UN Secretary General says action needed on nuclear safety

Washington (Platts)--22Sep2011/510 pm EDT/2110 GMT

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said the nuclear accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl were a "wake-up call" requiring global action to strengthen nuclear safety standards.

"We cannot accept business as usual," he said at a special high-level UN meeting on nuclear safety that is being held in conjunction with the General Assembly's annual session in New York.

Ban said the role of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency should be strengthened, closer ties should be built between international nuclear response and humanitarian response organizations and nuclear installations should be further protected from deliberate attack.
"There is a compelling need for greater transparency and accountability," Ban said. "We must rebuild public trust."

Meanwhile, at a meeting in Vienna Thursday, the IAEA general conference endorsed a plan for follow-up actions to Fukushima that its board of governors previously approved.

The conference-endorsed action plan would require member countries to conduct a review of the safety of their nuclear plants, modify a system of IAEA peer reviews of nuclear facilities in member countries, increase communications between member nations and enhance emergency response capability for nuclear accidents.

IAEA Director General Yukia Amano, in a recorded message played during the UN meeting, said the agency, governments, regulators and plant operators must work together to restore public confidence in nuclear power.

"We must retain our sense of urgency," Amano told UN delegates. The international community must demonstrate "measurable progress" towards the action plan goals by the summer of 2012, he said. The action plan calls for nations to conduct an assessment of the safety of their nuclear plants, Amano is attending IAEA meetings this week in Vienna.

But several attendees at the UN sessions criticized the lack of mandatory IAEA peer reviews of nuclear reactors in member nations.

France's President, Nicolas Sarkozy, said in remarks to the UN that his country favors the mandatory peer reviews of nuclear facilities of member countries as a response to the Fukushima nuclear accident, which occurred in March after an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan.

The IAEA general conference Thursday approved voluntary peer reviews, removing language calling for mandatory reviews that had been in an earlier version of the action plan.

"France would be ready to accept a mandatory review," Sarkozy said.

Sarkozy also called for all countries to have an independent regulator with oversight over nuclear safety and said a "rapid intervention force" is "a crucial element for nuclear safety and security," and does not threaten national sovereignty.

A center for nuclear safety and security technology training is also needed to develop skills of workers around the world, he said.

"In order to have safety and security, we have to have mandatory peer reviews, a training center, the rapid intervention force and independent oversight authorities," he said.

Sarkozy also defended nuclear energy, which accounts for almost 80% of his country's electricity generating capacity, saying it was critical for controlling carbon emissions.

"Everyone is free to choose his or her energy mix, but who can say that with the unprecedented needs of the world that we can do without nuclear energy, which is the only energy that will allow us to fulfill our commitments in terms of greenhouse gas reduction," he said.

France's neighbors, Germany and Switzerland, have said they plan to phase out nuclear energy.

A senior US State Department official said Wednesday that the US is also open to future requirements for mandatory peer reviews, but such a move could require negotiating a binding international agreement and could take years.

Voluntary peer reviews are an important step to gain knowledge about global nuclear plants and boost cooperation of IAEA member countries, the official said.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said at the UN meeting the US will work with the IAEA to volunteer for peer reviews and provide experts for the agency's peer-review teams.

The Obama administration is committed to nuclear energy, Clinton said, adding that nuclear energy, while it requires careful oversight, "is not an option we can take off the table," she said.

--William Freebairn, william_freebairn@platts.com

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