Remarks by John RitchDirector General, World Nuclear AssociationWorld Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference
San Antonio, Texas, 13 April 2005
Friends and colleagues, I am delighted to join Skip Bowman in welcoming you to this second annual World Nuclear Fuel Cycle conference.
With our many members in common - and a collective membership encompassing most nuclear enterprises worldwide - the NEI-WNA partnership on this annual spring meeting is a sound step in rationalising the activities that support our fast globalising industry.
Last month I spoke about nuclear power in the 21st century at a world conference of energy ministers in Paris, and it is a positive sign of the times that The Washington Post has decided to publish a shortened version of that statement on its editorial page sometime next week.
My essential message was one already familiar to all of you: that global warming is rapidly approaching a critical point at which devastating climate change will become irreversible, and that humankind cannot conceivably meet this challenge without a sharply expanded use of nuclear power - to produce electricity, hydrogen and clean water.
I described the global nuclear renaissance and warned that serious environmentalists should be worried by the pace of its growth - not because nuclear power is expanding but because the rate is not yet fast enough to achieve the clean-energy revolution our world urgently needs.
I outlined three steps that governments must now take to accelerate the nuclear renaissance:
Such measures are warranted because we have reached a point in history when the future of nuclear power has become inseparable from the future welfare of humankind.
For the industry, this unprecedented circumstance presents both opportunity and responsibility. Among those responsibilities is to do all possible to advance our own cause with professionalism and skill. I will focus my remarks this morning on what the WNA is doing to contribute to that objective.
I offer this overview with two hopes. I wish to remind current WNA members of the breadth of our efforts and to encourage your continued active participation in our Working Groups. I also wish to point out that even those companies that are not WNA members benefit from these activities and to urge that they join us and begin to participate.
If this is seen as recruiting - or an appeal to conscience - I plead guilty. For the past four years, we have worked with considerable success to gather the entire global industry into a multinational association to act in the international arena. Today the 60% of American nuclear generation that is not yet represented in the WNA is the one significant gap. For reasons of fairness and effectiveness, it is our aspiration to complete the mosaic of WNA membership.
In telling you what we do, let me begin by telling you what we do not do. In shaping WNA activities, we strive not to duplicate. Our goal is to fill important niches that are left by the sum total of industry efforts that occur at the company, national, and regional levels. Adding value - cost-effectively - is our theme.
The WNA mission is to support the global nuclear industry on two broad avenues of action:
Our growth in the last four years - including the major U.S. utilities that have joined us - is evidence that many companies recognise that essential functions must indeed be accomplished at the trans-national level and that this requires a cost-effective multinational association.
Today I will list twelve things we do, each of which contributes to some aspect of our mission.
1. Serve as a Global Industry Forum.
First, we serve as a global forum for industry experts on a wide range of key topics:
These working groups exchange information, develop knowledge and strategy, and in some cases produce specific outputs that appear later on this list.2. Act as Respected Global Information Resource.
Second, we provide a respected global information resource on nuclear power.
The centrepiece is our website - the world's most widely used resource on the global nuclear industry. I would focus your attention on our nearly 100 frequently-updated information papers.
For this we owe a great debt to the prodigious output of our intellectual workhorse, Ian Hore-Lacy, a uniquely dedicated nuclear educator. These papers alone receive over 5,000 hits a day, or some 2 million hits a year. Some users are from inside the industry; most are from without.
In addition, we operate three WNA news services, pitched to different audiences. We also respond to media inquiries and look for opportunities to educate editors and journalists.
These contributions are hard to quantify. Sometimes we simply succeed in discouraging negative articles that might otherwise be written on the basis of green mythologies.
Finally, we present the industry case in conferences and articles. We know the old saw that the industry spends too much time talking to itself. But we also try to offer a strong articulation of the case for nuclear that can be picked up and used by our members and allies.
3. Develop Industry Position Statements.
Next, we have begun developing strong, clearly stated industry positions on a wide range of topics, starting with waste management and low-dose radiation. These two papers are available today.
