Ambassador John B. Ritch IIIUnited States Representative to the United Nations / Vienna
Keynote AddressInternational Conference on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management
Cordoba, SpainMarch 13-17, 2000
Mr. President, distinguished colleagues:
Last December in Washington, the International Atomic Energy Agency held a modest international conference on the subject of radioactive residues. The agency did so in keeping with its responsibility to facilitate constructive inter-governmental communication, particularly among those with different perspectives that need to be aired and reconciled in the common interest. That conference received little if any attention in the media. But it was remarkable nonetheless. Using its global prestige, the IAEA was able to bring together in the same room , and even to stimulate a dialogue among , representatives of such diverse world powers as the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
My international colleagues are keenly aware, of course, that the United States has numerous power-centers and speaks with many voices. This is both liability and strength, and most certainly an immutable reality. As a nation, we have a teeming diversity and governmental institutions that, while clumsy, are geared to offer a platform to many constituencies and points of view. We are, in this way, a microcosm of the world community.
I offer the previous anecdote because it is relevant to the subject we are here to discuss. It points to the diversity of view that surrounds the sensitive topic of radioactive waste; to the need for extensive dialogue among parties with quite different perspectives and priorities; and to the IAEA as a focal point, and a valuable instrument, for the pursuit of a much-needed consensus among, and even within, nations.
As the American ambassador to the IAEA and other UN organizations in Vienna, I deal in matters of broad policy, operating on terrain where science, national positions, and international diplomacy intersect. But it is on precisely such terrain that the question of radioactive waste management must be resolved. Therefore, at the risk of speaking in generalities too great for such an expert audience, allow me to offer an overview from the perspective of one U.S. public servant.
The Urgent Global Need for Clean Energy
Just a few weeks ago, Mankind emerged from a century of shattering history, an epoch that combined astonishing technological progress with barbarous human carnage. Looking back, we can see the 20 th century as an accelerating race , between the rational and irrational instincts of the human species. This fateful competition, which we carry with us into the new millenium, will determine whether Man-the-Statesman can summon the wisdom to harness the potent inventiveness of Man-the-Scientist.
In the decades behind us, this struggle , of Man against himself , had a primarily military cast. After world wars had twice exploded into high-technology slaughter on a scale previously unimagined, Mankind responded by erecting the United Nations system and a panoply of complementary institutions, all aimed at replacing strife in and among nation-states with cooperative and just governance. The work of those institutions was spurred by the advent of an entirely new order of weapons, capable , by unleashing the binding energy of the simple atom , of annihilating much of civilization. An overarching, indeed defining question of the 20 th century was whether, having discovered such awesome power, we would obliterate ourselves in a spasm of military folly.
We enter the new millenium having escaped that fate, through a combination of sheer luck and our genuine progress in corralling military dangers through regimes of cooperative self-denial and collective security. Eminent among these strides is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, now nearly universal in membership and backed by the IAEA through an ever more stringent system of global oversight.
What chastens us against complacency is a mounting recognition that an entirely new threat to Mankind's security is emerging at a rapid pace. We are learning, more acutely each day, that even our most benign endeavors , in promoting human longevity on a wide scale and in bringing the fruits of prosperity to a rapidly expanding global population , are themselves a source of severe jeopardy to the planetary ecosystem that sustains our survival. We face a challenge summarized in the phrase 'sustainable development.'
Once again, we must answer whether Man-the-Statesman can guide the creativity of Man-the-Scientist. Can our ingenious and ostensibly constructive efforts to build a global civilization of widely shared benefits be managed to avoid an inexorable debilitation of the environment and climate , yielding a security threat as grave, over time, as the danger of nuclear war? Can institutions erected to promote peace and prosperity be geared to promote preservation of the biosphere on which all life depends?
In shaping a strategy of sustainable development, no question is more fundamental than how we produce energy. For no threat to our environment and our climate constitutes a more clear and present danger than the billions of tons of greenhouse and other gases being released into the air each year through Mankind's heavy dependence on fossil fuel for heating, transportation and electricity. This relentless and reckless policy of waste disposal through pollution is not only grossly harmful to our immediate surroundings; it could, under current projections, cause the total atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases to double from pre-industrial levels during the century that lies ahead. While scientists argue over the precise nature of the effects, few dispute that the environmental and climatic consequences will be far-reaching and severe.
