Reference Docs

Preparing for the Nuclear Century:
The Role of the WNA

Remarks by John Ritch
Director General, World Nuclear Association

Pacific Basin Conference 2002
Shenzhen, China

President Li, President Wang, President Zan, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen:

I wish to thank all the conference organisers for this valuable opportunity to be here with so many leaders of the world nuclear industry, to exchange views and to find common cause.

You in the Chinese nuclear establishment bear an enormous responsibility. One can imagine two future possibilities for China:

Because it is far preferable that China becomes a global leader in nuclear power rather than greenhouse emissions, I offer you the hand of partnership with the World Nuclear Association in promoting your success.

"Atoms for Peace": A World Vision Being Fulfilled

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of an event that pointed world history in a new and productive direction. Since then, we have travelled far on this path. But in fact our journey has just begun.

When this journey started, our world was at the height of Cold War tension. In Europe and in Asia, geopolitical conflict was severe, and the superpowers were competing to build massive arsenals of nuclear arms. It was a time of deadly potential.

President Dwight Eisenhower chose that moment to appear before the United Nations General Assembly to propose a very different - indeed a revolutionary - international vision. Speaking to an audience that was first stunned and then overwhelmingly enthusiastic, Eisenhower presented an initiative that came to be known as "Atoms for Peace".

This vision foresaw the possibility that diplomats and scientists from many nations might chart an alternative course - by cooperating to minimize the dangers of nuclear war and to draw from nuclear technology a wide diversity of benefits for humankind.

In the half-century since Eisenhower spoke, our world has made remarkable progress toward realizing that vision of "Atoms for Peace":

Today, nations comprising 2/3 of humanity are using 440 reactors to produce 16% of global electricity; and nations representing fully half the world's people are constructing new nuclear power plants.

Key countries without nuclear power have begun to plan for it - seeking reliability, clean air and energy independence.

In the United States, where nuclear power has not seen new-build for some years, the industry has made steady gains in performance and is now poised for a dramatic resurgence.

A World Experiencing Two Revolutions

It is a remarkable aspect of our age that our progress in transforming atomic technology from a terrible danger to a global blessing has not yet been widely appreciated by many citizens.

This must now change, for the nations and people of our planet are embarked on two revolutions - one political, the other economic - which together point us inexorably toward a sharply increased use of nuclear energy.

The political revolution relates to critical public policy issues that are rising ever higher on the world agenda.

The Cold War was a half-century of geopolitical struggle that absorbed vast resources and dominated the passions and priorities of people everywhere.

One of the most valuable consequences of the end of the Cold War is that the world has refocused - and has begun to comprehend that some of the most critical questions of human history have been dangerously neglected and are now pressing upon us with an urgency that intensifies by the day.

The questions facing us concern nothing less than whether humankind can manage its exploding numbers without human misery on an unprecedented scale - and without destabilising the earthly environment that enabled civilisation to evolve.

Here are the harsh realities from which no country can escape:

First, in the next 50 years, world population will grow from 6 billion to 9 billion. In a world where human misery is already vast, unmet human needs will multiply drastically. Soon, as much as half of world population may be without sanitation and safe water.

Second, between now and 2050, as countries seek to meet the needs of this exploding population, global energy consumption will double - and humankind will consume more energy than the total consumed in all previous history.

Third, the global rate of CO2 emissions - already 25 billion tonnes a year, or 800 tonnes a second - is still growing. Within the 21st century, the projected greenhouse gas accumulation will rise to more than double the pre-industrial level.

Fourth, to stabilise greenhouse gases, even at that higher level, requires that global emissions be cut by 50%. Since countries in development will inevitably emit more greenhouse gases, any hope of averting catastrophic climate change depends on industrialised countries cutting emissions by 75%.

For those willing to face these facts, they constitute a grave global crisis. From these facts come two very concise messages: that mankind is in desperate need of vast amounts of energy, and that this energy must be clean.

Policymakers in many countries still find this challenge so large that they wish to deny its existence. Others engage in fantasy about how the challenge can be met.

But neither denial nor fantasy can be permitted. If we are to avert human and environmental catastrophe, we need real-world solutions to a real-world challenge.