This exercise has a multiple benefit - the first being its value in establishing clarity and consensus, within the industry itself, on complicated issues. What is it, for example, that we can agree to say on low-dose radiation? On the status and future of waste management?
Once produced, these position statements can serve as useful tools for our members and their national associations, enabling them to place national issues within a larger global context of industry action and achievement.
Still another value is that the very existence of these unified position statements serves to enhance credibility - both for our industry as the effectively organised custodian of a valuable technology and also for the WNA as an industry voice and representative.
4. Propound the Nuclear Case in UN, Business and Other International Forums.
Fourth, we represent the nuclear industry in the UN forums focussed on sustainable development and climate change, principally the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.
We do so directly and also through participation in international business groups active in these forums, chiefly the International Chamber of Commerce and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development.
In truth, we know that nothing earth-shaking can be accomplished for nuclear energy directly in any of these forums because they reflect large forces at work elsewhere. But we can and do make sure that the industry shows up with professionalism and pride, and we distribute our materials and our message to delegates or journalists who may be interested. Our presence counts.
In the business forums, our presence has a positive educational function, helping to dispel common myths about nuclear power and discouraging any temptation to use nuclear energy as a convenient object of invidious comparison. In the process, we build awareness in the business community that the nuclear industry is in fact one of the great environmental tools available to humankind.
Sometimes we can work behind the scenes to broker international connections that might not otherwise occur. I offer two examples:
First, in anticipation of the G-8 summit conference in the UK later this spring, we are coordinating an effort to engage with the summit sherpas from the U.S., France, Japan, Canada, and Russia. Our aim is to see language in the final summit communiqué by which the G-8 powers declare that nuclear power is essential to strategy on climate change and sustainable development.
Similarly, on a longer-term horizon, we are engaging with the group of major developing countries called the G-4: India, China, Brazil, and South Africa. Each individually has a pro-nuclear policy, and we are encouraging them to convert these separate policies into a collective affirmation in UN forums that nuclear power is essential to sustainable global development.
5. Advocate for Industry vis-à-vis ICRP, IAEA, and NEA.
Fifth, we are acting as the global industry's unified voice in influencing the work of key standard-setting organisations. We regard this as an indispensable contribution, particularly as regards the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
In the past 2 years, the ICRP has considered major revisions in its basic radiological protection norms, and has also begun to explore the new issue of protecting non-human species. The changes resulting from both processes could conceivably have a far-reaching impact on nuclear industry operations.
It has thus been a matter of fundamental necessity that the industry marshal its top expertise and engage in these deliberations with a strong and coherent voice. By developing this voice and by being accepted by the ICRP as the global industry's representative, our Working Group on Radiological Protection is playing a crucial role in the defence and assertion of industry interests.
6. Demonstrate the Affordability of Nuclear Power.
Sixth, we are producing an authoritative publication on the economics of nuclear power.
In recent years, various studies have yielded a generally positive but somewhat confused message on this key question. To clarify the situation - and to underscore the industry's increasingly competitive position - our Working Group on Industry Economics has assembled a cross-section of industry expertise to critique, to synthesize, and to build on previous studies.
Later this year we intend to publish an authoritative report that can serve the industry as a single, comprehensive analysis demonstrating unequivocally that nuclear power's environmental virtues for the 21st century are a pure bonus because it is a sound option on economics alone.
7. Facilitate Incident-related Public Communication.
Seventh, we have used our Event Definition Working Group to engage with the IAEA on how nuclear incidents are characterised and perceived. This effort has had two dimensions: technical definition and public communication.
In the first area, we have engaged with the Agency to examine the definitions of the International Nuclear Event Scale to ensure that the formal classification of an incident does not exaggerate its real risk to people and the environment.
In the area of public communication, we have worked from the premise that the nuclear world is not now well organised to speak clearly, promptly and consistently in the event of nuclear incidents that rise to a level of international interest and concern. To help deal with this deficiency, we are about to finalise with the IAEA an exchange of letters establishing a WNA-IAEA protocol for systematic information sharing in case of such incidents.
