M. R. Buckner
Westinghouse Savannah River Company
Aiken, SC 29808

T. L. Sanders
Sandia National Laboratories
New Mexico

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Nuclear policy in the U.S. has evolved over the last five decades as a result of reactions to certain defining events in the evolution of global nuclear technology. These events generally involved either safety issues or concerns about the potential proliferation of nuclear weapons. A world unthreatened by nuclear weapons proliferation is a vision that U.S. policy has strived for since the early years of the atomic age. The U.S. approach to stemming the spread of nuclear weapons has undergone three significant changes over the last fifty-plus years. The McMahon Act of 1946 proscribed dissemination of U. S. nuclear technology overseas for any purpose, whether for weapons or peaceful uses. This approach was superseded by the Atomic Energy Act, stimulated by the Atoms for Peace Initiative (1), which provided for the sharing of substantial scope of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes with countries willing to forego nuclear weapons development. In the decades that followed, the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was signed by 187 nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was formed to monitor adherence to the Treaty and assist in technology transfer. This international initiative was instrumental in limiting the emergence of new States with nuclear weapons capabilities to a few as compared to the more than fifty that was projected in the early 50’s.

With the end of the Cold War, a new global nuclear infrastructure is evolving that presents a very different challenge and our vision for and approaches to assuring safe, secure, and legitimate nuclear operations must change to meet this challenge. There is now an over abundance of military nuclear resources —people, technology, facilities, and materials—in some threshold and nuclear weapon states that could and should be converted to safeguarded and transparent civilian nuclear energy applications. The U.S. nuclear infrastructure (both government and civilian) has been severely weakened to the extent that our ability to influence and promote the safety, security, and proliferation prevention cultures and standards internationally has waned. A ‘new’ domestic policy and infrastructure must evolve to re-establish an effective U.S. influence during this transition to the next nuclear era.

President Eisenhower recognized that peaceful nuclear energy could provide global benefits as well as national security risks. The goals of Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Proposal (1) were to:

• Control the dissemination of nuclear information through active participation with other countries;
• Establish a U.S. advantage in commercial nuclear competition;
• Induce the USSR to divert materials from weapons to energy use;
• Support the evolution of an International Atomic Energy Agency;
• Nurture safety and proliferation prevention cultures worldwide; and
• Offset the negative impact of the hydrogen bomb.

The Atoms for Peace initiative resulted in active R&D collaboration in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and in the implementation of the IAEA concept of nuclear material safeguards. The U.S. established an industry with strong educational underpinnings and a growing market for nuclear energy. It also applied military resources to peaceful nuclear applications and laid the foundation for the NPT.

The "Turbulent 70’s" started on a very positive note with the beginning of NPT safeguards and ended on a mixed note with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 (NNPA) and the Three Mile Island accident. In the early 70’s, the energy crisis erupted and the use of nuclear energy was projected to expand rapidly. In 1974, the U.S., which controlled virtually all the nuclear materials throughout the free world, decided not to expand its enrichment capabilities to meet the growing demand. European firms quickly developed enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to meet the perceived demand. Also, India exploded a "peaceful" nuclear device constructed of indigenously developed materials, and the U. S. Congress responded to this potential new threat with the NNPA.

The perception that critical weapon technologies were being transferred around the world provoked Congress and the Ford and Carter administrations to place severe restrictions on nuclear trade and cooperation. In particular, sharing enrichment, reprocessing, and heavy water technology was forbidden. Also, a Suppliers Group formed by Canada, France, West Germany, Japan, the UK, the U.S., and the USSR developed a "code of conduct" for international nuclear exports. These actions were perceived by other nations as an attempt to develop a "nuclear cartel", as several of these countries would pursue these technologies on their own over the next 20 years.

Proliferation is a function of the availability of material, people with the right skills, enabling technology, and the political will to proceed. With the advent of the NPT, the world became divided into nuclear weapon states (NWS) and non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS). The goal of the NWS has always been to prevent horizontal proliferation - the spread of nuclear weapons. The prevention tactic has varied between denial of access to people, materials, and/or technology and assurance of peaceful use through transparent (safeguarded) collaboration. The goals of the NNWS have been focused on slowing vertical proliferation through arms control and acquiring access to the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy. Today there are five NWS as defined by the NPT, U.S., UK, France, Russia, and China. There are two additional states with nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan and possibly a third, Israel. One other state, South Africa had nuclear weapons but chose to completely disarm. Over the last fifty years, according to open literature, approximately 15 other countries have had nuclear weapons programs at various stages of maturity. Many of these, along with China and France, have only recently signed the NPT.