The economic revolution that lies before us is the global transformation that this challenge requires - a massive worldwide shift to clean energy technologies.

Some of this energy can come from renewables, which deserve strong support. But, realistically, their role is limited.

As most people in this room keenly understand, the only proven option that can generate primary energy cleanly - on the vastly increased scale required to meet global demand - is nuclear power.

The Hydrogen "Bridge" into a Fully Clean-Energy Economy

A fundamental aspect of the coming energy revolution will be the use of hydrogen fuel cells to make electricity.

Some greens see hydrogen as one more reason why the world does not need nuclear power. But logic points in exactly the opposite direction. Hydrogen is only a way of storing and distributing energy. Like electricity, it must be produced by a primary energy source - and produced cleanly.

Hydrogen is an exciting technology precisely because it builds a bridge by which clean nuclear power can expand from electricity generation into a broader world, encompassing energy storage and the entire realm of transportation.

This is no small bridge. Widespread introduction of hydrogen fuel cells would, in a single technological leap, double or even triple the market opportunity for nuclear power.

Even without hydrogen, we can envisage nuclear energy growing steadily through this century as the world's main source of cleanly generated electricity and the cleanly energized desalination of water.

But with hydrogen, we can begin to envisage an entirely clean-energy global economy, powered by nuclear and renewables.

In this vision, hydrogen and electricity become interchangeable. Electricity makes hydrogen, and stored hydrogen makes electricity on demand.

In this vision, nuclear energy could meet not just base-load electrical needs, but instead the full range of peak-load needs - simply shifting to hydrogen production when grid demand slackens.

Last month, at the WNA's Annual Symposium in London, a featured speaker was the man whom many regard as the father of the hydrogen fuel cell, Geoffrey Ballard.

To capture the interaction of electricity and hydrogen, Ballard has coined the term "hydricity". As a visionary who is also a realist, Ballard recognises quite clearly the central role that nuclear power must play in creating hydrogen cleanly.

The hydrogen economy is not dreamy futurism. Strategic planners in the leading oil and automotive companies have recognized for several years that the future of transportation lies in hydrogen.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles are already on the street in limited fleet use, and by the end of this decade, we can expect to see hydrogen cars starting to come off the production lines in massive numbers.

In recent years, we in the nuclear industry have worried about a shortage of young people seeking careers in nuclear science. The kind of comprehensive clean-energy vision that "hydricity" offers could excite and motivate a whole new generation of scientists and entrepreneurs.

Indeed, one can imagine the transition to a hydrogen-nuclear economy unleashing an era of scientific and entrepreneurial creativity comparable to the electricity revolution we experienced a century ago or the information revolution we have just experienced.

Clean-Energy Vision Before Clean-Energy Commitment

What is most important about this vision is its potential effect on global efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change while meeting massive human need.

As we all recognise, the targets in the Kyoto Protocol represent only a tiny step toward this objective.

I am convinced, as a matter of political and geopolitical reality, that the world's nations will not take serious action on greenhouse gases until we first achieve widespread acceptance of a realistic vision of a clean-energy future.

Today, lacking that vision, we are at an impasse:

A persuasive vision of a clean-energy future would cut this Gordian knot.

Only when governments can actually foresee the feasibility of reconciling low emissions and growing economies will they embrace the long-term commitments this problem so urgently demands.

In short, a realistic vision of a clean-energy future is the political prerequisite to making the commitments that will take us there.

The Role of the WNA

The role of the World Nuclear Association is to help speed our progress toward a clean-energy future built heavily on the contribution of nuclear power.

Power production is primarily a national business, and requires support from national organisations. Our aim is to identify and perform functions of value to the nuclear industry that are not performed at the national level - or by other organisations operating at the global level.

On the global level, we see a clean division of labour:

The new member of this trio, of course, is the WNA. Already, however, we have established a strong compatibility with both WANO and the IAEA, and we work closely with them in a number of the specific activities I will describe.

In the past 18 months, since we began building the WNA on the foundation of the previous Uranium Institute, we have grown rapidly and now have over 100 member organisations from 30 countries.

