2.3-Times
Capacity
Increase by
2050
By William Magwood, OECD Nuclear
Energy Agency.
William Magwood
Mr. William D. Magwood, IV is the
Director-General of the OECD Nuclear
Energy Agency (NEA) since September
2014. Prior to this
position, he served
from 2010 to 2014
as one of the five
Commissioners
appointed by the
US President and
confirmed by the
US Senate to the US
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC).
From 2005 to
2010, he provided
independent
strategic and policy
advice on energy,
environmental and
technology policy
issues.
From 1998 to 2005, Mr. Magwood
was Director of Nuclear Energy at
the US Department of Energy (DOE).
During his tenure, he launched several
important initiatives including the
Generation IV International Forum
(GIF). He began his career working
as a scientist for Westinghouse and
managing electric utility research and
nuclear policy programmes at the
Edison Electric Institute in Washington,
DC. Mr. Magwood, a US national,
holds Bachelor’s degrees in Physics
and English from Carnegie Mellon
University and a Master of Fine Arts
from the University of Pittsburgh.
An interview by Newal Agnihotri, Editor
of Nuclear Plant Journal, at the NRC’s
Regulatory Information Conference in
Bethesda, Maryland on March 10, 2016.
1.
How has Fukushima strengthened
the safety of nuclear power plants
worldwide?
I think in the aftermath of the
accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant,
one of the things that has been very
impressive to me is that when you look
at what countries around the world have
done, there’s a great deal of similarity.
The regulators and operators have been
talking to each other and looking at the
best responses. International engagement
has been tremendous in the aftermath of
the accident. Probably one very long-
lasting legacy of Fukushima is the fact
that, both from the industry and the
regulatory standpoint, international
cooperation has reached a new, very
high level, and it’s
probably going to
remain that way
for good. But as
a result of that, I
think that we have
been very effective
in responding to
the accident. The
five-year report that
the NEA issued
just a couple weeks
ago highlights the
measures taken at
nuclear plants across
the world to mitigate
the results of a severe
incident caused by a
seismic event or a
tsunami, or whatever else. And I think as
a result, even though I believe the plants
were very safe before March 11, 2011,
the resilience that plants now have is even
greater, and one of the things that we all
have to do is to talk about that and explain
to stakeholders what has been done. So,
I do agree that nuclear safety has been
greatly enhanced in the last five years.
2.
What can be done to steer the climate
change debate towards the benefits of
nuclear energy?
With the COP21 conference
completed in Paris in late 2015, it’s quite
clear that the world does want to respond
to the issue of climate change. No fewer
than 195 countries came together and
made a strong statement that they want
to do that. There was no mention made
of nuclear specifically. Instead, I think
that it was something of a success for the
nuclear industry and for people who think
nuclear is part of the solution, since it has
gone from a negative statement saying
that nuclear was not part of the solution
to a neutral statement and not saying
anything about it at all. I think everyone
who was at the conference understood
that for many countries nuclear will be
part of the solution. The analysis that
the Nuclear Energy Agency has carried
out in cooperation with the International
Energy Agency (IEA) – which is also
part of the OECD – has looked at what
we call the two-degree scenario, which
is a scenario that was produced by
economists, for the most part, looking at
what is the most economically viable way
to meet the environmental targets set by
the international community. The target
that we must focus on is to make sure that
global temperatures don’t rise more than
two degrees above preindustrial levels.
And when you do the analysis, it’s really
quite striking. And, you know, the IEA is
not a pro-nuclear organization. In fact,
they have often been skeptical of nuclear,
but in their analysis, outlined in a report
that we put out together last year, the
Technology Roadmap: Nuclear Energy,
they show that if we’re to meet such
targets in an economic fashion, global
nuclear capacity would have to increase
by 2.3 times.
So, it’s the equivalent of, between
now and 2050, putting an additional 500
large reactors into operation above what
we have right now. When you include
likely decommissioning, that’s a huge
building activity that would have to be
undertaken by many countries in order to
meet these targets. Some countries have
said that they don’t want to use nuclear,
which makes meeting those targets
just extraordinarily difficult, and quite
frankly, I don’t know how you meet the
goal. When you look at this closely, the
numbers are huge. In order to decarbonize
the energy infrastructure and to do it
without nuclear, it’s really hard to see
how it happens. There are lots of groups
and academics who put out reports saying
you can do everything with renewables.
Quite frankly, I don’t think these are
credible. I recognize that people say it,
but when you look at the work that the
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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2016
