This piece originally appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

As we witness the increasingly detrimental effects of global climate change, the role that nuclear power could play globally to mitigate its effects continues to be debated. The series of articles featured in the Bulletin in December 2016 aired a broad spectrum of opinions, ranging in assessment of the role of nuclear power from insignificant to mandatory. In this series, we present the perspective of a new crop of nuclear professionals who collectively represent two of the world leaders in nuclear power—the United States and Russia.

These young professionals work together to exchange views and ideas as part of the U.S.-Russia Young Professionals Nuclear Forum that we created in May 2016 to encourage dialogue on critical nuclear issues of concern to both countries. As most official avenues of US-Russia cooperation on nuclear issues were being shut down in pace with the deteriorating political relations between Washington and Moscow, our objective was to turn to the younger generation, because those in it will have to live with the consequences of a world in which their countries no longer cooperate to mitigate global nuclear dangers.

In the United States, our efforts are organized within the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, although we reach out to universities and other organizations across the country. In Russia, we were fortunate to find the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), Russia’s flagship research university in nuclear engineering, to be an enthusiastic partner. Its rector, Professor Mikhail Strikhanov, has an unwavering international outlook that stresses the need for cooperation, especially in higher education and research. The young professionals are students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career professionals.

Hecker has previously written in the Bulletin about the remarkable period of post-Cold War nuclear cooperation between Russian and American nuclear weapon scientists and how the termination of that cooperation by our governments threatens our collective security. We viewed engaging young professionals from the two countries as one of the few avenues of continued cooperation. It has the potential of being particularly effective because at the forum meetings, the young Russians and Americans interact in an educational and non-adversarial environment.

The first three forum meetings focused primarily on issues of nuclear non-proliferation and countering nuclear terrorism. They featured exercises in which the young professionals worked in small groups side by side to explore solutions to vexing nuclear problems. One was a simulation conducted at Stanford in May 2018 just a few weeks before the historic Trump-Kim Singapore Summit. The other was an exercise in Moscow in October 2018 to advise their governments on a hypothetical crisis related to the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

At the Moscow forum, we also asked the young professionals to explore what the two countries could do to promote the benefits of nuclear energy around the globe, while cooperating to mitigate the associated risks.

Preparation for the forum included online lectures by senior mentors as well as lectures and discussion sessions in Moscow by both Russian and American specialists. In the nuclear power exercise, we assigned eight key questions to 24 young professionals. We divided them into eight teams, each composed of Russian and American participants. The central question was whether or not an expansion of global nuclear power is necessary to help mitigate the danger of global climate change. Individual groups examined issues of supply and demand around the globe and some of the big challenges posed by an expansion of nuclear power—those of economics, safety and security, potential proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the disposition of nuclear waste.

The young professionals conducted research prior to the meeting, deliberated and debated within their teams during the meeting, and presented their findings to the larger group and the panel of senior mentors at the end of the exercise. During the past six months they have captured the essence of their findings in the eight articles featured in this special presentation in the Bulletin.

Their findings are generally pro-nuclear, which is not surprising considering that most of them have strong educational and research backgrounds in either nuclear technologies or nuclear security. But we found that their views were primarily driven by their serious concerns about the dangers of global climate change and the urgent need to confront these dangers.

Their articles are of interest not so much in that they break new ground in these areas, particularly since many other  established experts have tried to tackle these issues for decades. They are of interest because they represent the views of some of the younger generation of professionals working together across cultural and disciplinary divides. We were struck by the following comment in one of the papers  that reflects on the perceived urgency of the task at hand: “We are the first generation that is experiencing the dramatic effects of global climate change and likely the last that can do something about it to avoid catastrophic consequences for the Earth and its people.”

We also note that the articles uniformly reveal that the young professionals across the board firmly believe that the benefits and risks of expanding nuclear power globally must be pursued and tackled in a concerted effort of major nuclear powers (especially the United States and Russia), other developed nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and all stakeholders. These younger voices stated: “The most important shift necessary to facilitate [nuclear power] expansion is an increase in international cooperation and multilateralization in the form of, for example, international reactor supply contracts, multinational enrichment conglomerates, nondiscriminatory fuel banks, and international waste repositories.”

