Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
This paper, written for a September 2011 seminar hosted by the Geneva Center for Security Policy, analyzes developments since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Action Plan was adopted by concensus at the 2010 NPT Review conference. The seminar included participants from the Permanent Missions to the Conference on Disarmament, academia, and non-governmental organizations.
An excerpt from the text, pg. 1:
"The first thing to keep in mind is that the previous Review Conference, in 2005, was a major failure. It was not the first review conference not to end up with a final document. The 1980, 1990 had failed to produce a final document agreed upon by consensus and even the historically successful 1995 review and extension conference ended up with a document which replaced the word consensus with the recognition that “a majority exists”. However, the 2005 Review Conference was widely perceived as “the biggest failure in the history of this Treaty.” Since then, the two North Korean nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, the concerns about the Iranian nuclear program, the Syrian site of Al Kibar as well as the suspicions over the Burmese nuclear activities have fueled and renewed fears about further spread of nuclear weapons and, even, a possible collapse of the non-proliferation regime. It is true that Iran and Syria related issues have rarely been discussed during the 2010 Review Conference. However, the memory of a historical failure combined with several proliferation concerns and a de facto new nuclear weapon state – North Korea –, which status under the NPT is still open for discussion, has led to consider that “failure was never an option”, as one representative stated at the closing of the conference."
China's nuclear forces, policies and posture have been very unusual since 1964. This is most likely because, unlike policy-makers in the United States, Chinese leaders tend to treat deterrence as being robust against disparities in technical details, such as the number or type of nuclear weapons. China’s current nuclear modernization, centered on the introduction of mobile missiles, creates some important challenges to crisis stability that may be difficult to resolve as long as Chinese and American policymakers hold divergent views on nuclear weapons. In this seminar, Dr. Lewis will address one option that may help clarify these diverging views. Beijing and Washington could negotiate a communiqué on strategic stability that addresses their differing perspectives and supports a sustained and effective dialogue on strategic nuclear issues between the United States and China.
Speaker bio:
Jeffrey Lewis is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Dr. Lewis is the author of Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (MIT Press, 2007) and publishes ArmsControlWonk.com, the leading blog on disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation. Before coming to CNS, he was the Director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation.
Prior to that, Dr. Lewis was Executive Director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Executive Director of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a desk officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He is also a Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy (CISSM).
CISAC Conference Room
New technologies are creating unprecedented opportunities for "open source" analysis on issues relating to arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation. The widespread availability of commercial satellite images and modeling software allows individuals to perform analyses that previously only intelligence agencies might. Moreover, the wealth of information available online can offer unprecedented insight into foreign nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs. All of this information can be analyzed by virtual communities that exist only online, with results disseminated through new media platforms like blogs and social networking sites. These communities are increasingly influencing debates within and between governments. This presentation takes an irreverent look at this strange and new circumstance.
Speaker bio:
Jeffrey Lewis is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Dr. Lewis is the author of Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (MIT Press, 2007) and publishes ArmsControlWonk.com, the leading blog on disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation. Before coming to CNS, he was the Director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation.
Prior to that, Dr. Lewis was Executive Director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Executive Director of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a desk officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He is also a Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy (CISSM).
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
The events of this year alone have highlighted the impact that natural phenomena (so called external events) can have on critical infrastructure and commercial nuclear power plants in particular. The design of commercial nuclear power plant structures, systems and components has taken into account the effect of loads due to external events such as earthquakes, floods, high winds and tornados. However, the original approach for establishing design levels was based on deterministic methods that today would be viewed as short-sighted and scientifically inadequate. This talk will offer perspectives and insights on NPP design and performance, evaluation of so-called extreme events, and how evaluations of potential core damage accidents are performed. The approach and process of evaluating plant integrity and safety continues to evolve; in part this is attributable to a degree to the vigilance that is maintained by the industry, but is also due to ‘current events’ that demand attention (new science, Fukashima experience, Fort Calhoun flood experience, Virginia earthquake, etc.).
About the speaker: Dr. McCann is currently the President of Jack R. Benjamin & Associates, Inc., a Consulting professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University and Director of the National Performance of Dams Program (NPDP). He received his B.S. in civil engineering from Villanova University in 1975, an M.S. in civil engineering in 1976 from Stanford University and his Ph.D. in 1980, also from Stanford University.
His areas of expertise and professional experience includes probabilistic risk analysis for civil infrastructure facilities and, probabilistic hazards analysis, including seismic and hydrologic events, reliability assessment, risk-based decision analysis, systems analysis, and seismic engineering. He currently teaches a class on critical infrastructure management in the civil and environmental engineering department.
He has been involved in probabilistic risk studies for nuclear power plants since the early 1980’s and is now participating in a new round of risk studies for plants in the U.S. Recently, Dr. McCann led the Delta Risk Management Strategy project that is conducting a risk analysis for over 1100 miles of levee in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta. He was also a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ IPETRisk and Reliability team evaluating the risk associated with the New Orleans levee protection system following Hurricane Katrina.
