World Industry Lauds IAEA Initiative On Nuclear Safety and Security
Vienna / 2 November 2001
The head of the trade association representing the world nuclear industry today commended the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for initiating a far-reaching intergovernmental review that will consider ways to upgrade the safety and security of nuclear materials and activities worldwide.
Attending an IAEA conference on nuclear safeguards and terrorism, the Director General of the World Nuclear Association, John Ritch, promised the industry's full support for the IAEA review.
"In the half-century since President Eisenhower's 'atoms for peace' initiative, the IAEA has promoted safety standards and safeguarded materials to protect the peaceful uses of nuclear energy," said Ritch. "The IAEA has become the cornerstone for the global nuclear industry, and has helped the industry become a world leader in safety and security. What has now changed are the assumptions we will apply in designing and protecting nuclear facilities and operations."
"It took Chernobyl to prompt a stronger system of nuclear safety. It took Saddam Hussein to prompt stronger safeguards against illicit nuclear weapons activity by a renegade state. Neither the IAEA nor the industry intends to wait for an act of nuclear terrorism before upgrading our defences against it. We have a new view of the enemy's ruthlessness and sophistication, and we will gauge our defences accordingly."
"The nuclear industry is no more vulnerable to terrorism than many other aspects of modern society, and this technology provides human benefits far too valuable to abandon. From producing clean energy to diagnosing and treating disease, nuclear technology has become an integral part of modern life," Ritch said. "Applying the necessary measures to defend peaceful nuclear activities is a part of the larger worldwide challenge of defending modern civilisation against those who seek to destroy it."
At the conference, the IAEA's Director General, Mohamed Elbaradei, announced an IAEA initiative to develop a $30-$50 million fund for a comprehensive review of nuclear safety and security standards and procedures worldwide. Elbaradei cautioned against any sense of panic and admonished anti-nuclear activists not to try to exploit current fears by taking "cheap shots" against nuclear energy, which he said had well-known environmental benefits.
In a speech to the IAEA conference, Ritch urged that the industry and the IAEA "use the opportunity to reapply ourselves, with new resolve, to a duty already on our agenda: that of identifying and correcting those aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle that may be vulnerable to extreme and malicious acts. We may pray that current fears subside. But while they exist, this Agency and the world industry should seize the moment to institute added precautions that will stand nuclear power in good stead for decades to come.
"In the process," Ritch said, "the industry and this Agency must walk a fine line between downplaying the danger and inadvertently exacerbating it. The public must not be deceived. But care must be also taken to avoid an exaggerated perception of vulnerability. The worst of all worlds would be to inflate both public fear and terrorist temptation beyond what the facts merit."
"Viewed in a broader perspective, the current sense of terrorist danger , and the larger and more ominous fear of a clash of civilisations , is likely to strengthen an argument that can only redound to the benefit of nuclear power: the importance of energy security. This factor, always one of nuclear energy's great assets, may become increasingly important. With this factor in the balance, the current crisis will probably strengthen, rather than weaken, the impetus toward nuclear power."
"Even before September 11," Ritch noted in his speech, "the world faced crisis enough to justify a vast worldwide expansion of nuclear technology." Referring to the fact that nuclear power is the only technology able to deliver vast amounts of base-load electricity with virtually no greenhouse gas emissions, Ritch concluded that, "If humankind is to meet the threat posed to the biosphere by our very existence, the world will need advanced nuclear reactors not just by the hundreds but by the thousands."
Commenting as the conference ended, Ritch said, "The world needs the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and the industry will work with the IAEA to protect and promote the immense value this technology delivers to people everywhere. The IAEA is one of the world's great institutions of international cooperation to support a common good. The industry calls upon governments to give the agency all the resources it needs to fulfil its indispensable role."
The World Nuclear Association is the global non-governmental trade organisation concerned with nuclear power generation and all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including mining, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, plant manufacture, transport, and the safe disposition of spent fuel.