Abstract: Freshwater scarcity is expected to increase over the coming decades due to population growth, migration to urban centers in water-scarce regions, and climate change. Increased scarcity will in turn drive price increases and potential for conflict. The ability of a country to equitably deliver freshwater may thus be the difference between survival and peace or war. Past solutions have relied upon massive water projects that convey freshwater from water-rich to water-scarce regions, but such strategies are energy intensive, costly, and contentious when political boundaries are crossed. Seawater desalination can be even more energy intensive, and is constrained to near-ocean locations. By contrast, reuse of treated water creates local supplies that offset demand for imported water. In the developed world, such systems are typically add-ons to existing centralized treatment plants, and purified water is pumped from these facilities to local users. In the developing world, the costs of such systems are prohibitive, and a new approach is needed. What might be done with mass-produced modular systems equipped with accurate and rapid monitoring technology? What would be the obstacles and the pay-offs?

Abstract: Various regions of the world struggle to properly manage their freshwater resources in a sustainable manner. Even a greater number of regions are vulnerable to supply disruptions that can last for a year or more.  This talk will provide a global overview of water supply vulnerability with respect to demand, endowment, institutions, and infrastructure.  Examples of regional hydroeconomic models to evaluate potential management policies will be discussed with a focus on our approach to the challenges of coupling human-natural systems.  

About the Speaker: Steven Gorelick is the Cyrus F. Tolman Professor in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. At Stanford since 1988, he directs the Global Freshwater Initiative, which employs an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing water-supply vulnerability in developing nations. Past and current projects include those in Mexico, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Jordan. Much of his work involves development of hydrologic-economic models to evaluate the likely effectiveness of policy instruments such as taxes, quotas, and regulations. Projects also have evaluated the viability of an agricultural water rental market and alternatives to enhance food security. He has over 140 publications in 22 different science and engineering journals (including Science, Nature, and PNAS), and three commercialized patents. His 2010 book, Oil Panic and the Global Crisis, debated the notion of imminent global oil depletion. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and he has received Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships. 

The United States commercial nuclear industry started just a few years following the conclusion of the second world war with the start of operation of the Shippingport reactor. Over a relatively short period of time, the industry grew to over one hundred reactors all based fundamentally on the same light water reactor technology that served the naval nuclear program well. Since the start of the industry, the nuclear power research and development community has explored a large number of reactor concepts for a variety of conventional and not so conventional applications. Many of these technologies were demonstrated as both test reactors and prototypical demonstration reactors. Despite the promise of many of these concepts, the commercialization cases for many of these technologies have failed to emerge. In this talk I will discuss the barriers reactor vendors currently face in the United States and the inherent challenges between promoting evolutionary versus revolutionary nuclear technologies. I will then discuss the prospects for the development of advanced commercial reactor technology abroad with an emphasis on the Chinese nuclear program. In particular, I will discuss recent developments in their advanced light water reactor program, high temperature gas reactor demonstration, and thorium molten salt reactor program.

About the speaker: Dr. Edward Blandford is an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of New Mexico. Before coming to UNM, Blandford was a Stanton nuclear security fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. His research focuses on advanced reactor thermal-fluids, best-estimate code validation, reactor safety, and physical protection strategies for critical nuclear infrastructure. Blandford received his PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010.

Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) are used throughout the industrial infrastructure and military applications. These systems are designed to be highly reliable and safe, but were not designed to be cyber secure. Moreover, many of these systems do not even have cyber logging or forensics. Consequently, these systems, which constitute the “soft underbelly” of the American economy and defense, can enable a “cyber Pearl Harbor” to occur without having the capability of even knowing the impacts were cyber-induced. Stuxnet and Aurora have demonstrated that cyber can be used as a weapon to damage or destroy engineering equipment and systems.

To date, there have been more than 225 actual control system cyber incidents worldwide affecting electric power, water, chemicals, pipelines, manufacturing, mass transit, and even aircraft. Most of the incidents have been unintentional. Selected unintentional incidents will be addressed at the ICS Cyber Security Conference (http://www.icscybersecurityconference.com/). However, there have been a number of targeted cyber attacks. The Stanford presentation will focus on Stuxnet and Aurora. It will address the lack of air-gaps, insecureable legacy ICSs, lack of cyber forensics, and cultural issues between IT and Operations that can enable these attacks to occur and evade detection.

Joseph Weiss is an industry expert on control systems and electronic security of control systems, with more than 35 years of experience in the energy industry. Mr. Weiss spent more than 14 years at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) where he led a variety of programs including the Nuclear Plant Instrumentation and Diagnostics Program, the Fossil Plant Instrumentation & Controls Program, the Y2K Embedded Systems Program and, the cyber security for digital control systems. As Technical Manager, Enterprise Infrastructure Security (EIS) Program, he provided technical and outreach leadership for the energy industry's critical infrastructure protection (CIP) program. He was responsible for developing many utility industry security primers and implementation guidelines. He was also the EPRI Exploratory Research lead on instrumentation, controls, and communications.