Among our members are:

During our growth, we have successfully built a strong Russian membership, and we have focussed particular effort on forging a partnership with the nuclear industries of China and India.

With India, we are well on our way, and with Chinese organisations we are at an earlier stage. Eventually, we hope to establish WNA regional offices in both Beijing and Mumbai.

Our WNA membership also includes research institutes, legal and insurance firms, equipment makers, national agencies from countries where the nuclear industry is government-run, many small nuclear utilities, and a variety of mining interests, energy brokers and consultancies.

Together, our members represent over 90% of the non-generation side of the nuclear industry worldwide and just under 80% of nuclear power generation outside the United States.

Ultimately, we want the WNA to comprise the entire nuclear industry worldwide.

For those of you who represent organisations that have not yet joined the WNA, I invite you to join now. It will save us both a lot of time - because I will be pounding on your door until you become part of the global nuclear community we seek to build.

As we grow, we are keenly interested in nuclear organisations in countries that are not now producing nuclear power but are considering this option as they build a 21st century strategy for sustainable development.

As an organisation, we have two functions:

Our first role is to facilitate technical and commercial cooperation among our global membership.

We do so by operating a variety of working groups, relating to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle:

Currently we are forming two new groups:

In addition to the ongoing work of these groups, we have twice-yearly plenary meetings of our membership - a spring meeting in an ever-changing locale and a September meeting, the Annual WNA Symposium, in London. Next spring's meeting will be in Moscow.

The WNA's second role is to promote public understanding and public policies favourable to nuclear power.

Most of such effort must be performed at the national level. But we believe there are important functions to be performed at the transnational level.

Information

The first is information. Our aim has been to build and operate a WNA website that constitutes the best available source of information on the world nuclear industry. We think we have achieved that.

The current usage rate on our information papers is now 4,000 hits a day and still growing.

Through this website and other activities and publications, we believe we are injecting much-needed facts and valuable perspective into the arteries of world journalism and policymaking.

Coordination

Our second promotional function is to help coordinate our industry's efforts on the transnational level. To galvanize high-level industry leadership, we have just created the WNA Council of Advisers, which is comprised of many of the most senior people in the world of nuclear energy.

The Council is co-chaired by IAEA DG-emeritus Hans Blix and WANO Chairman-emeritus Zack Pate and includes leaders from most of the major nuclear companies I mentioned earlier. When these leaders meet, it is the equivalent of an industry summit.

One area where we are focussing coordinated industry effort is the UN negotiations on climate change and sustainable development. These are forums where the need for clean energy is a central theme. Yet the essential role of nuclear power, rather than being accepted as an agreed principle, remains a matter of fundamental dispute. To reverse this sad phenomenon, we are working on a strategy to achieve an explicit UN recognition that nuclear power is indispensable to global sustainable development.

Influence

Finally, we are working to influence the public and political environment in which the industry operates. Here we are seeking to develop personal and institutional relationships with transnational media organisations, multinational parliamentary organisations, and international development agencies. These are three important domains where ignorance of nuclear power is a common motif. Our work here has just begun. But we believe that patient, well-targeted effort will produce rich rewards.

Before summing up, let me draw your attention to this mini-CD.

On the CD in 20 languages is the WNA Charter of Ethics. The Charter is a carefully drafted declaration of tenets and principles that our global membership can be proud to have embraced as a common commitment.

The main feature on the CD - also in 20 languages - is what we call an "AutoEssay" on nuclear power. Entitled "Why Tomorrow's World Needs Nuclear Energy", this is a 12-minute automated presentation that has been designed as a nuclear tutorial.

The AutoEssay can be viewed on a computer screen or projected for an audience almost anywhere in the world. We have found it highly effective for use with legislators, journalists, and students.

We will soon make a 25-language version, and I invite you to consider how your organisation could put it to good use.

Let me now summarise.

As our world struggles desperately to reconcile its human and environmental needs, this industry's future success has become an urgent imperative.

In the decades ahead, we have the opportunity - and the responsibility - to achieve the full potential of "Atoms for Peace" and, in so doing, to build a Nuclear Century in which human need is met and our planetary environment preserved.

Our goal at the World Nuclear Association is to work with you as partners to speed the fulfilment of that vision.