final report - bulletin of the atomic scientists

Final Report

Getting to Deep De-carbonization: What Role for Nuclear Power?

Rapporteur & Editor, Dawn Stover

IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT©

Table of Contents

Getting to Deep De-carbonization: What Role for Nuclear Power? 2

Agenda 8

List of Attendees 10

About the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 13

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Getting to Deep De-carbonization: What Role

for Nuclear Power?

Members of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, Governing Board, invited experts, and selected guests participated in the workshop held on November 14, 2016. The final agenda and list of participants can be found at the end of this report.

The discussion covered a lot of ground: the current global energy landscape, the techno-logical advances that could revolutionize the

energy sector, the economics and scalability of renewables, the changing political climate in the United States, and the Bulletin’s role in the nuclear power debate. Seven key take-aways stand out.

1. The nuclear energy land-scape is changing significantly, with most of the action now happening outside the Unit-ed States and Europe.

Steve Miller, director of the International Se-curity Program at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, gave the symposium attendees an overview of where nuclear power stands today: It is uneven-ly distributed around the world but expanding rapidly in some places where it already exists, particularly China. The number of additional countries interested in pursuing nuclear power is growing, especially in the Middle East. “Of-ten in the nuclear industry, dreams don’t come true,” cautioned Miller. But if even half of the dreams are realized, “that changes the land-scape,” he said.

The 2016 Clock Symposium was devoted to the question of what role nuclear power can and should play in achieving the deep de-carbonization required to halt global warming.


The prospects for nuclear power have evolved rapidly over the last decade, gathering momen-tum in the early 2000s when there was talk of a “nuclear renaissance,” and then declining con-siderably after the triple meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant five years ago.

Today the collapse in natural gas prices and the dramatic reduction in the cost of renewable energy make the future of nuclear power unclear. In-dustrializing countries such as China, India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates continue to make big in-vestments in nuclear power, but many nuclear power plants in the United States, Europe, and Japan are closing or have closed—raising questions about whether renewables can take up the slack in low-carbon electricity while also vying to displace fossil fuels.

Nuclear power advocates maintain that nuclear power is essential to a low-carbon future be-cause it emits little carbon dioxide and provides large amounts of baseload generation. However, critics point to nuclear power’s costs and risks as continuing drawbacks to large-scale nuclear reactor construction.

With this debate in mind, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists devoted its 2016 Clock Sympo-sium to the question of what role nuclear power can and should play in achieving the deep de-carbonization required to halt global warming.

In the United States, the trend is license renew-al for existing power plants, Miller explained. Many of the country’s 99 reactors are nearing the end of 40-year licenses. The operators of most plants are applying for 20-year extensions, and there is a possibility of second extensions that would give reactors 80 years of life. But as US reactors continue to age, many are retir-ing; in some years, there are more nuclear plant retirements than new grid connections. And in some countries, including the United States, nuclear power plants are closing prematurely—for economic reasons, or because of shifts in government policy in places such as Germany and Japan.

For some countries pursuing or expanding nuclear power, concern about carbon emis-sions is not the primary factor driving interest today, said Miller. Concerns about energy di-versification, dwindling fossil fuel reserves, and skyrocketing electric-ity demand are bigger factors.

As Miller also ex-plained, the interna-tional marketplace for nuclear reactors is changing dramati-cally. Russia is now the number one vendor of reactors, by a large margin, and the Chinese and Koreans are also very active. The market is becoming much more competitive on the supply side, and the United States has lost most of its market share—and is also losing expertise.

2. Renewable energy alone might not be suf-ficient to bring about the deep, rapid reduc-tions in carbon emissions that are urgently needed.

Carbon dioxide isn’t like conventional air pol-lutants. It is so persistent in the atmosphere that the warming caused by carbon dioxide emis-sions will continue for thousands of years even after those emissions cease.

Earth’s inhabitants are releasing more and more carbon pollution—primarily by burning fos-sil fuels and making cement—and the result is that our planet’s temperature is rising. Climate science tells us that the only way to slow down global warming and avoid the worst of its im-pacts is “to make very deep reductions on very short timescales,” said Carnegie Mellon Uni-versity engineering professor Granger Morgan. “We haven’t been making a lot of progress.”

Although headlines frequently tout successful deployments and falling prices for solar and wind power, renewable energy “may not get us where we need to go,” advised Penn State meteorologist David Titley. “Some things are glossed over.” One of those things is the inter-mittency of sunshine and wind. In the windy Great Plains, for example, the wind blows hard-est in the spring and fall, but electricity demand peaks in the summer and winter. In California,

seasonal dips in electric-ity production from the sun and wind often occur simultaneously.

In places where renew-ables have become a significant component of the energy supply, there can be too little renew-able power available on

days when there is heavy demand, and too much on days when demand is lower. There is currently no economical way to store commercial-scale quantities of surplus electricity for days or even months at a time. Deploying enough batteries to make excess wind-generated electricity last from spring until summer, for example, seems “unimaginable to me, so battery storage is not an obvious answer to intermittency,” said John Reilly, co-director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. The engineering challenges of running a modern society entirely on renewable energy are enormous, requiring not only cheap-er storage technologies but also a reconfigura-tion of the electricity grid.


