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Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting
June 14–16, 2021
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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The New Republican podcast features ANS policy guru John Starkey
Starkey
ANS government relations director John Starkey was a recent guest on the podcast The New Republican. Starkey discussed a range of topics with podcast host Lincoln Wallis in the 30-minute episode, “All Things Nuclear.”
“In 2020, nuclear energy became the second-largest source of electricity in the United States,” Starkey said in response to Wallis’s first question, adding, “That would entail nearly 20 percent of electric generation in the U.S. Nuclear energy has also operated at 90 percent capacity rate for the past 20 years or so. No other source of electricity can touch those [capacity] numbers.… I really see [nuclear energy] being a leader in decarbonization in the country and the world.”
Our world is changing. These changes increasingly take the form of higher temperatures and other climate impacts, creating a global push to limit our reliance on greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources. Nuclear energy is the largest zero-carbon energy source in the United States. In combination with other low- or zero-carbon energy sources, nuclear energy offers numerous benefits that make it uniquely suited for supporting a future clean energy economy.
Many of the world’s largest short-term decarbonization efforts have been accomplished using nuclear energy. While all forms of energy production have potential downsides, nuclear energy’s reliability, density, and versatility make it well suited as a part of a global clean energy system.
No energy source is always available, but nuclear energy gets pretty close. In the United States, nuclear power plants regularly operate for more than 90% of the year, providing “baseload” clean energy. In the developing and developed world, the availability of clean energy is critical to reducing humanity’s long-term impact on the environment and population.
Nuclear power plants provide clean energy during disastrous weather events and require infrequent refueling, contributing to their high reliability. Nuclear energy’s high capacity factor, a measurement of how much of the time an energy source is generating electricity, makes it ideally suited to providing energy in situations when weather and other resources may not be reliable.
Electricity is only part of the story.
Electricity production accounts for less than 40% of the energy usage and carbon emissions in the United States. Around the world, nuclear power plants are currently used to heat homes and create fresh water in addition to providing electricity. Transportation and industrial energy use, which are heavily reliant on fossil fuels, make up half of total energy usage in the United States and will need to be decarbonized. Nuclear energy has long been seen as a viable replacement for fossil fuel-based heat in many industrial processes and can be used to create electricity and zero-carbon fuels, like hydrogen, for use in decarbonized transportation.
Responsibly making use of the abundant resources on our planet goes hand in hand with caring for the air and water we rely on. Of all low- or zero-carbon energy sources, nuclear energy is by far the most energy dense and can generate the same amount of energy more efficiently. Nuclear energy can generate the same amount of electricity as solar on a third of the land, as wind on a fifth of the land, and as hydroelectric on a twentieth of the land. Nuclear energy also uses fewer overall resources, such as concrete and steel, when compared to other low-carbon sources. Plus, the average nuclear power plant in the US is just 38 years old. This combination of low resource use and long lifetime result from the density of nuclear energy and allow for a significant contribution to decarbonization goals.
Sources: https://www.strata.org/pdf/2017/footprints-full.pdfhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27607423
Source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php
Last modified April 17, 2020, 4:17pm CDT
