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Abstract: What is the future of nuclear energy?

The answer to that question will be determined largely by how we answer another: How do we meet future energy needs while mitigating climate change?

If the goal is to decarbonize our power grid, manufacturing processes and transportation systems, while increasing the standard of living in the U.S. and providing power to the more than 1.3 billion people worldwide currently living without, nuclear energy must be part of a mix that includes renewables such as solar and wind.

The nuclear reactors of the future will be different, however, than those currently in operation in the U.S. and around the world.

Through private-public partnerships and cutting-edge research conducted at Idaho National Laboratory, the U.S. is working to develop reactors that are safer, smaller, cheaper to build and operate, and which produce less spent fuel.

But, questions remain:

Will the U.S. open a national repository for spent fuel and Cold War nuclear waste?

Can the public be convinced that nuclear energy’s disadvantages are outweighed by its contributions to the safety, reliability and stability of our power grid, as well as our economy, environment and national security?

Will policymakers continue to make the investments necessary to ensure that the commercial nuclear energy industry, an American creation that generates 19 percent of our electricity and more than half of our carbon-free electricity, continues to power U.S. prosperity well into the 21^st century?

Dr. Mark Peters will address these questions, talk about the technical evolution of reactor designs, and detail growing bipartisan support for nuclear energy in Washington, D.C.

He also will discuss the research and development history that helped create the American nuclear energy industry, and the role INL and other national laboratories will play in developing and deploying the next generation of nuclear reactors.

Bio: Dr. Mark Peters is laboratory director at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). He is responsible for management and integration of a large, multipurpose national laboratory, with a mission focus in nuclear energy, national and homeland security, and energy and environmental science and technology. He manages an organization of 4,200 staff and multiple nuclear and non-nuclear experimental facilities, with an annual budget of more than $1 billion. Peters serves as a senior advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy on nuclear energy technologies and research and development programs, and nuclear waste policy. As a recognized expert in nuclear fuel cycle technologies and nuclear waste management, Peters is called upon frequently to provide expert testimony to Congress in formulation of policies for nuclear fuel cycles, nonproliferation and nuclear waste disposal. Peters was honored in 2015 as a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society for outstanding accomplishments in the area of nuclear science and technology. Peters serves as chairman of the National Laboratory Directors Council Executive Committee.

Offensive cyber operations have become increasingly important elements of U.S. national security policy. From the deployment of Stuxnet to disrupt Iranian centrifuges to the possible use of cyber methods against North Korean ballistic missile launches, the prominence of offensive cyber capabilities as instruments of national power continues to grow. Yet conceptual thinking lags behind the technical development of these new weapons. How might offensive cyber operations be used in coercion or conflict? What strategic considerations should guide their development and use? What intelligence capabilities are required for cyber weapons to be effective? How do escalation dynamics and deterrence work in cyberspace? What role does the private sector play?

In this volume, edited by Herbert Lin and Amy Zegart—co-directors of the Stanford Cyber Policy Program—leading scholars and practitioners explore these and other vital questions about the strategic uses of offensive cyber operations. The contributions to this groundbreaking volume address the key technical, political, psychological, and legal dimensions of the fast-changing strategic landscape.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Dr. Herb Lin is senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University. He is chief scientist emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board at the National Academies. He served on President Barack Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.

Dr. Amy Zegart is the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and professor of political science, by courtesy, at Stanford University. Her previous books include Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity, with Condoleezza Rice; and Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Dr. Sameer Bhalotra is the Co-founder & Executive Chairman of StackRox, and is a CISAC affiliate. He is also affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC), and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He previously worked in cybersecurity at Google and as COO at Impermium (acquired by Google). In government, he served as Senior Director for Cybersecurity on the National Security Council staff at the White House, Cybersecurity & Technology Lead for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and in various roles in the Intelligence Community.