We believe the readers will find the sentiments and opinions of the young Russian and American professionals interesting and encouraging. We certainly have found them eager and able to work together effectively—a lesson that the more senior professionals and the governments need to relearn.

Editor’s note: The Young Professionals Nuclear Forum cooperation is supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Read the articles here:

• Nuclear Power and Global Climate Change
• What Countries Will Be the Most Important in Leading a Significant Expansion of Global Nuclear Power—Both From the Perspective of the Supplier and the User?
• Should Nuclear Power Be Expanded Significantly Into Developing Countries?
• What Will Be Required for a Significant Expansion of Global Nuclear Energy?
• Resolving Safety and Security Concerns About Nuclear Power
• Why Nuclear Power Plants Cost so Much—and What Can Be Done About It
• Will Nuclear Waste Disposal Challenges Limit a Significant Expansion of Global Nuclear Power? Part 1
• Will Nuclear Waste Disposal Challenges Limit a Significant Expansion of Global Nuclear Power? Part 2

In early May, CISAC convened the fifth Young Professional Nuclear Forum (YPNF), a program sponsored by the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI). The program brought together a lively group of young Russians and Americans working on nuclear issues over three days.

Since 2016, the forum has alternated between Moscow and Stanford.  

By 2016, US and Russian governments closed almost every door on opportunities that previously allowed experienced nuclear professionals on both sides to cooperate with each other.  Stanford Professor Siegfried Hecker saw that at least one door - that of cooperation on the university level - was still open. He started the YPNF to foster interaction between the younger generation of Russians and Americans who study, do research, or start a career in the nuclear power or nonproliferation fields.

This year’s agenda focused on two major areas: US-Russian arms control and the future of nuclear power.

The American group included a new cohort of six incoming young professionals from Los Alamos National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non‑Proliferation. They were joined by CISAC research staff members Gaby Levikow and Elliot Serbin and current and former fellows Chantell Murphy, Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, and Cameron Tracy. The Russian group from MEPhI brought a team of 12 young professionals most of whom are pursuing their graduate degrees in nuclear physics and engineering and software engineering, along with junior professionals in international relations and nuclear fields.  The team of experts included Professor Hecker, Dr. James Toevs, Dr. Ning Li, Ambassador Steven Pifer, Professor David Holloway, Dr. Larry Brandt, Dr. Chaim Braun, Dr. Pavel Podvig, and Dr. Mona Dreicer, —all of whom provided advice and feedback during the exercise.

Participants come from loosely defined “technical” and “policy” fields, and the forum agenda has traditionally included one nuclear-power related and one policy-focused subject. Forum activities vary between lectures, expert briefings, discussions, and table-top exercises, but the small-group work during the exercises is the core form of interaction.

By design, this agenda exposes each participant to new fields, new counterparts, some fun interactive time off - and encourages a lot of cultural learning. Forum after forum, we hear back that the group work and social time are the most exciting aspects of the forum experience. Participants noted they learned, among other things, “general ideas and thoughts of American participants and their attitudes to the present American policy, new words and abbreviations … [and] a great deal about new reactor designs and their implications for nuclear energy and security policy.”  Still more participants enjoyed “learning to collaborate in groups of Americans and Russians but also between policy and technical experts on topics of both camps,” and some “got new friends.”

Encouragingly, participants requested more interaction between the bi-annual meetings and a variety of topics in yet untapped – or suspended - areas of cooperation between Russia and the US.

New work continues to emerge from the forum. Eight short articles written by the young professionals to showcase the results of the projects from the Moscow meeting in November 2017 was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in June 2019. The next meeting will be held in Moscow this November.

Q&A with Professor Rodney C. Ewing, Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security and co-director at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Interview with Katy Gabel Chui.

