Dr. Marcus' Room No. 6

6. Nuclear Power in a Global Context
Gail H. Marcus, Consultant, USA

Profile (January 2008)
Dr. Gail H. Marcus is presently an independent consultant on nuclear power technology and policy.
She recently completed a three-year term as Deputy Director-General of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency(NEA) in Paris. In this position, she was responsible for the program of work and budget for the agency.
From 1999 through 2004, Dr. Marcus served as Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy,
Science and Technology. There she provided technical leadership for DOE’s nuclear energy programs
and facilities, including the development of next-generation nuclear power systems. Other responsibilities included production and distribution of isotopes for medical treatment, diagnosis andresearch, and oversight of DOE test and research reactors and related facilities and activities.
From 1998-1999, Dr. Marcus spent a year in Japan as Visiting Professor in the Research Laboratory
for Nuclear Reactors, Tokyo Institute of Technology. She conducted research on comparative nuclear
regulatory policy in Japan and the United States.
Previously, Dr. Marcus had been in the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). She served in a varietyof positions including Deputy Executive Director of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards/Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste; Director of Project Directorate III-3, providing
regulatory oversight of seven nuclear power plants in the Midwest; and Director of the Advanced
Reactors Project Directorate, where she was responsible for technical reviews of advanced reactor
designs.
She also served as technical assistant to Commissioner Kenneth Rogers at the NRC for over four years,
providing advice and recommendations on a broad range of technical and policy issues of interest to
the Commission. From this position she was detailed for five months to Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry, where she was NRC’s first assignee to Japan, studying Japan’s
licensing of the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor.
Prior to her service at NRC, Dr. Marcus was Assistant Chief of the Science Policy Research Divisionat the Congressional Research Service (1980-1985). In this position, she was responsible for policy
analysis in support of Congress covering all fields of science and technology, and played a lead rolein policy analysis and development for energy, nuclear power, and risk assessment and management.

Organization:
From 2001-2002, Dr. Marcus served as President of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), an 11,000 member
professional society. She is a Fellow of the ANS and of the American Association for the Advancementof Science (AAAS). She is a former member of the National Research Council Committee on the Future
Needs of Nuclear Engineering Education, and served three terms on the MIT Corporation Visiting
Committee for the Nuclear Engineering Department. She is just completing a term as the elected Chairof the Engineering Section of AAAS.

Publication:
Dr. Marcus has authored numerous technical papers and publications. Her research interests include
nuclear regulatory policy, energy technology and policy, risk assessment and management, international nuclear policy, and advanced nuclear technologies.

Education:
Dr. Marcus has an S.B. and S.M. in Physics, and an Sc.D. in Nuclear Engineering from MIT. She is thefirst woman to earn a doctorate in nuclear engineering in the United States.

1

Copyright © JAPAN NUS CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved

Dr. Marcus' Room No. 6

Introduction
For this essay, which is scheduled to be my last
one of this series, I thought hard to find sometheme that was very important, and that might
help tie together many of my earlier observations.
After much consideration, I decided that the subject of nuclear power in an international environment would be a suitable topic.
If there is any one fact that has arisen again andagain in the course of my own career, it is that nuclear power does not operate in a social or geographic or political vacuum. The fate of nuclear
power is affected by the economy, by other energy
sources, by environmental concerns―and by what
is happening elsewhere in the world. Today, with anumber of new countries wanting to join the “club”
of countries with nuclear power plants, the international link is more important than ever.
A large part of my career has been directly or indirectly in the international arena. My international work has included work in the safety andsafety research areas for the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, two assignments in Japan, work in
the advanced reactor area for the Department ofEnergy, activities in the American Nuclear Society,and work for the Nuclear Energy Agency of theOECD in Paris. These positions have given me aunique opportunity to observe international issues
from a variety of perspectives.
In this essay, I hope to bring together a number of
my observations on international issues over thecourse of my career. I would like to summarize howinternational issues affect the nuclear community,
now and in the future, and what the nuclear
community should do to deal with the international
aspects of our world most effectively.

