For the People
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CISAC's Siegfried Hecker and Abbas Milani, founding co-director of the Iran Democracy Project here at Stanford, write in this Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists analysis that Iran must move beyond false nationalism and the misguided notion that uranium enrichment is the sine qua non of peaceful nuclear energy. At the same time, Iran’s negotiating partners must be more sensitive to the proud history of the Iranian nation.
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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Iran's Path to Nuclear Peace
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CISAC and FSI Senior Fellows Siegfried Hecker and Bill Perry write in this OpEd in The New York Times that Iran has little to show for its 50-year pursuit of a nuclear program. They argue Iran should forego the bomb and concentrate on learning how to build nuclear power plants that would aid their country's economy and promote international cooperation.
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The New York Times
Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Security in South Korea
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China's Nuclear Energy Program - Development and Prospects
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About the Topic: This presentation includes a review of significant trends in the development of nuclear energy in China, from the mid1980's until the present, and related future prospects. Among the subjects covered will be: nuclear technology development based on competition/cooperation between a giant state owned enterprise and an upstart commercial utility from the south; different development goals and technology development by the two corporations; the impact of Fukushima on nuclear energy developments in China; the current status of the Chinese nuclear energy system; future growth prospects considering a range of different challenges in the industry; and nuclear technology development prospects and intellectual property issues.
About the Speaker: Chaim Braun is a consulting professor at CISAC specializing in issues related to nuclear power economics and fuel supply, and nuclear nonproliferation. Braun pioneered the concept of proliferation rings dealing with the implications of the A.Q. Khan nuclear technology smuggling ring, the concept of the Energy Security Initiative (ESI), and the re-evaluation of nuclear fuel supply assurance measures, including nuclear fuel lease and take-back. Before joining CISAC, Braun worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. Prior to that, Braun worked at United Engineers and Constructors (UE&C), EPRI and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).
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Chaim Braun
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C218-P
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
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cbraun@stanford.edu
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Chaim Braun was a CISAC consulting professor specializing in issues related to nuclear power economics and fuel supply, and nuclear nonproliferation. At CISAC, Braun pioneered the concept of proliferation rings dealing with the implications of the A.Q. Khan nuclear technology smuggling ring, the concept of the Energy Security Initiative (ESI), and the re-evaluation of nuclear fuel supply assurance measures, including nuclear fuel lease and take-back.
Braun, currently, is working on an analysis of new nuclear power plant prospects in the Middle East, and the potential for nuclear proliferation from prospective nuclear plants in industrializing countries. He also works on extensions of nuclear fuel supply assurance concepts to regional fuel enrichment plants operated on a "black box" mode, particularly as applied to the South Asian, Central Asian and South American regions.
Previously, Braun worked at CISAC on a study of safeguarding the Agreed Framework in North Korea, was the co-leader of a NATO study of terrorist threats to nuclear power plants, led CISAC's summer study on terrorist threats to research reactors and, most recently, chaired a working group on the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, as a part of a CISAC summer study on nuclear power expansion and nonproliferation implications.
Braun is a member of the World Nuclear Association (WNA) committees on Nuclear Economics and Assured Fuel Supplies. He is a permanent lecturer at the World Nuclear University's (WNU) One-Week Courses. Braun was a member of the Near-Term Deployment and the Economic Cross-Cut working groups of the Department of Energy (DOE) Generation IV Roadmap study. He conducted several nuclear economics-related studies for the DOE Nuclear Energy Office, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the Non-Proliferation Trust International, and other organizations.
Before joining CISAC, Braun worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. He also managed nuclear marketing in East Asia and Eastern Europe. Prior to that, Braun worked at United Engineers and Constructors (UE&C), EPRI and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).
