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NEWSLETTER Nº 1 of 2007
dated 28 December 2007

During 2007 the International Nuclear Energy Academy held three meetings, whose discussions are summarised in this Newsletter.

Boston Meeting

A handful of INEA Members led by Dan Meneley met under the wing of Boston ANS conference, on Sunday June 24, 2007 to discuss INEA activities and objectives.

New Recruits

They discussed how to get more active members into the Academy, and suggested a number of possible names, proposing that the limitations on the number of members from individual countries and areas stated in the INEA Charter should be relaxed. The names have been forwarded to the executive Committee for consideration.

New INEA Statements and other actions

The attendees suggested the following:

A new INEA statement on uranium availability: the main focus of INEA work should be demonstration of the proposition that uranium is a renewable energy resource.
Soliciting the opinion of the INEA membership on the topic of the fuel cycle.
An updating of the INEA website?
Establishing a “blog” for members.
Once again raising the issue of waste (in the context of the fuel cycle).

IAEA General Conference September 17-21, 2007

It was suggested that in answer to an Agency request for an NGO presentation the Academy should make one on “Nuclear energy and sustainable development”. Dr Jorge Spitalnik agreed to do it.

2. Executive Committee

The Executive Committee met at the Vienna International Centre on Monday afternoon, 17 September 2007. The meeting was followed seamlessly by the Annual General Meeting. Attendance was small; a number of observers were also present.

Discussion

The meeting took as its starting point the report of the Boston meeting noted above.
Dan Meneley’s paper on the Transition to large-scale deployment of nuclear power had been placed on the INEA website in the “Members’ views” section. At the Boston meeting’s request the Secretary had circulated a one-page summary supplied by DM. When the full text had been circulated in draft in the Autumn of 2006 it was clear that not everyone agreed with it, so as it stood it was not eligible to be come a statement of the INEA’s position. As it was in principle desirable that the Academy should take a stand on the future deployment of nuclear reactors, if it could reach an agreed position, it was agreed that Members should again be asked for comments. (They have been, and the Secretary still awaits comments).

The Chairman said that in his view the INEA should make a statement on the question of the sustainability of uranium supplies. It would need to go further than the WNA paper which he found to be rather short-sighted and complacent as it went no further than demonstrating that supplies were more than adequate up to 2030. When we were considering generating stations which were expected to function for 60 years and would not as at present discussed come on stream until about 2015, this was insufficiently reassuring to the financial community. After a short discussion on the ebbs and flows of mineral exploitation markets it was agreed that another paper should be drafted with the aim of demonstrating that sufficient supplies of uranium were available for any conceivable expansion of the nuclear generating park over the next 50-100 years. It would clearly have to look beyond the conventional once-through cycle to the possibility of widespread application of reprocessing and the introduction of breeder reactors in the medium term. The PBMR representative said that a member of his company was prepared to take the lead in drafting.

Nomination of new members

The Secretary reported that he had circulated four nominations, three of which had received adequate support for them to be elected. In none of these cases had there been any objection. The meeting agreed to endorse the election of James Reinsch, Annick Carnino and Juan-Luis Francois. The fourth case however had failed to attract any support: it was agreed that this application should be turned down.

List of members
The Secretary said that he would bring the list of members up to date, and circulate it in due course.

Date of Next Meeting:
Given the difficulty of collecting the members together physically, it was agreed hat the next meeting of the Executive Committee should be by telephone some time towards the end of March 2008.

The meeting then adjourned, and in practice continued as the AGM.

Annual General Meeting 2007

The 2007 Annual General Meeting followed seamlessly after the meeting of the Executive Committee summarised above. It also referred back to the suggestions made at Boston, and took some of the comments made at the Executive Committee (with all present) further.

Scepticism was expressed about the utility of establishing a blogging mechanism on the Website. It might also turn out to be rather expensive to administer. Dr Spitalnik said that he would enquire of the web administrator. In the meantime it was suggested that straightforward emailing provided an adequate means for members to have exchanges about subjects of mutual interest.

The Chairman ran through his report (Annex 1). He stressed that with the nuclear renaissance still round the corner rather than on top of us it was important that the Academy should issue statements on the key subjects at issue. There were statements on the Website either on behalf of the Academy or reflecting members’ views on terrorism and on waste. He repeated that the Academy should now draft a statement on the availability of resources. It was a common attack by nuclear opponents that uranium resources were not sufficient to sustain the revival of nuclear energy which we all advocated as the best remedy to deal with carbon emissions. It should be an urgent task by the Academy’s members to produce a convincing rebuttal of this attack. He suggested that the aim should be to get the first draft of a paper to the Executive Committee before its teleconference in March 2008, with the aim of putting the final version to the full Membership by September of 2008. After a short discussion it was agreed that to show the sustainability of nuclear power technology, two papers were required: one covering the long term nuclear fuel availability (for more than 60 years of life of new nuclear reactors), and the other dealing with bottlenecks in the supply of components (heavy forgings and such like) and shortage of qualified personnel (mainly in regulatory functions).

It was suggested that organisations like the INEA got more public recognition if they produced regular papers. It was agreed to put more consistent effort into this objective.

There was a short discussion on relations with the World Nuclear University.
Dr Tom Shea spoke of recent developments, and suggested that the time had come to explore again the possibility of a contribution from Members of the INEA.

On the preservation of nuclear knowledge it was agreed that the Secretary should speak again to the IAEA to see whether the conditions were now more propitious to take the project forward.

The Secretary mentioned that as only a small minority of the members had paid their subscriptions in the past two years, the assets of the Academy were gradually diminishing. He would revise the membership list in the New Year with the aim of making room for new active and hopefully paying members by “promoting” those who were inactive to the status of “emeritus members”.

It was agreed to pursue the possibility of electing the individuals mentioned at the Boston meeting as worthy candidate material. It was further agreed that the quota system of distributing membership across the regions of the world should be suspended for the time being: it was more important to recruit keen and active members, who would be prepared to contribute to the work of the Academy.

Date of Next Meeting

It was agreed that it should again be on the first day (Monday) of the IAEA’s General Conference in 2008. (29 September 2008).

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