He is currently serving on 2 National Academy of Sciences panels addressing issues associated with levees and community resilience and the National Flood Insurance Program.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Russia has had a long history of opposing US missile defense activities. Most recently, Russian concern focused on the alleged capability of the "third site" to intercept Russian ICBMs. The "third site" was a plan to place 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland and a large X-band radar in the Czech Republic proposed by the Bush Administration prior to its cancellation in 2009 by the Obama Administration. Now this same Russian concern has arisen regarding phases III and IV of the Phased Adaptive Approach to European missile defense proposed by the Obama Administration. This talk will assess the extent to which Russian concerns are valid in military/technical terms.
Speaker Biography:
Dean Wilkening is a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University and worked at the RAND Corporation prior to coming to Stanford. His major research interests include nuclear strategy and policy, arms control, the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons, bioterrorism, ballistic missile defense, and energy and security. His most recent research focuses on the broad strategic and political implications of ballistic missile defense deployments in Northeast Asia, South Asia and Europe. Prior work focused on the technical feasibility of boost-phase ballistic missile defense interceptors. His recent work on bioterrorism focuses on understanding the scientific and technical uncertainties associated with predicting the outcome of hypothetical airborne biological attacks and the human effects of inhalation anthrax, with the aim of devising more effective civil defenses. He has participated in, and briefed, several US National Academy of Science committees on biological terrorism and consults for several US national laboratories and government agencies.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Much study has been put into the concept of a multinational or international “nuclear fuel bank,” and in 2010 two such banks became a reality according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative. However, all of the conceptual studies along with the two IAEA-approved banks are not really “fuel” banks; rather they are low-enriched uranium (LEU) reserves. While uranium is a commodity, fuel for a nuclear reactor is a highly-engineered product of which uranium is a component.
It has been argued that because there are more fuel fabricators than enrichers, the enrichment step is the crux of a supply assurance mechanism. This is a gross oversimplification. If one cannot get from LEU to a fabricated fuel assembly, then the fuel supply assurance is not available. There are issues of fuel design, core physics, regulation, intellectual property, and liabilities that could preclude fuel fabrication and delivery in a timely manner. These issues and obstacles will be discussed along with some suggestions about how they might be overcome to provide real fuel assurances.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Alan Hanson was appointed as Executive Vice President, Technologies and Used Fuel Management of AREVA NC Inc. in 2005. In this position he was responsible for all of AREVA’s activities in the backend of the nuclear fuel cycle in the U.S. Prior to that he served as President and CEO of Transnuclear, Inc., also an AREVA company, which he joined in 1985. Transnuclear designs, licenses and supplies dry storage casks; more than half of the casks in the U.S. have been supplied by Transnuclear.
In January of 2011, Dr. Hanson started a year-long assignment as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University on loan from AREVA. At CISAC he conducts research on the worldwide nuclear supply chain and international fuel assurance mechanisms.
Dr. Hanson began his career in 1975 with the Nuclear Services Division of Yankee Atomic Electric Company. In 1979, he joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria. At the IAEA, he served first as Coordinator of the International Spent Fuel Management Program and later as Policy Analyst with responsibilities in the areas of safeguards and non-proliferation policies.
Alan Hanson received a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1969 and earned his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977. He also is a recipient of a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) degree from Georgetown University in 2009. He is a member of the American Nuclear Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
CISAC Conference Room
Nuclear energy is politically sensitive. For its proponents, nuclear energy is clean and highly efficient and indeed is the only alternative to fossil fuels in providing a base supply of electricity. For its opponents, nuclear energy is nothing but trouble, a symbol of war and weaponry par excellence, and one that creates environmental problems for mankind today and in the future. What is remarkable in this highly emotional debate is the general division between developed and developing countries. Asian and Gulf states are more active than many in other continents in expanding or developing their nuclear energy capacities. China is leading this expansion with 27 reactors under construction now.