In response to this menace, many nations have begun extensive efforts to induce energy conservation; some have undertaken a technological search for clean, high-yield alternatives to fossil power. Both energy efficiency and the development of 'renewable' energy sources are pressing global imperatives and deserve intensive governmental support. But conservation, no matter how extensive, cannot obviate the need for large base-load electricity; and no energy source categorized as 'renewable' has yet demonstrated the feasibility, or even the prospect, of meeting this expanding need.
Only one technology on our horizon , advanced nuclear reactors , offers a realistic promise of contributing substantially to the world's burgeoning need for large base-load power production without exacerbating the hazards of environmental contamination and catastrophic climate change. There is thus a strong argument that nuclear energy , tested and improved by nearly ten thousand reactor-years of safe operational experience , is a technology whose time has come. The question starkly before us is whether, in the face of dire need, Mankind can now realize the full promise of President Eisenhower's vision of 'atoms for peace.'
Public Opposition: Valid Concerns and Common Misperceptions
Answering this question is far less a matter of technology than of political wisdom, political will, and even political courage. Plainly, those bold enough to advocate nuclear energy as a 'green' answer to Mankind's current plight must confront a deep-seated public aversion to this technology. This pervasive negativity, built up over decades, comprises a mixture of valid concerns suffused with fundamental misperceptions.
The first concern , that nuclear power plants breed proliferation , has little foundation in experience or in the current direction of international affairs. Each of the five recognized nuclear weapon states, for example, built the bomb before moving to civilian power production; power reactors were not a necessary intermediate step. A country of reckless disposition could, of course, follow North Korea and Iraq in trying to use a civilian nuclear program as temporary cover for an illicit weapons effort. But such a course has been rendered both difficult and costly by the sweeping scope of the NPT and the new strength of IAEA safeguards, which have been intensively upgraded precisely in response to the clandestine nuclear program undertaken by Saddam Hussein. Today, any aspiring proliferator would face a strong probability of detection , and sure knowledge that its violation would turn it into an international pariah facing collective action by the UN Security Council with a likely military response.
The NPT violations committed by Iraq and North Korea, and the prospect of a nuclear arms race in South Asia, have contributed to a public impression that nuclear proliferation is a prevalent danger. But in historical perspective, it may be more accurate to view these events as exceptions to a larger rule: that the world is turning decisively away from nuclear weapons , and erecting strong barriers against recidivism.
To be sure, the former Cold War superpowers face an arduous task in dealing with the legacy of their nuclear competition. Weapons dismantlement, management of fissile material, and the clean up of weapon-production sites will prove onerous burdens for years to come. But dealing with the consequences of vertical nuclear proliferation in the past must be seen as a question distinct from the question of horizontal proliferation in the future. The potential for future nuclear weapons proliferation , while a danger always to be taken seriously , is a threat so narrow in scope that it must not cloud our consideration of an energy source of broad and arguably urgent importance to Mankind.
Indeed, the fear of proliferation is largely misplaced in the global warming debate. Most current carbon consumption occurs in countries which already have nuclear weapons technology or which can be relied on as good faith-parties to the NPT. Moreover, the largest growth markets in energy consumption are China and India, both already in possession of nuclear-weapon capabilities. In short, almost everywhere the reduction or avoidance of carbon emissions could yield important benefits for the environment and climate, proliferation is not logically an issue.
The second public concern impeding rational consideration of nuclear energy is the belief that a nuclear power plant itself constitutes a kind of bomb , likely, in case of accident, to explode or to release massively fatal doses of radiation. Like the question of proliferation, this concern must be dealt with by distinguishing the future from the past.
In dealing with the past, certainly it is useful to point out that the human and environmental damage done even by the Chernobyl accident pales against the continuing onslaught against Man and Nature caused by the extraction and burning of fossil fuel. This point is necessary because of the common perception that an accident at a nuclear power plant holds uniquely large and horrific dangers for the general public. Primarily, however, it must be fully acknowledged that Chernobyl was indeed a catastrophe , from which the world has drawn lessons of immense significance for the future.
