Nuclear energy 2011: A watershed year

Abstract

2011 was a watershed for nuclear power. In March, all eyes focused on Japan, where the world’s third severe accident at a nuclear plant unfolded. The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station will have a paradigm-changing impact on the global future of nuclear energy, though its scope and direction still remain to be seen. The author reviews reassessments undertaken around the world after the accident in Japan and underlines Europe’s critical role in whether the future of nuclear energy will be global. Japan’s nuclear safety shock was sudden and dramatic. But 2011 also witnessed an incremental escalation of continuing crises in North Korea, Iran, and South Asia in the absence of effective global nuclear governance. The author points to the politicization of the International Atomic Energy Agency, its limited authority, and the inability of major powers to cooperate effectively as reasons that nuclear governance remains ineffective. This breakdown in global nuclear governance will also challenge the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which sets the rules for nuclear commerce. The author reflects on 2011 and highlights what to look out for in 2012.

• Fukushima
• governance
• IAEA
• Iran
• North Korea
• nuclear energy
• Nuclear Suppliers Group
• Pakistan

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Additional information

Author biography

Mark Hibbs is a senior associate in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program, based in Bonn and Berlin. Before joining Carnegie, for over 20 years he was an editor and correspondent for nuclear energy publications, including Nucleonics Week and Nuclear Fuel, published by the Platts division of the McGraw-Hill Companies. From the late 1980s until the mid-1990s, he covered nuclear developments in the Soviet bloc, including research on the USSR’s nuclear fuel cycle facilities and its nuclear materials inventories. Since the mid-1990s, his work has focused on emerging nuclear programs in Asia, including China and India. Since 2003, he has made many detailed findings about clandestine procurement in Europe related to gas centrifuge uranium enrichment programs in Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Pakistan. His Carnegie report, “The Future of the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” was published in December.