Why Collaborate?
I have often speculated on why countries should
want to collaborate. After all, for countries withlarge nuclear programs, like Japan and the UnitedStates, collaboration often seems to involve moregiving than receiving―paying a larger fraction of
the cost, providing a larger share of the facilities,
and frequently, having to compromise with nations
that carry less of the financial burden by diverting
resources to activities that may be of lesser priority
for Japan and the U.S. Correspondingly, countries
with smaller programs tend to feel that their interests are generally subjugated to the interests of
the larger countries.
Of course, working together, whether it involves
people or nations, always involves compromises,and generally, each party thinks he or she is the2

one making the greater concessions. But people
and nations continue to work together because,even when it isn’t always obvious, in the end, eachparty does gain something that makes the compromise worthwhile overall. For example, it is clear
that, in general, the smaller countries gain accessto facilities and expertise beyond their own resources. While it may seem less clear what thelarger countries gain, they too often benefit fromfacilities they may not each possess. For example,
in the research area, many facilities in the U.S.
have been shut down over the years. Therefore, for
the U.S., international research collaboration provides access to facilities outside its own borders.
These are often facilities in other large countries,
such as Japan and France. However, there are also
outstanding research facilities in a number ofsmaller countries that are used in international
collaborative projects. These include the Halden
Reactor in Norway, and the Petten facility in the
Netherlands, to name just two.

Nuclear Safety
In addition, all countries share the benefit of exchanges of the best science and the best practices
in the critically important area of safety. We in the
nuclear field have long heard the refrain, “An accident anywhere is an accident everywhere.” Wealso know that fact to be true. We have seen what
happened to the nuclear industry around the world
following the accident at Three Mile Island (TMI)in 1979, and even more so, after the accident at
Chernobyl in 1986. Underlying the euphoria today
over the growing prospects for a nuclear revival,
we all quietly worry about what the impact might
be of another such accident anywhere in the world.
It is true that the industry has taken many steps
in the last 30 years to reduce the risk of anotherserious accident. In the United States, utilities
that had previously maintained a strict independence learned to work together to share informationand encourage best practices. These exchanges
have taken place mainly through organizations
such as the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations(INPO), which was established following the TMI
accident, and through the reactor owner’s groups.
Globally, a similar exchange began to take placethrough the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), which was established following theChernobyl accident. Intergovernmental organizations, in particular, the IAEA and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the OECD, have played an
important role as well. The work of these organizations encompasses a large variety of activities,
including inspections to help assess facilities andfoster the exchange of best practices, training pro-

Copyright © JAPAN NUS CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved

Dr. Marcus' Room No. 6grams to share knowledge, publication of documents to further facilitate the spread of information on a large variety of safety-related subjects,
workshops and meetings for exchanges on specialized topics, and management of joint research
projects on safety issues.
These organizations have continued to develop
and refine their programs over time, adding newissues as they are identified, and enhancing theirprograms based on new needs and interests. It is
important to point out that they also work together
to try to coordinate their overlapping interests andactivities. As a result, there have been a number ofjoint activities, including meetings and publications, and cross-participation in each other’s programs. These interactions have enabled the programs of the different organizations to minimize
duplication and redundancy, to make the most effective use of available resources, and to tap thefull range of expertise on subjects of common interest.

Development of Advanced Technology
Increasingly, the international community is
working together on the development of new technology as well. When I joined the Department ofEnergy at the very end of 1999, just after returningfrom a year in Japan as a Visiting Professor at theTokyo Institute of Technology, the first project I
worked on was the start-up of the Generation IV
International Forum (GIF). That activity facilitated the initiation of joint research activities
among a small group of countries with active nuclear R&D programs and interests. It was joined
shortly afterwards by the IAEA International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycle(INPRO), which included more countries and,among other things, developed tools that countries
could use to assess their needs and to determine
what technologies could best help them meet thoseneeds. Both programs have continued and evolved
over the last few years as interest in new nuclear
power plants has grown.