3. Nuclear power could expand faster than renewable energy, but not without serious challenges including construction delays, cost, expertise, and waste.

“Nuclear power may not scale fast enough [to prevent dangerous climate change], but it scales faster than any of the other choices. Full stop,” said Stephen Brick, senior fellow at the Chi-cago Council on Global Affairs. Others doubted nuclear power’s potential to scale up, pointing out that China added 40 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity in 2015 (for $100 billion) versus 6 gigawatts of nuclear capacity (for $18 billion).

University of Chicago physicist Robert Rosner said that nuclear power “can provide significant, possibly dominant, power for the world.” He pointed out that there are four countries that already get at least 50 percent of their electric-ity from nuclear, and 13 countries that get at least 25 percent. But can nuclear power be scaled up quick-ly enough to make a differ-ence for climate change?

If every country built nuclear reactors at the same rate that France did in the 1980s, Reilly said, the world could reach its de-carbonization goal by 2050. But as several attendees pointed out, historical benchmarks globally fall far short of that goal. During peak construction years in the 1980s, an average of 10 reactors per year were added to the world’s electricity grid. Sharon Squassoni, senior fel-low and director of the Proliferation Prevention program at the Center for Strategic & Interna-tional Studies, reminded the group that in the last 10 years, there have been only five new grid connections annually on average. “It’s time, not money, that’s the problem for climate change,” she said. Nuclear power is “not going to make any difference in the time needed.”

Some symposium attendees, however, argued that the nuclear power simply needs better

economic support, particularly in deregulated electricity markets such as those in Japan and parts of the United States. This means that governments must implement policies to keep uneconomic reactors in operation—in addition to building new ones.

Successful expansion of nuclear power globally will require building capacity, expertise, and regulation. Countries investing in nuclear pow-er need an experienced work force, and a strong regulatory environment and safety culture, said Rosner. Even Japan, which had a mature nuclear industry and a highly skilled work force, was a regulatory failure. However, it may be difficult to recognize deterioration in safety while it’s happening, Miller warned, and that could make it difficult to sustain “good nuclear” programs around the world.

Waste might also be an ob-stacle to expanding nuclear power dramatically. The difficulties of nuclear waste management in the United States provide “a good preview of what we’d face elsewhere,” said Stanford University nuclear secu-rity professor Rod Ewing. “The scale of the problem in terms of mass is not

very large,” he said, but the radioactivity of the waste is an enormous burden, and the United States does not yet have a long-term strategy for dealing with it. “When you generate waste, you should be thinking very carefully about the cost,” which is usually grossly underestimated, Ewing advised.

4. Accelerating the development of ad-vanced nuclear designs might make it easier to expand nuclear power and reduce prolif-eration risks.

Although nuclear power can expand faster than wind and solar power, said one expert on nucle-ar power, it’s hard to see how existing nuclear reactor designs can be built quickly and cheaply


enough to meet the challenge of climate change: doubling and de-carbonizing the planet’s en-ergy supply within the next 40 to 50 years. “The technology really should evolve,” she added.

Participants discussed examples of advanced nuclear systems that use non-water coolants that don’t boil off; operate at higher tempera-tures for higher efficiency; and have modular “pre-fab” designs that can be manufactured in a factory rather than constructed onsite—making them faster and cheaper to build. There are many startup companies developing such de-signs, and most of them will not be successful, the expert cautioned, but with support some designs can succeed. Many of these companies are planning to seek Nuclear Regulatory Com-mission approval, because it’s the gold standard, even if they plan to sell their reactors outside the United States.

Several participants suggested that the Bul-letin could play an important role in analyzing the proliferation risks for various advanced reactor designs. It was noted that some advanced reac-tors are definitely designed to reduce risk using design features such as sealed cores, while others are more vulnerable to prolifera-tion. This is where the Bulletin could inject a thoughtful voice into the debate.

Morgan took a somewhat dimmer view of advanced reactor designs, saying that they probably won’t play a major role in deep de-decarbonization within the next few decades. While he supported an expanded research effort on advanced reactors, he recommended focus-ing on conventional light water reactors, light water small modular reactors, and financial incentives that would make these technologies cost-competitive. “It doesn’t take a direct price on carbon,” he said; one alternative would be to replace today’s Renewable Portfolio Standards (which require that a specific percentage of the electricity supply come from renewable sourc-es) with Low Carbon Portfolio Standards that

would include nuclear power as well as renew-ables.

5. The current political climate could make it difficult to ramp up nuclear power in the United States, but policy changes might help.

Currently there are few financial incentives for US companies to invest in nuclear power. Reac-tors become cost-competitive only when you assume a carbon price, Titley argued. A Repub-lican White House and Congress are extremely unlikely to put a price on carbon, however.