Neither organisation has any business trying to determine what the other chooses to say in any given circumstance. But this protocol will facilitate our cooperation toward the common goal of producing timely, accurate information that is minimally susceptible to misunderstanding or exaggeration.
We hope the establishment of this IAEA-WNA link will help the WNA serve as a useful hub for the entire industry when timely knowledge is needed. Nuclear incidents can have detrimental political repercussions far exceeding any real damage, and this advance preparation is a step toward minimising the risks of misperception.
8. Publish Valuable Tools for a Globalising Nuclear Industry.
Eighth, we are developing WNA publications we see as useful to our global industry:
9. Convene the Industry's Leaders for Strategy Development.
Ninth, we conduct the Annual WNA Symposium as a premier global nuclear industry event. In that context, we will now seek to do something new by convening key CEOs on a regular basis to consider substantive recommendations from the WNA's "Global Strategies" Group.
We know from experience that it is easy to hold an international meeting of CEOs that is not terribly productive. We intend to give our best effort to devising international convocations in which CEOs can act to implement real, well-defined options for advancing the industry's cause.
10. Support Actions at the National Level to Advance Nuclear Power.
Tenth, we support our member companies, national nuclear associations, and the global Women-in-Nuclear (WIN) organisation by supplying information materials and working with them to advance the case for nuclear power.
Some of these activities are routine and systematic. In some instances when a country has reached a key decision point on energy policy, we have contributed analytic papers or made special visits to speak to political leaders and the media. Our contribution is a broad perspective that stresses nuclear power's widening worldwide use and its indispensable value to global environmental preservation.
11. Engage with IAEA to Shape Developments on Nuclear Fuel Cycle Security.
Another WNA project concerns the IAEA's announced goal of limiting the world's nuclear fuel cycle facilities while guaranteeing commercial supply for legitimate energy needs. Our aim is ensure an effective industry response to Dr. Elbaradei's initiative.
During the first stage, the IAEA invited individual companies to send representatives to Vienna to offer their separate views, but the actual deliberations took place without the industry at the table. For the next phase, we have Dr. Elbaradei's agreement that he will welcome unified industry participation coordinated by the WNA. We will achieve that coherence using a new Working Group on Securing the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle.
The question at issue is how best to reconcile non-proliferation objectives with environmental needs and commercial realities. By engaging the IAEA constructively on this challenge, we can protect the industry's interests while making a genuine contribution to a compelling public need.
12. Strengthen the Industry's Educational Foundations.
Finally, we have worked to strengthen the industry's educational foundations by initiating the new World Nuclear University. The WNU is a global partnership that unites academia, government, and industry in the pursuit of multiple aims:
The elements of the WNU partnership are a network of leading institutions of nuclear learning in 30 countries and four "Founding Supporters" that provide the inputs from government and industry: WNA, IAEA, WANO, and NEA.
To animate this partnership, we are using a small WNU Coordinating Centre co-located with the WNA in London and staffed through secondments from key nuclear organisations. From there, we are coordinating 10 WNU working groups and also managing the newly created WNU Summer Institute, which is being designed as an academy for future industry leaders.
The first annual WNU Summer Institute - an intensive 6-week course for 75 WNU Fellows from 32 countries - will be held this year at the Idaho National Laboratory.
We greatly appreciate the financial and staff support that some of our key member companies have given to the WNU during its embryonic stages. Further and wider support will be essential if this undertaking is to realise its great potential.
A Modest Price for Essential Industry Support
I will close with a quotation from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization". I offer the modest analogy that joining and supporting the WNA is a small price to pay for actions at the international level that provide essential service for our entire industry.
I ask your help in building an industry consensus that WNA efforts deserve the participation and support of our entire industry - for all of us live in that wider world in which our industry's future will be determined and in which our industry's contribution is so profoundly needed.