Business and Nonproliferation: Industry's Role in Safeguarding a Nuclear Renaissance - Tapa dura

" Business and Nonproliferation is a must-read for those seeking timely and urgent analysis on how the commercial nuclear industry can help maintain the highest standards of security. Industry's responsibility in nonproliferation and security grows more and more as civilian nuclear power becomes more and more globalized." --Charles D. Ferguson, President of the Federation of American Scientists and author of Nuclear Energy: What Everyone Needs to Know "If nuclear power's expansion increases the risk of the spread of weapons-capable materials and technologies, it will not be an acceptable energy source. In this book six authors, realistic and knowledgeable observers of nuclear power, explore what industry can and is willing to do to reduce the risks of proliferation, especially with regard to sensitive front-end enrichment and back-end reprocessing technologies and facilities. Past analyses have focused on multilateral governmental efforts. These authors wisely suggest that industry can play an important role, but industry must take notice and be prepared to engage these issues. Readers who have an interest in nuclear power and avoiding proliferation will want to read this book to learn about this new approach." --John Deutch, Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution "Nuclear energy is essential for providing reliable carbon-free electricity to the world's growing population. Governments, industry and non-government organizations have a shared responsibility to ensure that nuclear energy expansion is accomplished safely and securely, and supports worldwide nonproliferation efforts. Business and Nonproliferation recognizes this, provides a valuable perspective on the existing nonproliferation regime, and offers reasoned and constructive suggestions for enhancing the nonproliferation framework." --Marvin S. Fertel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Nuclear Energy Institute

Rapidly increasing global demand for electricity, heightened worries over energy and water security, and climate-change anxieties have brought the potential merits of nuclear energy squarely back into the spotlight. Yet worries remain, especially after the failure of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant to withstand the twin blows of an earthquake and a tsunami. And the idea of increasing the availability of nuclear power in a destabilized world rife with revolution and terrorism seems to many a dangerous proposition. Business and Nonproliferation examines what a dramatic increase in global nuclear power capacity means for the nuclear nonproliferation regime and how the commercial nuclear industry can strengthen it. The scope of a nuclear "renaissance" could be broad and wide: some countries seek to enhance their existing nuclear capacity; others will build their first reactors; and many more will seek to develop a nuclear energy capability in the foreseeable future. This expansion will result in wider diffusion and transport of nuclear materials, technologies, and knowledge, placing additional pressures on an already fragile nonproliferation regime. With the private sector at the center of this increased commercial activity, business should have an increased role in preventing proliferation, in part by helping shape future civilian use of nuclear energy in a way that mitigates proliferation. John Banks, Charles Ebinger, and their colleagues explore the specific emerging challenges to the nonproliferation regime, market trends in the commercial nuclear fuel cycle, and the geopolitical and commercial implications of new nuclear energy states in developing countries. Business and Nonproliferation presents and assesses the concerns and suggestions of key stakeholders in the nuclear community -commercial nuclear industry entities, nongovernment organizations, and government agencies and nuclear regulators. Its analysis addresses the broad question of how, given the global expansion of civilian nuclear power, the nuclear industry can become a more active, sustained partner in efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.