The worldwide nuclear power infrastructure will change over the next three decades. Former defense infrastructures in several countries will be transitioned to civilian use; excess defense materials will be irreversibly consumed by civilian reactors and many more developing nations will invest in the nuclear option for energy independence and to do their part in reducing carbon-dioxide emissions. As an example, the Russian military production complex is approximately three times the size of its U.S. counterpart and is still functional and could (given the financial resources) support a large expansion of the nuclear generating capacity in Russia and elsewhere through export of nuclear services. China may increase its generating capacity by several hundred percent. Nuclear production of electricity in Great Britain now exceeds that based on coal and will likely double in the next few decades. France is heavily invested in the nuclear option while Japan and South Korea are clearly moving in the same direction. Each of these countries has (or intends to have) significant fuel cycle efforts in place. The large emerging infrastructures will likely privatize to support both domestic and international needs.

It is interesting to contrast this other world scenario with the expected trend in the U.S. over the next fifty years. While U.S. nuclear plant operators have substantially improved performance of over 100 nuclear power plants, no new units are currently on order in the U.S. The U.S. nuclear materials production complex is shut down and environmental clean-up activities are in progress at most of these facilities. As a result of this, and the fact that we ceased civilian reprocessing during the 1970’s, the core competencies and educational infrastructure necessary to support nuclear chemical processing will likely disappear within ten years in the U.S. Our remaining enrichment facilities are destined for shutdown by the year 2015. Operations may even cease sooner because of the excess highly enriched uranium entering the U.S. and Russian inventories from weapon dismantlement programs.

There is only one non-defense "research" reactor still operating in the U.S. Government Complex. No new civilian nuclear reactors are planned; although, as Senator Murkowski, Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has noted, these nuclear plants were responsible for 89% of all the carbon dioxide emissions avoided by U.S. electric utilities over the past twenty or so years.

It is becoming increasingly apparent to even those that are looking forward to the demise of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure that in the foreseeable future we may not have a sufficient legacy of expertise to participate in the evolution of the world nuclear infrastructure. Without participating, we cannot promote cradle-to-grave fuel cycle safety and ensure civilian nuclear materials are always safe, secure, and legitimately used. It is also apparent that the nuclear option must at least be preserved; otherwise, we may not be able to manage the growing risks associated with atmospheric pollution.

It is no surprise that our nuclear industry is already moving toward foreign partnerships or ownership in order to survive. It is also not surprising that this scenario is resulting in a chain of events that could severely affect the government’s ability to maintain nuclear physics and engineering skills that are critical to all our national nuclear missions. How can our high school graduates of the year 2001 be enticed to enter a profession that has no perceived future beyond decommissioning, dismantlement, and cleanup? Our educational infrastructure in nuclear engineering is also disappearing—it isn’t clear where the next generation of nuclear stewards in the U.S. will come from; we are at risk of losing our massive investments in the proliferation prevention cultures we have strived for over the last 50 years.

Many of our leaders recognize that the U.S. must lead the creation of an international future that will have fewer nuclear weapons, more nuclear waste, more countries with nuclear energy technology, and greater use of nuclear energy. They also recognize that having a strong domestic nuclear energy program helps manage the risks of offshore proliferation. In June of 1997, in a letter to DOE Secretary Pena, Senator Pete Domenici noted that "continued erosion in our global leadership of nuclear issues increases the probability that we will be buying our future nuclear power from foreign sources and that we will be non-players at a future date when proliferation issues involving nuclear materials will raise even more serious national security issues than they do today (2)." Senator Domenici noted similar concerns during a colloquy and a follow-up letter to then Secretary of Energy Pena from him and his colleagues: Senators Kempthorne, Craig, Murkowski, Kyl, Faircloth, and Durbin (3,4). Specifically, the record states the following:

"The projected demise of "everything nuclear" in the U.S. over the next four decades will slowly deteriorate our ability to project U.S. policy abroad regarding the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the checks and balances necessary to prevent diversion of civilian technology and materials to illegitimate purposes. Already in the U.S., much of the nuclear service industry has "moved offshore" either directly or indirectly through foreign takeover. Our educational foundation, as evidenced by the number of academic departments and institutions, has decreased by 50%. The ratio of foreign students to domestic students pursuing graduate degrees in nuclear science and engineering in the U.S. has increased from 20% to over 70% over the past two decades. The U.S. curriculum no longer covers the breadth of the civilian fuel-cycle principles necessary to influence and promote worldwide safety, security, and accountability of nuclear infrastructures and materials. In fact, with the downsizing of the U.S. weapons complex and the civilian nuclear industry, most university R&D is concentrating on providing the base technologies for health effects and radiation protection, irradiated material management, and nuclear medicine."

