy and Environment Correspondent Coral Davenport confronts these challenges head-on by covering environmental policy in a way that goes beyond the conventional boundaries of Washington-based reporting to the larger, all-encompassing impact of climate change issues on a human and dollars-and-sense scale.