Your previous research with this team helped identify the types of radioactive particles that can become airborne and were transported away from Fukushima during the 2011 nuclear disaster.

This most recent paper goes further to show how these Cesium (Cs)-rich silica particles behave in several types of fluids, including simulated human lung fluid, concluding that the particles are fully dissolved in the latter after more than 35 years. What might that mean for human health in the Fukushima area and beyond?

The first breakthrough was the recognition that such particles, a few microns in diameter, existed, a discovery by Japanese scientists at the Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba, in 2013. The particles are important because they were dispersed over distances of tens of kilometers and were “carriers” of highly radioactive Cs. Our team’s previous work, led by Professor Satoshi Utsunomiya, mainly focused on the characterization of the particles and their constituents at the atomic-scale and surveyed their distribution in the area away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants. Our earliest work from 2016 can be found online. A good summary of the history of the work on these cesium-rich microparticles was recently published in Scientific American.

This latest paper published in Chemosphere is the 6th in a series of papers on the Cs-rich microparticles. We describe the behavior of these particles when exposed to different types of fluids: ultra-pure water, artificial sea water and simulated lung fluid. The microparticles dissolve in all three fluids, reaching a long-term but a continuing, slow rate of release after just three days. Essentially, the calculated release rate of cesium depends on the rate of dissolution of the silica glass matrix and the initial size of the particles. In the simulated lung fluid, the particles are modelled to fully dissolve after more than 35 years.

What is the simulated lung fluid made of, and how does it work in simulation? How do you estimate 35 years?

The constituents of typical lung fluid were simply mixed to simulate its composition based on a recipe reported by previous studies. The lung fluid is different from the other solutions because it contains organic compounds and has a different chemistry, i.e., higher sodium and chlorine content. The estimates of residence time in the body assumes that the particles are inhaled and find their way to the pulmonary system. The calculation of residence time is based on assumptions about the size and composition of the microparticles, and we used the long-term release rate from the experiments. We assumed a spherical shape and a constant decrease in size as the leaching process continued. The rate can vary depending on the actual shape, internal texture, composition (such as occurrence of intrinsic Cs-phase inclusions), and precipitation of secondary phases that may form a “protective” coating on the cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs). The rate of release was fastest in the simulated lung fluid.

The important result is to realize that the Cs-rich silica particles dissolve slowly in the environment and in the body. Essentially, the release extends for several decades.

How can nuclear energy experts and policy makers use this research to avoid future risk?

Understanding the form and composition of materials that host and disperse radionuclides is the first step in completing a careful dose calculation. Based on these results, the fraction of Cs contained in the silica particles will not be rapidly “flushed” through the environment or the body, but rather will be released over several decades.

On Tuesday [June 4], the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces debated the draft Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

It voted out, on party lines, language that prohibits deployment of a low-yield warhead on the Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile.  That makes sense:  The rationale for the warhead is dubious, and the weapon likely would never be selected for use.

Read the rest at The Hill

27 April 2019 marked the first anniversary of the historic Panmunjom summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean leader Moon Jae-in.

The meeting jumpstarted the whirlwind of North Korea’s summit diplomacy and prompted a new wave of hope that diplomacy could be effective after years of confrontation and tensions.

But the anniversary was marked with mixed messages and dissonant attitudes — it was celebrated by the South Koreans alone. North Korea remained unresponsive to the South’s invitation to the anniversary ceremony, and North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country openly demanded that the South explore ‘more active measures’ to improve inter-Korean ties. The inter-Korean rapprochement efforts borne out of Panmunjom are stranded by the stalemate on the nuclear track...

Read the full article on East Asia Forum

The failure of high-level discussions may force Washington and Pyongyang to start more effective working-level talks.

President Trump caught the world by surprise once again yesterday with a decision not to sign a deal with his North Korean counterpart, Chairman Kim Jong-un, in Hanoi, Vietnam. While walking away is a common tactic in working-level negotiation, what happened in Hanoi was a rare case and the least expected outcome.

Read the full article on Axios.