"The greatest minds that we have nationally to weigh in on this question have done so, and they believe that the failure to have a strong nuclear energy research and development program will diminish our national security, our economic competitiveness, and the public well-being. The bottom line is that as our primacy in nuclear R&D declines, we will lose our ability to participate on the world stage and to observe and understand the civilian nuclear programs of emerging nations."

U.S. leadership in world nuclear policy is a national security imperative. A Global Nuclear Materials Management Initiative was started in early 1998 to articulate a framework and vision for assuring safe, secure, and legitimate use of nuclear materials worldwide as nuclear technology is developed and deployed. A task force led by Senator Sam Nunn and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) evaluated the current state of U.S. leadership and developed recommendations for a path forward. As stated so eloquently by Nunn in his call for action, "The world simply cannot afford delay in addressing the urgent security hazards posed by nuclear insecurity in the FSU. There is little remaining margin for continued decay of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure if the United States is to be technically credible in non-proliferation leadership in the twenty-first century. The opportunities are there; an investment of a few billion dollars, properly applied, could dramatically reduce the risks the world now faces. The fundamental requirement is leadership. The time to act is now - before a catastrophe occurs." (5)

One could envision three scenarios for the future of things nuclear in the U.S. The current trend could be thought of as Disengagement: civilian nuclear capabilities will continue to decline and excess defense assets will be irreversibly transitioned to something else or dispositioned over the next 30 years. A middle ground scenario – Partial Re-Engagement – would maintain some minimal global position in order to influence the future convergence of defense and commercial assets into the "next nuclear era." Finally, a Comprehensive Engagement scenario with a coordinated national nuclear policy is envisioned that would re-establish the U.S. as a global leader in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and a model for cradle-to-grave nuclear materials management.

Clearly, the U.S. is currently on a "creeping disengagement" path even though a bi-partisan constituency is recognizing that something is wrong that needs to be fixed. With the exception of our nuclear deterrence mission, the controlling vision for U.S. national nuclear responsibilities expired 10 years ago. Halfway through the first nuclear century, we are at a time of great challenges, opportunities, and transition. How the United States responds to these will determine its role as either an effective leader, a troublesome participant with little influence on others, or an essentially disengaged party. Ongoing changes in both the domestic nuclear infrastructure and our interactions with the emerging global nuclear enterprise portend erosion in historic U.S. leadership and influence.

The Cold War drove U.S. nuclear policy for more than 40 years. With the exception of the science-based stockpile stewardship program, we do not have a new model for incorporating nuclear responsibilities into an integrated national security strategy. Our country’s security and well being over the next 50 years will depend in part on the new nuclear vision that will replace the old one. A new vision is needed that drives the United States toward scientific excellence, international security, responsible energy management, and aggressive participation with other nations in shaping the global nuclear enterprise which is a prerequisite to effective management of proliferation risks.

The current U.S. trend does not reflect the major improvements in safety, environmental management, and economic performance of U.S. nuclear plants. During the last several years, U.S. nuclear utilities have accomplished the following:

• U.S. reactor costs for producing power have dropped 30% since 1988, and are now comparable to coal fired plants and superior to oil and gas plants.
  
• U.S. plants are performing more efficiently than ever before—plant unit capacity factors increased from 63% to more than 80% and safety performance has steadily increased since 1980.
  
• U.S. plants are responsible for 89% of avoided CO₂ emissions (168 million metric tons of carbon in 1999).).
• Many utility owners are planning to request life extensions for their existing nuclear power plants (two have already received NRC approval).

Contrary to the prevailing notion, U.S. leadership in "things nuclear" is supported by the public. University surveys have found the following (6):

"First, Americans do not want to abandon nuclear energy. When a nationwide sample of Americans was asked whether the current utilization of nuclear energy in the United States should be decreased, kept the same, or increased, about 43% wanted to keep it the same and around 30% wanted to increase it. Approximately 27% wanted to decrease reliance on nuclear energy.