Russia’s Global Nuclear Power Infrastructure(GNPI), the U.S.’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), Japan’s IAEA Standby Arrangements System for the Assurance of Nuclear
Fuel Supply, and other multilateral mechanisms;
・The Multinational Design Evaluation Program(MDEP), aimed at coordinating licensing reviews
and harmonizing regulatory approaches among asmall group of countries; and・Regional initiatives such as the Asian Network for
Education in Nuclear Training (ANENT) and theEuropean Nuclear Education Network (ENEN).
It is noteworthy that the model for international
cooperation in at least one specific area has becomea model outside the nuclear area as well. The GIF
concept has spawned similar initiatives, such as
the International Partnership for a Hydrogen
Economy. This imitation demonstrates the growing
importance of international collaboration in all our
major technological endeavors.
Of course, international collaboration did notstart with GIF. It has long been a factor when theconstruction of very large, expensive facilities isrequired for advanced basic research, such as has
been the case for CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), the ITER program(originally the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), the Large Hadron Collider,and other projects. What is different about GIF andthe other initiatives is that the collaborations are
not in support of basic scientific research or of single, very large, research facilities, but rather, in
support of safety studies for operating facilities andfor the further commercial development and deployment of nuclear technology. The latter, particularly, is a potentially difficult area for collaboration because there could be competing commercial
interests in the future.

Challenges Ahead

・The World Nuclear University (WNU) (an initiative of the World Nuclear Association (WNA), theIAEA, and the NEA directed at educational efforts);

Today, we stand at an interesting turning point
for the nuclear industry. We are faced with thesimultaneous forces of increased interest in nuclear power in countries without previous experiencein the field, with an increasing globalization of the
supply chain for manufactured systems and components, and with a worldwide recession that will
make large construction projects more difficult. For
all of these factors, international actions are ofimportance, but there are some special issues associated with the new entrants to nuclear power.

・Several initiatives aimed at addressing the important issue of fuel supply assurance, including

New Entrants to Nuclear Power : The prospect ofcountries without previous nuclear power pro-Furthermore, these two programs have been
joined by a number of more specialized initiatives
aimed at bringing the international nuclear community together for different shared goals. These
programs have included:3

Copyright © JAPAN NUS CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved

Dr. Marcus' Room No. 6grams adopting the use of nuclear technology isboth exciting and sobering. It is exciting to think
about the benefits that adequate supplies of power
can bring to some poorer countries, and to think
about the impact that such a technological program can have in spurring other technological opportunities. However, for those countries that have
had nuclear power programs for a long time, there
is also the realization of how long it took them tolearn all the lessons needed to operate nuclear
power plants safely and effectively, and of the considerable national infrastructure that is required
to support nuclear power operations. These include
the development of laws and regulations governing
all aspects of the use of nuclear power, the establishment of a competent regulatory authority, andthe institution of training programs to produce thetechnicians, engineers, operators, inspectors, andother skilled personnel needed to build and run
nuclear power plants.
All this infrastructure is essential to establishing
the safe operation of nuclear power plants in thesecountries, which is important for health and safety
in that country and for its neighbors, and as previously noted, is also important for the long-term
viability of nuclear programs worldwide. Furthermore, all of this infrastructure needs to be introduced well in advance of the construction of thefirst power plant, and it all requires time, money,
and expert assistance. The international community has recognized this need, and is beginning totake appropriate actions. The IAEA has stepped up
with a number of activities specifically geared towards these potential new entrants to the nuclear
power community. A number of countries also provide various kinds of assistance on a bilateral basis.
Just a few of the growing number of examples include: Japan, which is providing educational opportunities and other assistance to countries intheir region; Korea, which, as noted in my last essay, has an educational program aimed at themembers of the Asian Nuclear Safety Network;and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
which hosts temporary assignees from other countries for “hands on” opportunities to work in a regulatory office.
To their credit, some of the countries exploring
the nuclear option have also been very proactive in
beginning to establish their own infrastructures
early in their planning processes. While I am notaware of all activities underway in all countries,
the United Arab Emirates provides a very good
example of the type of activity that is going on. The
UAE is developing legislation to establish a nuclear regulatory authority, but even in advance of that,has set up an office and has brought in a number ofregulatory experts from around the world to help
4

in establishing the regulations and the procedures
the country will need when reactors are built andoperated. It is also noteworthy that some countries
with existing nuclear power plants are taking steps
to update their infrastructure before they expand
their nuclear programs. For example, Armenia has
one operating VVER and one that was previously
shut down. As it looks to the future, it is working
with the NRC on training, expert missions, and inother areas, and is working to bring its regulations
into harmony with those of other countries.

