New name and mission for GNEP

Monday, 21 June 2010

The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) is to change its name to the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC) and establish a new mission statement as it aims to broaden its scope to wider international participation.
 
The change in title was approved by GNEP's steering group at a meeting in Accra, Ghana on 16-17 June, "to reflect global developments that have occurred since the partnership was established in 2007," according to the US Department of Energy (DoE).

 

"Participants in this new international framework agreed that this transformation was necessary to provide a broader scope with wider international participation to more effectively explore the most important issues underlying the use and expansion of nuclear energy worldwide," the DoE said in a statement. The steering group has also been looking at ways of further enhancing the group's activities, such as exchanges of views on approaches to assurances of fuel supply and cradle-to-grave nuclear fuel management. The DoE said a new statement of mission had been established, but could not provide a copy of it.

 

A spokesman for the US Chamber of Commerce welcomed the change in principle. "This multilateral effort to safely expand nuclear power globally is more important now than ever," said Christopher Guith, vice president at the chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy, adding that the title of the group is irrelevant as long as the scope and momentum of GNEP carry forward. "If changing the name enables certain governments to participate more energetically, then changing the name is a wise political move," he told World Nuclear News.
 

How times change   The IFNEC acronym brings back echoes of the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) program under the IAEA in the late 1970s. It too was set up on the initiative of the USA and worked on the "urgent need to meet the world's energy requirements," to make nuclear energy more widely available and "to minimize the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation without jeopardizing energy supplies or the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes" all with special attention for the needs of developing countries. One interesting difference was the inclusion of Iran as co-chair of INFCE's group on uranium enrichment availability.

Launched by US President George Bush in 2006, GNEP started out as a partnership of countries aiming to improve the proliferation-resistance of the nuclear fuel cycle while guaranteeing access to fuel supplies through both political and technological initiatives, with a vision of a global network of nuclear fuel cycle facilities all under international supervision. The partnership picked up on concerns and proposals from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Russia. Founder members were the USA, China, France, Japan and Russia, and in total 25 nations have signed the GNEP Statement of Principles. However, the USA has been taking a lower profile in the partnership since 2009 with the organisation focusing on collaboration to make nuclear energy more widely accessible in accordance with safety, security and non-proliferation objectives as an effective measure to counter global warming and to improve global energy security.
 
The next meeting of the international framework's executive committee will take place in Jordan in late 2010.
 
Researched and written

by World Nuclear News