Second, most Americans would like the government to investigate prospects for reusing spent nuclear fuel rods, even when apprised of the possible proliferation risks associated with reprocessing. In fact, whether it is called "reusing" or "recycling" spent nuclear fuel, about 4 out of 5 respondents to a random sample of Americans were in favor of making use of spent fuel to produce more energy.

Third, Americans are increasingly in favor of investing now to maintain the infrastructure for possible future research and development in the area of nuclear weapons. Americans believe that, in today’s world, there is an important place for our own nuclear arsenal. Americans would like to continue to reduce the number of nuclear weapons we and others hold, but four out of five of our respondents nationwide do not want to reduce our nuclear arsenal to zero."

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) was established to lead in the development, dissemination, and application of nuclear science and technology to the benefit of humanity. Members of the ANS are directly or indirectly involved in all elements of the nation's nuclear enterprise¾ energy, materials management, non-proliferation, deterrence, naval propulsion, environmental stewardship, medicine, and science. The society has sponsored scientific and technical dialog over the last four decades on the evolution of U.S. policy on nuclear science and technology as decision makers attempt to balance the benefits and the risks associated with the development and deployment of nuclear technology.

The society has organized a Special Committee on Nuclear Nonproliferation (SCNN) to make specific recommendations to decision-makers and our membership, regarding non-proliferation issues. In 1995, Dr. Glenn Seaborg led a special panel (7) on the protection and management of plutonium. This Special ANS Panel analyzed the question of the future management of plutonium in a comprehensive fashion. The Panel was convened to consider the longer range implications of the accumulation of plutonium arising both from the dismantling of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Russian Federation and from the operation of nuclear power reactors throughout the world.

The Panel recommended a critical re-evaluation of past assertions such as the presumption that it is desirable from a nonproliferation perspective to leave as much plutonium as possible in the form of spent fuel, or that plutonium use in a few industrialized countries necessarily will lead to a dispersed and uncontrolled use of plutonium throughout the world (the so-called "plutonium economy"). The report also assessed the potential future need for nuclear power, the role that plutonium might have to play in this regard and the compatibility between plutonium utilization and the fostering of non-proliferation objectives.

More recently, the SCNN has focused on providing information to ANS members on nonproliferation issues and developing public policy papers for use in the ANS communications program. Also, the Committee is working to become a recognized resource on these issues with the non-technical and policy communities.

Although several positive steps (8) have been initiated in the last couple of years by the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Science and Technology (e.g., the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) and the Nuclear Engineering Education Research Programs (NEER)) and additional programs (9) proposed by the Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee (NERAC), the funding levels are currently small in comparison to the need. A recent CSIS report (10) highlights this concern. This study was performed by a Senior Policy Panel and five Task Forces made up of a broad cross-section of international participants with a wide range of experience and understanding of nuclear technology. The study concluded that "U.S. leadership on nonproliferation and safety issues (particularly as they relate to both the government and civilian nuclear energy) is fundamentally linked to the strength of its technical foundation, to the perception of the commitment of the U.S. government to maintaining a nuclear power option for the future, and to the policy positions taken by the United States." The report goes on to point out that " the essential technical foundations of its leadership in nuclear nonproliferation and safety" have been allowed "to atrophy and has greatly decreased its participation in international cooperation on nuclear energy and the fuel cycle."

The speakers and panelists echoed many of these same conclusions at the 2000 ANS Meeting in San Diego in June, 2000 in two special sessions on "The Impact of Nonproliferation Measures on the Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle" sponsored by SCNN. (11) It was stated that even though it may sound like a contradiction, a thriving, healthy nuclear industry helps to combat proliferation. Several speakers emphasized this point by stating that if we (the U.S.) don’t stay in the game (nuclear), we’re going to have increasing problems making our points in the international forum, and more importantly having the points be given any weight. The demise of the U.S. nuclear industry was described as a "brain drain" because of the loss of young talent coming out of our universities to fill the manpower gap that is being created in the nuclear industry by the retirement of many of scientists and engineers who have built the business over the last fifty years. Several of the speakers emphasized the need for a strong civilian program as a prerequisite to leadership on nonproliferation issues.

Based on this body of concern, the SCNN strongly recommends that the U.S. government and industry take steps now to meet these enormous challenges and opportunities as we make the transition to the next nuclear era. Specifically, the SCNN endorses the following recommendations from the CSIS report (10):

• "The time has come for an unambiguous U.S. policy supporting the preservation of the Nation’s existing nuclear power capability, the preservation of that investment by extending the licenses of present plants, and the option to expand that capability to meet future power needs." In addition to the domestic energy advantages, SCNN believes that support of such a policy is a fundamental prerequisite for US leadership in managing global proliferation risks.