Rather than immunizing us against the use of nuclear energy, Chernobyl should be seen as having helped to immunize us against unsafe practices in the use of nuclear energy. Just as Saddam Hussein inadvertently served to strengthen safeguards against proliferators, Chernobyl accelerated the arrival of a far stronger nuclear safety culture. National regulatory agencies, a newly-established World Association of Nuclear Operators and the IAEA now work together to promulgate state-of the-art knowledge. Meanwhile, a new Convention on Nuclear Safety provides for a worldwide system of peer review to detect any deviation from the high safety standards that are now the norm.
Perhaps most importantly, what must be impressed on the public mind is that Chernobyl-style reactors are uniquely dangerous antiques and that, once decommissioned, nothing of their ilk will ever be seen again. Through sheer exertions of public education, the Chernobyl connection must be broken. People must be brought to discern that any new nuclear power reactor built anywhere in the world in the 21 st century will be an exemplar of safety design, having multiple systems of protection and bearing no resemblance to the Soviet-era design that so blighted the public image of nuclear energy. This argument can be sustained, of course, only against a future backdrop of impeccably safe operation at nuclear reactors around the world.
This brings us to the most intractable public concern about nuclear energy, which is the subject of this conference. Waste is the most genuinely substantive problem associated with nuclear energy not because the problem is scientifically insoluble but because for years we have failed, for essentially political reasons, to implement, anywhere in the world, the soundly developed concept of a permanent geological repository.
The universal absence of a successfully operative disposal facility has contributed to a vicious cycle whereby nuclear energy is stigmatized for lacking an answer to the disposal question, and the stigma in turn fortifies widespread resistance to answering that question with an operational facility.
We face a dilemma: How can we win public support to progress with disposal without demonstrating its feasibility? And how can we demonstrate its feasibility without first winning public support? My answer lacks elegance but seeks to embody practicality:
We must try to do both at once , a two-track approach, if you will.
One Track to Resolving the Issue of Waste: Demonstration
On the first track, nations that are advancing on the repository concept can make an immensely valuable contribution by taking the concept from vision to reality. Once several repositories have established a record of operational activity, the dynamic of the global nuclear energy debate will be changed entirely. No longer will it be possible for debaters who oppose nuclear energy , and politicians who are afraid of the subject , to utter the blithe arguments that disposal is technically or politically infeasible. By their existence, operational facilities defeat both arguments.
Today, some 150,000 tons of spent nuclear power reactor fuel has accumulated around the world and awaits permanent disposition. Once some repositories exist, the burden of public argument may shift , from how to dispose of this material to why we are not doing so more quickly.
As the first nation to develop nuclear energy, and as an active promoter of its peaceful uses throughout the world, the United States bears a special responsibility to lead in efforts to develop the means of permanently disposing of the waste resulting from such use. We are proud of our progress thus far.
In the past year, our first permanent geologic repository, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, accepted its first shipment of transuranic waste. We see the WIPP pilot plant as a considerable advance for the geological repository concept in terms of public acceptance. It not only embodies a commitment to high standards, certified by our Environmental Protection Agency, but also demonstrably furthers the process of nuclear clean up by permitting waste shipments that have facilitated the long-awaited demolition of the plutonium manufacturing facility at Rocky Flats.
Many difficult but valuable lessons emerged from the WIPP program in the areas of site characterization, experimental technique, and performance assessment methodology , and also in the areas of regulator and public confidence building. A specific and important by-product was the development of a workable institutional approach to the highly controversial issue of radioactive waste transportation. More generally, we learned that articulating the science to citizens so that they may understand its meaning takes a great deal of time, perseverance and patience. Managerially, we learned that our technical experts must assimilate and operate on the premise that the public has a right to understand and that government has a responsibility to provide information in a form the public can understand. Institutionally, we internalized the principle that the public is not an inconvenience to this work but an essential part of it.
We hope that, for other countries involved in deep geological disposal, the scientific and democratic processes that led to the opening of the WIPP plant will serve as a useful model on which to build.
Meanwhile, at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, work continues. Fifteen months ago, the Department of Energy issued its long-awaited Viability Assessment, providing Congress and the public with a technical status report and identifying critical issues requiring resolution. The study of Yucca Mountain is in fact a first-of-a-kind scientific and technical project, involving extensive work in geology, hydrology and other relevant disciplines. After 16 years of study, Yucca Mountain surely stands as one of the geologically best-characterized sites in the world.