General issues : Other issues apply equally, or
almost equally, for countries that currently havenuclear power plants and for new entries.
One of these issues is nuclear fuel supply assurance. The concern to date among the developed
countries has mainly focused on the proliferation
potential of the nuclear fuel cycle. This is a very
real and difficult concern. However, even if proliferation were not an issue, most of the new countries operating nuclear power plants, now and in
the future, will not have a large enough demand to
warrant operating the full fuel cycle. They willneed an assured supply of fuel. It should be notedthat the problem of fuel supply is not unique tonuclear energy. The same issues have arisen overcutoffs of the natural gas supply from Russia to
Europe, and over periodic concerns about the stability of the oil supply from the Middle East. In fact,
for nuclear power plants, which do not need a continuous supply of fuel, or a large volume of fuel,providing that assurance is conceptually easierthan it is for fossil fuels. As noted above, the countries that have enrichment facilities are well awareof this problem, and several activities are underway to establish a system that would provide anassured fuel supply. Continued attention to thisissue is needed to assure the development and implementation of mechanisms that accomplish thenon-proliferation objectives, but at the same time,
provide the user countries a guarantee that the
supplier countries can’t, in the future, withhold
fuel as a political tool for unrelated purposes.
Several trends are leading toward an increasing
international harmonization of regulations for nuclear power operation. One trend is the entry of
more small countries into the marketplace. They
will undoubtedly purchase reactors from othercountries, and with the reactors, they will likely
find that it will help to “import” much of the regulation from the supplier country. However, a more
important factor is the internationalization ofmany of the corporations supplying components
and systems for nuclear reactors. As these companies supply utilities in several large countries, itwill be more efficient if they can design and build
Copyright © JAPAN NUS CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved

Dr. Marcus' Room No. 6

to regulations that are compatible from one country to another. The effort to move to such a multilaterally compatible system of regulatory requirements has already started through the MDEP. The
current economic downturn gives added urgency tothis need.
While initial attempts to work together on regulatory issues were very cautious, there seems to bea growing sense that much more can be done tobring regulatory requirements closer together.
Naturally, the many differences in legislation, legal
systems, and other factors among all the countries
with nuclear power plants mean that the movement toward more commonality between regulations in different countries will be slow and difficult, and it may never be possible to make everything completely consistent. Still, the goal should
remain to continue to move incrementally toward
more common standards. Starting with a new reactor design and with selected areas, as MDEP has
done, is a reasonable way to approach such a largetask.
One of the concerns about moving toward morecommon approaches has always been that countries would cede responsibility to another country
or to an international organization, and that thiswould, in the long run, be detrimental to safety.
Clearly, this does not have to be the case, and
MDEP is being very careful to assure that its efforts to improve efficiency are balanced with theneed to maintain strong regulators in every country. The need for each country to maintain an independent regulatory system is especially important as regulators begin to share the results of
their regulatory reviews. Further care will be required as the results of regulatory research andanalysis are shared beyond the countries now participating in MDEP to countries that may have lessexperienced regulators.

Future Directions
The factors that are causing the increasing internationalization of nuclear activity will continue,
so we can expect more and more initiatives to assure that we reap all the benefits of such internationalization without introducing weaknesses into
nuclear power production activities. The countries
sponsoring the initiatives I have highlighted are
well aware of both the opportunities and the challenges, and have, to date, been responsive to them.
Continued diligence in these areas is needed.
As I have described, the spectrum of activities
focused on international issues today ranges from
activities by individual countries, to activities of asmall group of countries on a specific issue, to a5

