International Seminar on the Status and Prospects of Small and Medium Sized Reactors
Opening Remarks by John B Ritch
Director General, World Nuclear Association
Cairo
27-31 May 2001
Ladies and gentlemen, the World Nuclear Association is proud to stand with the IAEA and the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency as a co-sponsor of this important event, which looks to the future and to how one of the great discoveries in human history can be employed ever more expansively to serve human development and human needs.
It is particularly appropriate that a seminar on the future of nuclear power be held in Cairo , for two reasons.
The first is personal. Egypt has given to the world, in the person of Mohamed Elbaradei, a distinguished leader in international nuclear affairs. It is rare indeed to find in one individual someone with a keen grasp of international law, geo-politics, and global development , who can meld that understanding with a sensitive and complex subject like nuclear energy in a way that promotes enlightenment and progress in the human community worldwide. Egypt can be proud that, as Director General of the International Atomic Energy, Mohamed Elbaradei is doing precisely that.
Second, Egyptians as a nation and people stand at the bridge-point between the many separations in our world , between past and future, North and South, East and West, poor and wealthy, developed and developing , and, in the realm of nuclear affairs, between those nations with nuclear energy and those without. With a fine scientific community that is well advanced in understanding nuclear technology, Egypt today is actively examining the use of nuclear energy for both desalination and electric power. I hope and trust that this conference will support that exploration , for Egypt and for many others.
For me, this conference represents a special opportunity. A few months ago, I completed seven years in Vienna as U.S. representative to the IAEA and other UN agencies there. Before I left, Mohamed Elbaradei summoned me to his office and instructed me that he wanted me to go out into the world and to try to make myself useful. I obeyed Mohamed's order by accepting a job as head of the Uranium Institute in London and launching an effort to transform it into a private-sector counterpart to the IAEA , into a world organization that would provide, on the non-governmental side of life, a truly global nuclear forum and a commercial and technical meeting place for those everywhere who are engaged in the field of nuclear power.
When I arrived in January, the Uranium Institute was, to a substantial extent, fulfilling that kind of function , but with a membership of companies and other organisations located almost exclusively in the OECD world. My goal, indeed my highest priority, is to expand our membership so as to include companies and other nuclear organisations from every country in the world that is either producing nuclear power or considering doing so. We signaled the onset of this project earlier this month, when our full membership voted unanimously to change our name to World Nuclear Association.
I am pleased to say that our very first new member after my arrival was the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran. But that was just a beginning. I regard virtually every organisation and agency represented at this seminar as a potential candidate for membership in the World Nuclear Association, and I intend to use every opportunity in the days ahead to pursue and examine that possibility.
Our world today is immersed in problems and opportunities, and nuclear technology stands in the very center of it all , as a technology that can meet and solve a myriad of human problems if we grasp the opportunity to exploit it wisely and well. If that is to occur, we need transnational communication, commercial cooperation, technical and personal exchange , and it is our aim that the World Nuclear Association act a global hub for these much-needed connections.
Among governments, the IAEA is the nucleus of the nuclear world. The World Nuclear Association will be seeking to perform the same role among companies, research institutes, professional societies, and government agencies. I am pleased to say that Hans Blix, Dr. Elbaradei's predecessor at the IAEA, has joined our cause by becoming the World Nuclear Association's honorary chairman.
In the days ahead, with my colleague Adrian Collings, I hope to talk to as many of you as possible about WNA membership, and I invite you to approach us. We want to talk about the business of partnership , about how we can help each other. I look forward with all of you to a successful seminar this week, and I look forward too to welcoming many of the organizations you represent as new members of the World Nuclear Association.
Ambassador Ritch became Director General of the World Nuclear Association in January this year after serving for seven years as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna. There, he was U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. Previously, beginning under chairmanship of Senator J. William Fulbright, he served for 22 years as senior advisor on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, specializing in East-West relations, NATO affairs, and arms control. He has also been an entrepreneur, heading a real estate development company and co-founding a multinational enterprise marketing American vitamins throughout Europe. Amb. Ritch is a 1965 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and holds a master's degree from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar studying politics, philosophy and economics.