• "The need to deploy advanced systems, which can dramatically expand nuclear fuel supply by transmutation, has been delayed from the early to the middle decades of the coming century. Thus there is time to address the safety, environmental, and proliferation control issues of the commercial, high-conversion nuclear fuel cycles well before deployment. U.S. Policy should be amended to state that long-term energy needs, air pollution, and global warming considerations require the prudent development of high-conversion nuclear fuel systems, and the US will cooperate with other nuclear power countries in their development. U.S cooperation is contingent upon a serious program to establish international standards to ensure that diversion to nuclear weapons will not result from commercial deployment".

• "The primary implementing action of such an amended policy would be the initiation of strong international collaboration. A key early task of such collaboration is to develop an international consensus on an adequate level of proliferation resistance for the deployment of commercial, high-fuel conversion reactors and fuel cycle systems, both from the technical and institutional standpoint. There is time to engage in R&D on promising recycle and once-through advanced high conversion systems.

In addition, SCNN recommends that:

• Funding for nuclear R&D should be substantially increased and focused on the critical safety, nonproliferation, waste management, and cost issues that have constrained nuclear power's growth to date;
  
• Within that R&D portfolio, specific steps should be taken to reinvigorate the nation's nuclear engineering departments and attract new students to the field (including a new generation of proliferation and safeguards experts);
  
• Steps should be taken to ensure that the United States rebuilds the infrastructure needed for an effective nuclear technology R&D program and for effective management of its nuclear materials
;

• Further steps should be taken to implement a more risk-informed approach to the development and application of U.S. nonproliferation policy. R&D should be funded to support the development of the methodology as well as innovative, cost effective proliferation-resistant features for advanced nuclear systems as is described in the recent NERAC report (12)
  
• A vigorous advanced reactor R&D program should be mounted that provides for the design and preliminary testing of a variety of innovative systems from which one or two can be selected for full scale demonstration and deployment.

The American Nuclear Society’s SCNN believes that, to reverse current trends, U.S. policy must revisit the fundamental premise of Atoms for Peace: a collaborative nuclear enterprise enhances rather than diminishes national security. To accomplish this, the U.S. Government must develop an integrated policy on energy, nuclear technology, and national security. The policy must recognize that these are interrelated and will require substantial investments in nuclear research and development, and in nuclear education. It is critical that we rebuild the infrastructure necessary to revitalize our country’s nuclear missions: energy, nuclear security, public health and safety, environmental stewardship, materials management, nonproliferation, naval propulsion, medicine, and science.

1. Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission, by Richard G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl. University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif. (1999).
   
2. Letter from Senator P.V. Domenici to DOE Secretary Pena, July 12, 1997.
   
3. Colloquy - "On Provision for Nuclear Energy Research," Senators Domenici, Craig, Kempthorne, Murkowski, Kyl, and Faircloth, July 25, 1997.
   
4. Letter from Senators Craig, Kempthorne, Domenici, Murkowski, Kyl, and Durbin to Secretary Pena, July 30, 1997.
   
5. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Global Nuclear Materials Management Policy Forum; Sen. Sam Nunn, Chair, July 1999.
   
6. Congressional Testimony: Hank Jenkins-Smith, May 1998.
7. "Protection and Management of Plutonium", August, 1995, American Nuclear Society Special Panel Report.
   
8. "Federal Energy Research and Development for the Challenges of the Twenty First Century", Report of The President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), November, 1997.
   
9. "Long-Term Nuclear Technology Research and Development Plan", A Report of the NERAC Subcommittee on Long-Term Planning for Nuclear Energy Research, June 2000.
   
10. "Managing the Global Nuclear Materials Threat", A report of the CSIS Project on Global Nuclear Materials Management; Sen. Sam Nunn, Project Chair, January 2000.
    
11. Unpublished transcript of the special sessions on nonproliferation at the ANS 2000 Annual Meeting, "The Impact of Nonproliferation Measures on the Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle". , June 2000.
    
12. "Technological Opportunities To Increase the Proliferation Resistance of Global Civilian Nuclear Power Systems (TOPS)", A Report by the TOPS Task Force of NERAC, October 2000.