Today, AREVA and two strategic Chinese partners, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp (CGNPC) and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), signed major agreements to do just that (read the press release).

In addition to a long-term uranium contact and manufacturing partnership, AREVA and CNNC signed a framework agreement in the field of used fuel treatment and recycling that serves as the final step toward a commercial contract.

Here in the United States, American leadership is still evaluating the best option for the country. The U.S. government’s current approach is the once-through approach in which nuclear fuel is used only once and then sent for disposal. However, every nation with a significant nuclear energy sector, except the United States, recycles its nuclear fuel. Today, China has taken another step toward developing this capability.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (more information here) is now re-evaluating options for used fuel management in this country and expects to make at least some preliminary recommendations next year. While this process plays out, other countries are clearly moving forward on this issue.

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat asks some good questions about Copenhagen, climate change issues, and nuclear power:

If you want to pursue a strategy of decarbonization, and you don’t want to sacrifice economic development goals, then the nations of the world have only one form of electricity generation for base load demand to use to make that switch in one generation. Nuclear energy is the answer. Need evidence? Take a look at what India and China are doing.
Climate change is a challenge to the survival of the human species. We created this mess and, if we don’t want to turn into crispy critters on the only planet we have, then we have also have to fix it. To use an analogy from the military, you don’t fight a war with the weapons you wish you had, you fight it with the ones you’ve got.

Al Gore can preach all he wants about renewables, but battery storage technologies to support solar and wind aren’t likely to change in the next decade or so. In short, his plan, however popular with the press and green groups, is a sure fire path to reducing economic growth if relied on as a sole strategy to achieve significant change from fossil fuels.

The nuclear energy industry has some serious challenges ahead to explain itself in these terms. On the other hand, the big U.S. utilities are realists who see uprates to nuclear reactors as being competitive responses to combined cycle natural gas plants. None of the nuclear utilities are going to commit to building a new nuclear reactor until the government stops its denial that it has an obligation to leverage the future of the industry with loan guarantees.

It will be interesting to hear what the U.S. delegation says this coming week about nuclear energy. We’re either going to get more political fig leafs or maybe some real straight talk about what it will take to reduce the growth of greenhouse gases. I’ll be listening. I hope you will too.

In his speech to the United Nations, Chinese president Hu Jintao discussed the goals that China has for reducing its CO2 emissions. Proclaiming that China “will further integrate our actions on climate change into our economic and social development tasks,” including actions to “develop renewable energy and nuclear energy.”

Just beating out the United States, China ranks as the world’s number emitter of CO2. But China is taking emissions reductions seriously, and they are choosing nuclear energy to play a major role in energy generation, with 16 reactors currently under construction. Moreover, China has said that plans to build well over 100 reactors over the next 20 years in order to both reduce CO2 emissions and meet the country’s sky-rocketing energy demands.

But resting in position number two, the United States has been much more hesitant to see new nuclear energy construction, even though we facing similar energy generation needs and carbon-reduction goals.

Senator Lamar Alexander recently discussed the issue, saying that “there are 40 reactors now under construction in 11 countries around the world, none of them in the United States.” With China, Russia, India ─all major polluters─ turning towards nuclear energy in recent years, the United States has “shied away from the technology while everyone else has forged ahead,” he noted.

Alexander also points out that “even Europe is coming back. …. France already gets 80 percent of its power from nuclear and has the cheapest electricity in Europe ─not to mention the second lowest carbon emissions (behind Sweden, which is half nuclear).”

Just as the U.S. Congress is about to take up the discussion of important legislation to determine how we will tackle the problems of climate change, these examples from many of the world’s major countries show that adding nuclear energy to the mix is essential.

Now what is true about nuclear energy is that it’s a growing as a source for clean, viable, and economic energy all over the world. Look at the cases of India and China, two booming countries for which access to energy is not a question of prestige, but a matter of social stability and sustainable development. Do you think these countries would have chosen nuclear energy if it weren’t a cost-effective solution? Major European states, such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Sweden, are taking progressive steps or are already launching new nuclear energy programs. In the U.S., there are already approximately 30 new nuclear power plants proposed. It’s unlikely that these utilities’ consideration of building new nuclear power plants was guided by philanthropic concerns.

Facts are stubborn things. Nuclear energy produces electricity at a competitive and predictable price—especially if we add in carbon pricing. Once construction costs are amortized, the operating costs of a nuclear facility are among the lowest of any generating source. This includes the fact that nuclear energy is the only major source of electricity that incorporates the cost of managing its own waste materials, unlike fossil-fuel plants that just allow their smoke and other byproducts to escape into the air.