Nuclear development in China highlights a series of objectives many developing countries try to balance – energy and economy, energy and development, energy and environment, energy and security, and the need for both clean energy and adequate and reliable energy supplies. It tells a counterintuitive story about Chinese politics – a single-party authoritarian political system with an extremely fragmented institutional structure in nuclear energy policy making, implementation and regulation and with highly competitive market forces in play. It provides a cautionary tale about the Chinese as well as global nuclear future. This paper discusses the challenges of nuclear energy development, using China as an example. It asks who drives it, what technology is selected and adopted, how human capital is developed, what the rules of the games are, and more importantly, which institutions are responsible for issuing licenses, regulating standards, and overseeing the compliance, and what forms of regulation do they use. At the core of these questions is if and how countries can ensure safe, secure and sustainable nuclear development.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Xu Yi-chong is a research professor of politics and public policy at Griffith University. Before joining Griffith University in January 2007, Xu was professor of political science at St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada. She is author of The Politics of Nuclear Energy in China (2010); Electricity Reform in China, India and Russia: The World Bank Template and the Politics of Power (2004); Powering China: Reforming the electric power industry in China (2002); co-author of Inside the World Bank: Exploding the Myth of the Monolithic Bank (with Patrick Weller 2009) and The Governance of World Trade: International Civil Servants and the GATT/WTO, (with Patrick Weller 2004); and editor of Nuclear Energy Development in Asia (2011) and The Political Economy of Sovereign Wealth Funds (2010). All these projects were supported by the research grants from either Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) or Australian Research Council.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
The Center for International Security and Cooperation is pleased to welcome the 14 fellows who will be joining us in residence during the 2011-2012 academic year.
Aila MatanockA1lvarez">C.J. Álvarez, Predoctoral Fellow from the University of Chicago, Department of History. Policing the US-Mexico Border, 1848-1993.
Edward Blandford, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow from CISAC. Safeguards and Security Strategies for Critical Nuclear Infrastructure.
David Blum, Predoctoral Fellow and Honors Program Teaching Assistant from Stanford University, Department of Management Science & Engineering. Probabilistic Early Warning Systems for National Security Crises.
Alexandre Debs, Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow from Yale University, Department of Political Science. Strategic Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation and Preventive War.
John Downer, Stanton Nuclear Security postdoctoral Fellow from CISAC. Transferring Technologies: Exploring the Security Dimensions of Tacit Knowledge.
Ryan Ellis, Postdoctoral Fellow from the University of California, San Diego, Department of Communication and the University of California, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. The Politics of Critical Infrastructure Protection.
Robert Forrest, Postdoctoral Fellow from the University of California, Davis, Department of Physics. The Role of Accelerators in Our Nuclear Powered Future.
Robert Glass, William J. Perry Fellow from Sandia National Laboratories. Understanding Global Interdependency to Promote International Security.
Lonjezo Hamisi, Predoctoral Fellow from Stanford University, Department of Political Science. The U.N. Secretary General’s Interventions in International Conflicts.
Toshihiro Higuchi, Postdoctoral Fellow from Georgetown University, Department of History. Nuclear Fallout, the Politics of Risk, and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis, 1945-1963.
Reyko Huang, Zukerman Predoctoral Fellow from Columbia University, Department of Political Science. The Wartime Origins of Postwar Democratization.
Aila Matanock, Predoctoral Fellow from Stanford University, Department of Political Science. International Insurance: Explaining Why Militant Groups Participate in Elections as Part of a Peace Agreement.
Aila MatanockAEtpelopidas/">Benoît Pelopidas, Postdoctoral Fellow from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Renunciation of Nuclear Weapons as a Historical Possibility.
Ting Wang, Postdoctoral Fellow from Cornell University, Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. Research on New Regime to Solve Space Debris Crisis.
CISAC Co-director Siegfried Hecker discusses energy, proliferation issues and his trips to North Korea.
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C220
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor emeritus (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He was co-director of CISAC from 2007-2012. From 1986 to 1997, Dr. Hecker served as the fifth Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Hecker is an internationally recognized expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction, and nuclear security.
Dr. Hecker’s current research interests include nuclear nonproliferation and arms control, nuclear weapons policy, nuclear security, the safe and secure expansion of nuclear energy, and plutonium science. At the end of the Cold War, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. In June 2016, the Los Alamos Historical Society published two volumes edited by Dr. Hecker. The works, titled Doomed to Cooperate, document the history of Russian-U.S. laboratory-to-laboratory cooperation since 1992.
Dr. Hecker’s research projects at CISAC focus on cooperation with young and senior nuclear professionals in Russia and China to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism worldwide, to avoid a return to a nuclear arms race, and to promote the safe and secure global expansion of nuclear power. He also continues to assess the technical and political challenges of nuclear North Korea and the nuclear aspirations of Iran.
Dr. Hecker joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow before returning as technical staff member following a tenure at General Motors Research. He led the laboratory's Materials Science and Technology Division and Center for Materials Science before serving as laboratory director from 1986 through 1997, and senior fellow until July 2005.
Among his professional distinctions, Dr. Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; fellow of the TMS, or Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials Society; fellow of the American Society for Metals; fellow of the American Physical Society, honorary member of the American Ceramics Society; and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
His achievements have been recognized with the Presidential Enrico Fermi Award, the 2020 Building Bridges Award from the Pacific Century Institute, the 2018 National Engineering Award from the American Association of Engineering Societies, the 2017 American Nuclear Society Eisenhower Medal, the American Physical Society’s Leo Szilard Prize, the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal, the Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, among other awards including the Alumni Association Gold Medal and the Undergraduate Distinguished Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in metallurgy.