broad range of activities by multinational organizations. While most of these groups are governmental, it is noteworthy that some are international industry organizations.
It is clear that most of the national and targeted
multilateral activities described above need tocontinue, although clearly, the ad hoc multilateral
partnerships may well change form over time, especially if the focus changes or different countries
become involved. For example, the multiple proposals for a fuel supply assurance mechanism
share the same objective, so it is likely that theultimate mechanism will reflect a merger of thebest ideas. (In addition, changes in GNEP, the US
program, are likely in the current Administration.)
It is also clear that there is likely to be an expanding role for the assistance that countries like
Japan and the U.S. can offer in educating nuclear
professionals from other countries and in providingthem with experience working within their institutions.
The role of the two intergovernmental organizations, IAEA and NEA, will continue to be very important. Some of their current activities will become even more critical in the future, but there aresome emerging new areas that merit more attention. Currently, with all the new countries that areinterested in acquiring nuclear power plants, IAEA
should give a very high priority to assisting thesecountries. The IAEA, of course, can also be expected to have an important role in the fuel supply
assurance area. IAEA also has many ongoing activities that will continue to be important, including their various inspection programs for facilities
in member countries, and activities outside thenuclear power area.
The smaller size of NEA’s membership clearly facilitates its role in developing new tools and products. Historically, following the development phase,
these tools have often been passed on to IAEA for
the necessary implementation in a larger numberof countries. That practice should continue. NEA
has also historically had a very strong program ofmanagement of research activities in facilities
around the world. Most of this has been associatedwith safety research, but the same management
principles apply to any kind of research, and thisstrength should be exploited.
In terms of technical areas, it is clear that fuelcycle activities, and in particular, reprocessing, will
become more important for both organizations
than they have been in the past. There is room forsignificant R&D, as well as analytical work, to explore technologies for reprocessing that minimize
proliferation risks, and that address options for
Copyright © JAPAN NUS CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved

Dr. Marcus' Room No. 6

using the reprocessed fuel in thermal and fast reactor cycles. These are areas where NEA mightwell be able to make more of a contribution in the
future. NEA and IAEA need to work closely in thisarea, and IAEA must address the need for new andenhanced protective and other measures that may
be required, particularly with advanced reprocessing technologies.

Conclusion
This is the last of this series of essays. It is very
fitting to end the series by talking about international issues, as most of my other themes have hadsome type of an international aspect. In this regard,
it is important to conclude this essay by reemphasizing the importance of the nuclear community
working together. In the first place, doing so should
improve the efficiency of many nuclear-related activities, to the benefit of all. Furthermore, mutual
cooperation is a self-preservation measure. If
working together helps assure that all countries
operate to a similarly high standard and helps
prevent a serious accident, it will be to the benefitof all countries that operate nuclear power plants.
***

Conclusion of Series
I hope that, collectively, I have been able to show
in my essays some of the important activities goingon in the nuclear area today, and to identify what I
think are the challenges―and opportunities―thenuclear industry faces in the years ahead.
I have enjoyed writing about these important
topics and sharing some of my thoughts. I hope you
have enjoyed reading them and have benefited insome way from my experiences and observations. I
have sometimes worried that my thoughts are very
simple and obvious, but I have been heartened tohear from several people that they found interestand value in what I had to say.

6

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to
the staff and management of JANUS for giving me
the opportunity to write these essays for the readers of their web pages. I hope I have met their expectations as well. I particularly want to thankJunko Sugaya for initiating this idea and forworking with me to check the accuracy of the essays and to assure that some colloquial English
expressions were interpreted in a manner thatwould be understandable. I think I taught her a
few new English expressions, but I also learned alot from her about how some terms are understoodin Japanese. I also wish to thank the translators
for all their efforts to make the best possible
translations of the essays.
In closing, I want to let you know that, in the
coming weeks and months, I plan to continue to explore these themes and others in my new blog, Nuke
Power Talk (http://nukepowertalk.blogspot.com)
and I invite all of you to look for me there. (TheMarcus Room now has a link to the blog.) Next year,
I am looking forward to coming back here to the
Marcus Room, and I hope to “see” all of you here
again.
So for one final time, I thank you for your attention, both in reading this essay and in reading therest of the series. I will continue to welcome yourreactions to this and any of my previous essays, aswell as to what I post in the future on my blog.
Look for me back here in the next year. In themeantime, my e-mail address is:ghmarcus alum.mit.edu.
（ An image charactor is used intentionally for@-sign. Please cut the image and put a keystroke@-sign.)August 2009

Copyright © JAPAN NUS CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved