World Nuclear Association

This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch.

Overview

The World Nuclear Association is a London-based lobby group that seeks "to promote nuclear power as a sustainable energy resource" across the globe. The WNA says that is "concerned with nuclear power generation and all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including mining, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, plant manufacture, transport, and the safe disposition of spent fuel".

Repackaging Nuclear

A Name Change to "Ratchet" up the Pressure

Established in 1975, the the WNA was formerly known as the Uranium Institute, that looked after the interests of uranium producers. Its main areas of concern surrounded accusations of an uranium cartel and high uranium prices.

In 2001 the Institute changed its name to the World Nuclear Association. This was done because its Director General, John Ritch wanted the organisation to be "more proactive" and have more "clout". Ritch said the WNA's objective was to "rachet up" the WNA's traditional promotional role to "a much higher level" of power.

The WNA presented its first award for "distinguished contribution to the peaceful worldwide use of nuclear energy" to Corbin McNeill, the then chairman and co-CEO of Exelon Corp, the US's largest nuclear utility and promoter of the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. McNeill told WNA members to "lead the renaissance of nuclear energy" which would eventually "light the dark areas of the world".

In a keynote address to the WNA's inaugural meeting in London, Hans Blix co-chair of the WNA board said that the nuclear industry - "which had gotten its act" largely together during two "difficult decades" for nuclear power -- should be ready to seize any opportunity. The WNA should be the "policy-makers' navigator", he said.

In its first public relations move, WNA produced a 12-minute video giving all the major arguments for nuclear power in ten languages. WNA Secretary General John Ritch said it's designed to "jump-start the discussion" and "penetrate the strong psychological barriers" against nuclear.

Within months the International Nuclear Societies Council and the International Nuclear Energy Academy (INEA) both rejected to join the WNA because of its "lobbying" role.

But the WNA continued its new public relations campaign. The following year, in 2002, one of the sessions at its Annual Conference included the discussion on "recent advances in communications with opinion formers and the general public on nuclear issues". One of the participants was Sir Bernard Ingham, from the Supporters of Nuclear Energy.

Nuclear for Sustainable Development

The WNA's new website also includes the slogan "Energy For Sustainable Development" - which was another strategic move in nuclear industry's campaign to reposition itself from dirty, to clean and unsafe to "sustainable".

Nuclear is a Necessity for Survival

Another key tenet has been to-position nuclear from an industry with no political future, to one that is central to our future, especially because of climate change. Nuclear Energy is "not just an option but a necessity for survival" WNA argues.

In 2004, the nuclear spin doctor Ian Hore-Lacy from the WNA said "With carbon emissions threatening the very stability of the biosphere, the security of our world requires a massive transformation to clean energy,". Whilst many people see clean energy as renewable technologies such as wind, solar and wave, nuclear has repackaged itself to be "clean" too.

Opposition is Irrational - A Public Debate Leads to Public Enlightenment

Ritch argues that the public opposition to nuclear power is irrational. "Current nuclear generation is enormously safe. Year after year it churns out electricity without incident. There has not been one instance in history where civil nuclear plants have been used as a means of getting nuclear weapons," he says.

Ritch adds: "When you force the general public to face facts, the case for nuclear becomes very persuasive. In Sweden you have a classic case of public debate leading to public enlightenment."

Because We Are Clean Give Us Financial Incentives

In a speech in Paris 2005, Ritch said: "As a step toward energy independence and as an urgent environmental imperative, it is essential that national governments take the steps necessary to incentivise immediate nuclear investments." He added that "this pump-priming can be achieved by a temporary production subsidy, by absorbing some first-of-a-kind engineering costs."

The Current PR Messages

The key public relations messages that the WNA has beeen pushing over the last few years were all in evidence in a speech given by John Ritch at a conference in Sydney in 2006.

Nuclear Will Save Us from the Apocalyspe

Ritch said that nuclear power was the only way to fuel fast-developing nations without big rises in greenhouse gases. He spoke in apocalyptic terms about the threat of climate change. "Greenhouse gas emissions, if continued at the present massive scale, will yield consequences that are – quite literally – apocalyptic: increasingly radical temperature changes, a worldwide upsurge in violent weather events, widespread drought, flooding, wildfires, famine, species extinction, rising sea levels, mass migration and epidemic disease that will leave no country untouched".

He finsihed by saying that "If these predictions hold true, the combined effect would be the death of not just millions but of billions of people – and the destruction of much of civilization on all continents”..

Central to the Clean-Energy Revolution

To avoid this catastrophie, we need “a worldwide transformation to clean forms of energy”. Ritch continued to try and reposition nuclear to the centre of the “clean energy” debate, continuing the industry campaign to portray it as clean and green.

He said: “Humankind cannot conceivably achieve a global clean-energy revolution without a huge expansion of nuclear power – to generate electricity, to produce hydrogen and battery power for tomorrow’s vehicles, and to desalinate seawater in response to the world’s rapidly emerging fresh-water crisis”.

We Need A 20-fold Expansion of Nuclear

Currently there are around 440 reactors in the world producing electricity, and Ritch forecast a major expansion. He said “We will be moving ... to a world in the next 25 years in which we have more than 1,000 reactors, and by mid-century I would expect we would have 2,000 to 3,000 reactors in the world." He concluded that by the end of the century, a 20-fold increase on today's numbers would be both feasible and desirable.

Nuclear Facilities are not a Proliferation Issue

During the speech Ritch suggested that concerns over nuclear proliferation should not deter further development of civilian reactors. "The nuclear proliferation danger comes not from the existence of nuclear facilities, but from the intentions of those who possess them," he said.

"The intent of an Iran or a North Korea is a geopolitical variable virtually independent of whether countries like Brazil, Canada, South Africa, or Australia develop additional nuclear facilities."

Despite Ritch’s remarks, there are huge international concerns over proliferation. So much so that the International Atomic Energy Agency is working on a new international framework to try to address the issue. However, according to Ritch “there is no global security measure more urgent or important than the nuclear renaissance itself. The expansion of nuclear power must proceed in parallel with, and not be delayed by, ongoing efforts to strengthen the IAEA-led framework within which peaceful nuclear technology is employed”.

More subsidies

Despite the fact nuclear has received global subsidies of around $1 trillion over the past 50 years, Ritch re-iterated the need for the nuclear renaissance to be “pump-primed” with more taxpayers money. He said governments and international institutions should directly support nuclear investment with even more subsidies. “This economic aid will be the most cost-effective in history if it helps to prevent the globally destructive growth in greenhouse emissions that might otherwise occur in the developing world”.

No Time to Waste

According to Ritch, nuclear waste will not be a problem compared with carbon emissions: "The small volume and manageability of nuclear waste represent distinct environmental assets in a world where the continuing use of our atmosphere as a carbon dumpsite is fast carrying us toward global catastrophe".

He says if we generated all the world’s energy from reactors we would create "an amount of high-level nuclear waste no greater than the amount of carbon waste that today’s power plants spew into Earth’s atmosphere every four minutes, around the clock".

Others disagree. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) a tripling of global nuclear capacity to 1000GW would require a new Yucca-sized dump to be opened somewhere every three or four years, and even without new reactors, the US will need a second dump by 2012, if Yucca sticks to its statutory limit for waste. Even a tenfold increase would require a new Yucca Mountain to be opened somewhere in the world every year.

Tax Exempt As a Scientific Research Organisation

Considering the pivotal PR role that Ritch and the WNA seem to be playing in the renaissance of nuclear power, it is interesting to note that in its most recent accounts, the WNA states: “Agreement has been reached with the UK Inland Revenue Department for the World Nuclear Association, as a scientific research organization, to be exempt from tax as it meets the requirements of Section 508 (i) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988".

Key Personnel

• Director General: John Ritch who held a secret meeting with Blair's top energy advisor Geoffrey Norris in January 2006, just days after the government had announced the energy review.
• Chairman: Ralf Güldner
• Vice Chairman: Jose Luis Gonzalez
• Director of Strategy & Research: Stephen Kidd
• Director of Public Communications: Ian Hore-Lacy - Works half-time for the Uranium Information Centre which became part of the new Australian Uranium Association in 2006. Author of the book "Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century: World Nuclear Association", published in 2006, whose foreward is written by Patrick Moore

Council of Advisors

• Chairman: Hans Blix
• Chairman: Zack Pate

Contact Details

Web Address:	http://www.world-nuclear.org
Address:	Carlton House, 22a St. James's Square London, SW1Y 4JH United Kingdom
Phone:	+44 (0)20 7451 1520
Fax:	+44 (0)20 7839 1501