This study quantifies worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident on 11 March 2011. Effects are quantified with a 3-D global atmospheric model driven by emission estimates and evaluated against daily worldwide Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) measurements and observed deposition rates. Inhalation exposure, ground-level external exposure, and atmospheric external exposure pathways of radioactive iodine-131, cesium-137, and cesium-134 released from Fukushima are accounted for using a linear no-threshold (LNT) model of human exposure. Exposure due to ingestion of contaminated food and water is estimated by extrapolation. We estimate an additional 130 (15–1100) cancer-related mortalities and 180 (24–1800) cancer-related morbidities incorporating uncertainties associated with the exposure–dose and dose–response models used in the study. Sensitivities to emission rates, gas to particulate I-131 partitioning, and the mandatory evacuation radius around the plant may increase upper bound mortalities and morbidities to 1300 and 2500, respectively. Radiation exposure to workers at the plant is projected to result in 2 to 12 morbidities. An additional 600 mortalities have been reported due to mandatory evacuations. A hypothetical accident at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, USA with identical emissions to Fukushima may cause 25% more mortalities than Fukushima despite California having one fourth the local population density, due to differing meteorological conditions.

Mark Z. Jacobson is Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Woods Institute for the Environment and Senior Fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy. He received a B.S. in Civil Engineering with distinction, an A.B. in Economics with distinction, and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University, in 1988. He received an M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences in 1991 and a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences in 1994 from UCLA. He has been on the faculty at Stanford since 1994. His work relates to the development and application of numerical models to understand better the effects of energy systems and vehicles on climate and air pollution and the analysis of renewable energy resources. He has published two textbooks of two editions each and ~130 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles. He received the 2005 American Meteorological Society Henry G. Houghton Award for “significant contributions to modeling aerosol chemistry and to understanding the role of soot and other carbon particles on climate.” He has served on the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Advisory Committee to the U.S. Secretary of Energy.

There are currently 60 nuclear reactors under construction worldwide with nearly half of these projects being built in China. There is no doubt that East Asia is emerging as a leader in the international nuclear community where China and the Republic of Korea (ROK) are playing major roles as a result of their aggressive new plant build programs. Both China and South Korea present very interesting case studies where the former is rapidly building up domestic expertise in nuclear construction while the latter has gone one step further in capitalizing successfully on a nuclear export business. Both countries have relied heavily on external commercial support in building up this expertise. In the case of South Korea, the “Koreanization” of nuclear power took place in the 1980’s and 1990’s, first with a large number of Western builds and ultimately a complete indigenization of pressurized water reactor technology through a technology transfer with Combustion Engineering. The Chinese domestic nuclear program has been largely influenced by Western vendors as well; however, there has been significantly less emphasis on exporting the technology up to now as they master the imported technologies for their domestic program. The recent AP1000 technology transfer between Westinghouse Electric Company and China has opened up unique transnational learning opportunities between the United States and China where the lessons learned building the first AP1000 plants in China will be shared with the two U.S. utilities now embarking on new plant construction at the Vogtle and V.C. Summer sites, in Georgia and South Carolina, respectively. This talk will review both the historical experiences of exporting nuclear technology to the ROK and China, as well as the progress being made by these countries in absorbing the technology. Further, the AP1000 passive plant technology will be summarized as an example of the general trend for future designs in response to the reactor accidents at Fukushima Dai-ichi in March 2011. Finally, the advanced construction techniques being used to build AP1000 plants in both the U.S. and China will be highlighted along with their benefits in delivering new plants on schedule.

About the speaker: Dr Matzie is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Westinghouse Electric Company and was responsible for all Westinghouse research and development undertakings and advanced nuclear plant development. He is also on the Board of PBMR Pty Ltd. and Chairman of the Board Technical Committee. In that role, he assures proper oversight of the design, safety, licensing, research and development, and quality aspects of the PBMR enterprise.

Previously, Dr Matzie was responsible for the development, licensing, detailed engineering, project management, and component manufacturing of new Westinghouse light water reactors and was also the Executive in charge of Westinghouse replacement steam generator projects and dry spent-fuel-canister fabrication projects. He became a Senior Vice President in 2000, when Westinghouse purchased the nuclear businesses of ABB. His career has been devoted primarily to the development of advanced nuclear systems and advanced fuel cycles, and he is the author of more than 120 technical papers and reports on these subjects.