Abstract: My research focuses on the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and on the release of radioactive contamination throughout Japan. Based on 14 months of fieldwork in Japan, the research examines the crisis of expertise that ensued when many citizens became wary of state institutional experts, especially in their capacities to explain and manage the problems engendered by residual radioactivity.In this context of public skepticism, I ask the following: how does the Japanese state attempt to govern the hazards of radioactive contamination, and ultimately, the reconstruction of normality in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster? I argue that the management of radiation hazard after Fukushima includes an important reorganization of state expertise, which now moves beyond traditional forms of risk communication and institutional experts.My research advances policyand public-relevant understandings of repliesto radioactive contamination by highlighting the needs of appropriate educational infrastructure around radiation risk, while emphasizing democratic opportunity for citizen-government collaboration. Within post-Fukushima Japan, anthropological investigations of the governance of radiation hazards are essential for understanding the configurations of cultural schemas, social relationships, and technological interplays that led individuals to “accept” life amidst toxicity and other to refuse it.

Speaker's Biography: Maxime Polleri is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at York University. His current research focuses on the 2011 Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear disaster and on the crisis of expertise that ensued, in which many citizens have become wary of state institutional experts, especially in their capacities to manage the problems engendered by residual radioactivity. In such a context, his dissertation is concerned with how the Fukushima crisis has participated in the formations of new forms of expertise and consequently, new means of governing toxicity. It asks: How is radioactive hazard being governed in the wake of a crisis of legitimacy against state institutional expert? Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork throughout Japan, the dissertation argues that averting the crisis of expertise and managing the reconstruction of what “normality” involves in a post-Fukushima Japan include a fundamental reorganization of state governance, where the dissemination of radiation hazards cannot simply rest on dry, clinical manner in which government-packaged expertise about radiation was initially promulgated to a former lay public. In particular, these shift in the governance of radioactive risk are increasingly being enacted by promoting a state-sponsored affective embodiment toward nuclear matter, as well as by encouraging the endeavor of citizen science, where former lay citizens now track and monitor residual radioactivity in their environment. His fieldwork was funded by the Japan Foundation and the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. His work has been published in Anthropology Now, Anthropology Today, and Medical Anthropology Quarterly Second Spear.

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Abstract: Nuclear disarmament treaties are not sufficient in and of themselves to neutralize the existential threat of the nuclear weapons. Technologies are necessary for verifying the authenticity of the nuclear warheads undergoing dismantlement before counting them towards a treaty partner’s obligation. A team of scientists working at MIT has developed two novel concepts which leverage isotope-specific nuclear resonance phenomena to authenticate a warhead's fissile components by comparing them to a previously authenticated template.  Most actinides such as uranium and plutonium exhibit unique sets of resonances when interacting with MeV photons and eV neutrons. When measured, these resonances produce isotope-specific features in the spectral data, thus creating an isotopic  "fingerprint" of an object. All information in these measurement has to be and is encrypted in the physical domain in a manner that amounts to a physical zero-knowledge proof system. Using Monte Carlo simulations and experimental proof-of-concept measurements these techniques are shown to reveal no isotopic or geometric information about the weapon, while readily detecting hoaxing attempts. These new methodologies can dramatically increase the reach and trustworthiness of future nuclear disarmament treaties.  The talk will discuss the concepts and recent results, and will give a general overview of nuclear security research pursued at MIT.

Bio: Areg Danagoulian is an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT.  He did his PhD research in Experimental Nuclear Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Areg’s PhD thesis focused on experiments that used real Compton scattering on the proton at 2-6 GeV, allowing to probe the proton's internal structure and understand how it couples to external excitations. After his PhD Areg worked at Los Alamos as a postdoctoral researcher, and then as a senior scientist at Passport Systems, Inc. (PSI). At PSI Areg focused on the development of Prompt Neutron from Photofission (PNPF) technique, which allows to rapidly detect shielded fissionable materials in the commercial cargo traffic. Areg's current research interests focus on scientific applications in nuclear security, such areas nuclear nonproliferation, technologies for treaty verification, nuclear safeguards, and cargo security. Current specific research areas include:  warhead verification using nuclear resonances;  use of nuclear reactions for high precision radiography in nuclear security applications.