Our current intent is to complete, by the summer of next year, all of the scientific and environmental studies necessary for a decision whether to proceed with development. That decision will be among the most important facing our next President in his first year.
Concerned critics worry that by proceeding we are foreclosing future options. We disagree, for we believe quite the opposite. Successfully developing a repository will preserve a full range of options for future generations, which will make the ultimate decision as to whether to maintain the repository in an open monitored condition or to seal and close it. To ensure this flexibility, we are designing our repository with a range of scenarios in mind. The repository could be closed as early as 50 years from initiation of waste emplacement. On the other hand, our designs would allow the repository to be kept open, with appropriate maintenance, for up to 300 years.
Our plan for geological repositories is thus aimed squarely at the interest of future generations. We are seeking to assume responsibility for a problem created by this generation, while leaving flexibility for our heirs to reach their own decision, applying their own criteria in light of future technological realities.
The Second Track: Full Dialogue in a Respected Forum
Let me turn now to the second track. While operational repositories will help to overcome the long-standing impasse on nuclear waste, a few successes alone will not be enough. We must actively search for an international consensus , a consensus on the future role of nuclear energy and on nuclear waste as a common problem to be solved jointly.
It is here , in the pursuit and development of that international consensus , that I envisage a central and valuable role for the IAEA. The agency is the world's only institution with global responsibilities and obligations directly relating to the protection of health and the environment against the effects of ionizing radiation. The agency has developed and propagated the world's essential safety standards for the safe management of waste. It has served as the forum for negotiation of the major international agreements on this topic. It has, without prejudice, conducted extensive comparative study of energy alternatives. Just as we would wish for such an institution, the IAEA stands in many ways above the fray, respected for competence and objectivity.
No one can be optimistic that an international consensus will result easily even from the most extensive dialogue. But dialogue can help. For those in authority, it offers a means to climb out of the trenches and to make their best case. For skeptics and citizen advocates, it provides a means to move beyond the role of sniper and guerilla warrior. For all concerned, it presents a kind of peace table, where the currency of discussion is compromise and the search for common ground. With a genuine dialogue, people on both sides of the table cannot fail to learn.
In the realm of nuclear energy, our need is for a broad discussion , in two senses. We must have a broad range of participants that includes governments, operators, industry, regulators, non-governmental organizations, respected experts, and citizens groups , indeed any and all vessels or shapers of public opinion. We also need a broad range of subject matter, so that public dialogue is expanded beyond the narrowly contentious issue of where and how waste will be deposited. Our debate must be holistic, including a full and realistic discussion of energy alternatives , aimed inter alia at identifying a reasonable and accepted role for nuclear power and its by-products.
The IAEA cannot be the instrumentality for expressing an international consensus; formal expressions of consensus must be found within nations and among national governments. But the IAEA can, as a uniquely positioned and highly respected repository of international trust, serve as a catalyst in the pursuit of a consensus that has long eluded the world community.
In Greek mythology, an oracle stated that he who could untie the impossibly tangled Gordian knot would rule all Asia. According to legend, Alexander the Great simply cut the knot with his sword and proceeded to the glory that had been foretold. The metaphor we have retained is one of slicing through problems with quick and deft solutions. Today, as we face the challenge of extracting consensus from the bitter debate over the future of nuclear energy and its already existing by-products, no such facile answer is at hand.
If we are to take control of our destiny, and guide ourselves rationally in meeting the urgent imperative of producing more and cleaner energy, we will not do so by slicing through the current impasse. Obstacles cannot be overrun or ignored. We must untie the Gordian knot, carefully and painstakingly, using all of our resources and democratic institutions wisely and well.
Those nations able to move forward, politically and scientifically, to demonstrate the validity of safe geological disposal will contribute both to the solution of the present problem of waste and to the rationality of the larger debate over the future role of nuclear energy. Meanwhile, that debate should be encouraged and facilitated, through the full employment of the multilateral institutional structure we have built and readied precisely to perform such service to the world community.
If and as the IAEA performs that role, it can provide a forum , a vehicle for communication, education, and rational advance toward an urgently needed consensus on a global problem that bears heavily on the very future of civilization. Today, we use the term stakeholders so frequently that it has become a cliché. In the case of nuclear energy, the usage is appropriate. For all of Mankind, there is a great deal at stake.