NTI Releases Report on Fuel Management Cooperation in the Pacific Rim

The inability of the vast majority of countries with nuclear energy programs to implement sustainable spent fuel disposal pathways raises security concerns and undercuts public and political acceptance for all nuclear activities. A new NTI report, A Step-by-Step Approach to Regional Spent Fuel Management Cooperation in the Pacific Rim, addresses the security and proliferation implications of accumulating spent fuel stockpiles, describes the benefits of regional cooperation, and lays out a three-step process to institutionalize and operationalize a research and development agenda for spent fuel management in the Pacific Rim.

Over the past five years, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) has been working with waste management experts in the Pacific Rim to develop collaborative solutions to shared spent fuel management problems. This report contains the following:

• A description of the often-overlooked security and proliferation risks inherent in spent nuclear fuel management, the prevention of which are central to NTI’s mission
• An outline of the benefits of regional cooperation and explanation of how the emergent Pacific Rim Spent Fuel Management Partnership offers a path forward to obtaining these benefits while avoiding the pitfalls that come with an exclusive focus on siting a multinational repository
• A comprehensive summary of the commercial nuclear power and spent fuel management programs in China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States plus Taiwan.

Read the full report here.