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Nuclear denial: From Hiroshima to Fukushima
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Governments and the nuclear power industry have a strong interest in playing down the harmful effects of radiation from atomic weapons and nuclear power plants. Over the years, some scientists have supported the view that low levels of radiation are not harmful, while other scientists have held that all radiation is harmful. The author examines the radiation effects of nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in 1945; nuclear weapons testing; plutonium plant accidents at Windscale in England and Chelyabinsk in the Soviet Union; nuclear power plant emissions during normal operations; and the power plant accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States, Chernobyl in the Soviet Union, and Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. In each case, he finds a pattern of minimizing the damage to humans and attributing evidence of shortened life spans mostly to stress and social dislocation rather than to radiation. While low-level radiation is now generally accepted as harmful, its effects are deemed to be so small that they cannot be distinguished from the much greater effects of stress and social dislocation. Thus, some scientists declare that there is no point in even studying the populations exposed to the radioactive elements released into the atmosphere during the 2011 accident at Fukushima.
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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Hecker: India's first-class nuclear program can still learn from Fukushima
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CISAC's Sig Hecker talks to one of India's most respected newspapers, The Hindu, about why he admires India's nuclear energy program. India's world-class nuclear researchers can still learn many lessons from the Fukushima nuclear crisis, particularly in fostering a culture of safety. The world's largest democracy must demonstrate to its citizens that nuclear power is safe and sustainable in order to pursue its ambitious energy program.
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Disowning Fukushima: Managing the credibility of nuclear reliability assessment in the wake of disaster
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This paper reflects on the credibility of nuclear risk assessment in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns. In democratic states, policymaking around nuclear energy has long been premised on an understanding that experts can objectively and accurately calculate the probability of catastrophic accidents. Yet the Fukushima disaster lends credence to the substantial body of social science research that suggests such calculations are fundamentally unworkable. Nevertheless, the credibility of these assessments appears to have survived the disaster, just as it has resisted the evidence of previous nuclear accidents. This paper looks at why. It argues that public narratives of the Fukushima disaster invariably frame it in ways that allow risk-assessment experts to “disown” it. It concludes that although these narratives are both rhetorically compelling and highly consequential to the governance of nuclear power, they are not entirely credible.
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Regulation & Governance
Rod Ewing named Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security
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Rod Ewing, one of the nation’s leading experts on nuclear materials, has been named the inaugural Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation.
Ewing has written extensively on issues related to nuclear waste management and is Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. He will have a joint appointment as Professor of Geological and Environmental Sciences in the School of Earth Sciences and as a Senior Fellow at CISAC. He will begin his new position at Stanford in January.
“Given the very long and distinguished history of the Stanton Foundation’s involvement in issues of nuclear security, this appointment provides me with a unique opportunity to blend science with security policy,” Ewing said.
The endowed chair was recently established with a $5 million gift to CISAC from the Stanton Foundation to aid the center in its longstanding mission to build a safer world through rigorous policy research in nuclear security.
Former CBS president Frank Stanton established the foundation, which also funds CISAC’s Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowships for pre- and post-doctoral students and junior faculty who are studying policy-relevant issues related to nuclear security.
Ewing, currently the Edward H. Kraus Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan, will conduct research on nuclear security and energy and related issues relevant to international arms control policy when he arrives at Stanford.
He will teach a course at CISAC related to nuclear security issues. In his research at Stanford’s School of Earth Sciences, Ewing will focus on the response of materials to extreme environments and the demand for strategic minerals for use in the development of sustainable energy technologies.
“I am particularly interested in understanding the connections between nuclear energy, its environmental impact and proliferation of nuclear weapons,” he said “This appointment gives me the freedom to pursue teaching and research in this area across disciplinary boundaries.”
Tino Cuéllar, CISAC’s co-director and next director of its parent organization, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, said Ewing’s appointment as the inaugural Stanton chair would help CISAC and FSI remain at the forefront of global efforts to understand nuclear energy and its enormous consequences to civilization.
“How societies throughout the world handle nuclear security challenges will have a profound impact on our future, and problems involving the management and security of nuclear waste will in turn greatly affect nuclear security” Cuéllar said.
