While the world consumption of electricity rises, the share of total electricity produced by nuclear power plants worldwide will, until 2030, likely remain at its present level of about 15 percent, given the time it takes to build new reactors and the number of aging reactors that will be decommissioned. Yet, as competition for oil and gas supplies increase over the next two decades, more countries will need to meet their electricity needs through alternative means. While not a panacea, nuclear energy can be part of the solution. It is important to ensure that future nuclear expansion is as safe and secure as possible, and now is the time to put stronger barriers to proliferation in place, says Pierre Goldschmidt, former deputy director general of the IAEA and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a speech at the 24th Conference of the Nuclear Societies in Israel.
In light of the current debate about the merits and risks associated with nuclear energy, Goldschmidt focuses on several key measures needed to strengthen the non-proliferation regime, among them:
- Improve fuel supply guarantees and discourage the spread of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities;
- Adopt generic and legally binding resolutions in the UN Security Council that would immediately suspend all sensitive nuclear fuel cycle activities and permit intensive IAEA inspections when a state has been found in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement; and
- Develop a non-discriminatory, criteria-based approach within the Nuclear Suppliers Group for cooperation with states that have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Drawing from the cases of non-compliance with North Korea and Iran and the "special case" of India--as unilaterally defined by the United States--Goldschmidt concludes that the global spread of nuclear power plants is an inescapable reality, but that "healthy competition should not be done at the expense of stringent safety, security and non-proliferation standards." Otherwise, he says, "the non-proliferation regime will be weakened precisely at a time when it should be strengthened" and "for sure, there will be a renaissance of nuclear weapons proliferation in the future."
Click on the link above for full text of the speech.
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