Last week, the Carnegie Endowment held its yearly Nuclear Power Conference. As happens annually, the conference brought together hundreds of experts to discuss both civilian nuclear power and nuclear security concerns. Naturally, this year was a bit different due to the Fukushima affair. Despite the news from Japan, the consensus among the conference panelists appeared to be that the nuclear power industry is going to move ahead after a brief pause.
Of particular interest to those concerned with civilian power were the panels on the “Implications of Japan’s Nuclear Disaster,” “Atoms for Peace,” and “Safeguarding the Nuclear Renaissance” held on the first day of the conference, and the second day’s “Future of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.”
However, the single most important was the panel called “Destination Unknown: Where is the Global Nuclear Fuel Cycle Heading?” Emerging from this were the realizations that fuel banks are short-term solutions at best, that cooperation between US and Russian entities (public and private) have built relationships that can allow for expanded cooperation, and that it is possible to manage the entire fuel cycle. The great unknown is what to do with used fuel – long-term storage versus greater recycling.