Ewing’s appointment continues a tradition at CISAC of blending faculty in the sciences and social sciences. The center’s co-founders believed political science and the natural sciences are essential components of global security.
Stanton himself became actively engaged in international security issues in 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him to a committee to develop the first comprehensive plan for the nation’s survival following a nuclear attack. His connection to Stanford began as a founding member and chair of Stanford’s Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences in 1953 and a university trustee from 1953 to 1971.
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A Look at South Korea’s Spent Nuclear Fuel Options
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South Korea’s impressive nuclear power industry has quickly reached world class status on par with leaders like France, Japan and the United States. With this success has brought a familiar array of problems associated with spent nuclear fuel disposition. I present a model of spent fuel production and transportation in South Korea as well as a range of potential options to delay saturation of spent fuel storage pools in the short term. I will also discuss implications for arguments surrounding pyroprocessing as a long term solution to the fuel cycle, especially in the context of the upcoming renewal of the 123 nuclear sharing agreement with the United States.
Rob Forrest is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. His research focuses on the role of particle accelerators in the future nuclear fuel cycle, specifically on the feasibility of Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) in sub-critical reactor designs and the transmutation of nuclear waste. Rob’s interest in policy and nuclear issues began during his fellowship in the 2008 Public Policy and Nuclear Threats program at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UC San Diego. In 2010, he also participated in the PONI Nuclear Scholars Initiative at CSIS.
Before coming to CISAC in 2011, Rob received his Ph.D. in high-energy physics from the University of California, Davis. Most of his graduate career was spent at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, IL where he preformed a search for signs of a hypothetical theory called Supersymmetry. Before beginning his graduate work, Rob spent two years at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory working with the Klystrons that supply the RF power to the accelerator. In 2001, Rob earned his B.S. in physics from the University of California, San Diego where, throughout his undergraduate career, he worked for the NASA EarthKam project.
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Robert Forrest
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rforrest@gmail.com
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Rob Forrest is currently a member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories where his research interests include nuclear power, cybersecurity, and nonproliferation. As a member of the systems research group, he specializes in data driven methods and analysis to inform policy for national security.
As a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC, his research focused on one of the most pressing technical issues of nuclear power: what to do with spent nuclear fuel. Specifically, he looked at the more short term issues surrounding interim storage as they affect the structure of the back end of the fuel cycle. He focuses mainly on countries with strong nuclear power growth such as South Korea and China.
Rob’s interest in policy and nuclear issues began during his fellowship in the 2008 Public Policy and Nuclear Threats program at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UC San Diego. In 2010, he also participated in the PONI Nuclear Scholars Initiative at CSIS.
Before coming to CISAC in 2011, Rob received his Ph.D. in high-energy physics from the University of California, Davis. Most of his graduate career was spent at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, IL where he performed a search for signs of a theory called Supersymmetry. Before beginning his graduate work, Rob spent two years at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. In 2001, Rob earned his B.S. in physics from the University of California, San Diego where, throughout his undergraduate career, he worked for NASA.
As a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC, his research focused on one of the most pressing technical issues of nuclear power: what to do with spent nuclear fuel. Specifically, he looked at the more short term issues surrounding interim storage as they affect the structure of the back end of the fuel cycle. He focuses mainly on countries with strong nuclear power growth such as South Korea and China.
Rob’s interest in policy and nuclear issues began during his fellowship in the 2008 Public Policy and Nuclear Threats program at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UC San Diego. In 2010, he also participated in the PONI Nuclear Scholars Initiative at CSIS.
Before coming to CISAC in 2011, Rob received his Ph.D. in high-energy physics from the University of California, Davis. Most of his graduate career was spent at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, IL where he performed a search for signs of a theory called Supersymmetry. Before beginning his graduate work, Rob spent two years at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. In 2001, Rob earned his B.S. in physics from the University of California, San Diego where, throughout his undergraduate career, he worked for NASA.
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