“Pricing carbon won’t get you where you need to be,” countered Sam Thernstrom, execu-tive director of the Energy Innovation Reform Project. Predicting that Donald Trump may be a more pragmatic president than many people think, Thernstrom described “the most prag-matic approach we can take for the climate” is an expansion of nuclear power combined with carbon capture and sequestration at fossil-fuel-

burning power plants. He called for investments in innovation, coupled with regulatory reforms, to make it easier and faster to build new nucle-ar reactors.

Focusing on “well-crafted policy that can drive innovation” is key, said Thernstrom. Most Republicans are not interested in arguing about

climate science; they want to talk about practi-cal clean energy policy options. “If the outcome of policies is competitive technologies, the mar-ket will take it from there.”

“The idea that innovation will just come into being without a price on carbon is sheer magi-cal thinking,” responded Ray Pierrehumbert, a physicist at the University of Oxford. He argued that, without carbon pricing, there would be scant incentive for companies to invest in either carbon capture or nuclear power. “The 800-pound gorilla in the room,” said Pierrehumbert, “is that we solve problems only when we invest in solving them. How do we do the kind of re-search we need to solve our problems?”


One big uncertainty is whether the Ameri-can public would accept a major expansion of nuclear energy even it was technically and economically feasible. Bulletin editor-in-chief John Mecklin reminded the group that Califor-nia’s last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, will close because environmental groups cam-paigned against it for 20 years, and utility ex-ecutives finally capitulated. If you’re interested in changing nuclear policy, he cautioned, “you have to take on really complicated state-by-state politics.”

Tia Nelson, Managing Director, Climate at the Outrider Foundation, agreed that social accep-tance is a significant obstacle, while pointing out that some environmentalists have shifted their stance. She shared the outcome of the 2007 Governor’s Global Warming Task Force in Wisconsin, which included utility executives, environmental organizations, civic leaders, business leaders, and other stakeholders. The group reached a consensus on a compromise set of recommendations that included effectively lifting the state nuclear moratorium if the Renew-able Portfolio Standard was substantially increased and conservation and efficiency standards were significantly strengthened.

6. Solving the climate problem will require a multi-pronged approach to both technology and policy.

If there was one thing that everyone at the symposium seemed to agree on, it was that deep de-carbonization will require “all the tools in the toolbox,” as Nelson put it.

Neither technology nor policy alone can pro-vide a solution to the climate crisis. “We need both,” said Rosner. There also seemed to be general agreement that, if climate change is to be taken seriously, multiple technologies and multiple policies will be needed to address it—and they will require significantly more invest-

ment than the current $300 million budget for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

7. The Bulletin could make an important contribution to the global energy discussion by comparing the risks of nuclear power and climate change.

As a widely respected journal that explores hu-mankind’s ability to control technology for the good of society and the planet, the Bulletin has the opportunity to provide a unique perspec-tive on the intersection of nuclear power and climate change. “I heard an enormous openness to nuclear power today that I would not have expected,” said Lynn Eden, a senior research scholar emeritus at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Another participant stated that “it is not a small decision to make, to keep [nuclear] on the table.” The costs are high, not just for building plants but also for the infrastructure and human capital and waste disposal required. Americans

have strong feelings about nuclear energy, and a single accident could change the nation’s policy overnight. “Is this the place to bet a huge sum of money? I question whether that’s the most pragmatic approach.”

Miller posed several questions for the Bulletin to consider: What matters

more, climate change or nuclear risk? If nuclear power is deemed to be a worthwhile contributor to climate action, how can the Bulletin support pushing it forward fast enough to make a differ-ence, and can the Bulletin help ensure that the world’s nuclear newcomers become good stew-ards of this energy source? And if nuclear pow-er is deemed too risky as a solution to climate change, how can the Bulletin make a persuasive case against it—to the people who are currently making decisions about nuclear power in places such as Beijing and Dubai?

“We shouldn’t underestimate that if the Bul-letin comes out and says it can see a potential case for nuclear as a solution to climate change,


that’s a big deal,” said Lew Watts, retired CEO of PFC Energy. He too raised questions for the Bulletin to consider: Do we believe that the risks of nuclear power are insignificant compared with the global risk of climate change? Do we believe that, in the long term, we are not going to find a way to decrease carbon dioxide emis-sions without a nuclear solution? Regardless of the answers, said Watts, to combat climate change, experts must come up with policy sug-gestions and push hard for innovation within the private sector, which has R&D budgets and success rates that far exceed those of the public sector.

Squassoni suggested the debate on nuclear power has always been polarized between those for and those against nuclear power, and that the Bulletin did not necessarily have to choose sides, but could play the “honest broker” role of weighing the risks and benefits. For example, if nuclear power at its maximum build rate (of 40 to 50 reactors per year) only contributes 7 percent of total carbon emission reductions, how does that compare with its risks?”

No energy system is risk-free. Nuclear waste is a long-term problem, for example, but the carbon waste from fossil fuels may pose even bigger risks than nuclear waste. Climate change could be far more dangerous to societies than singular catastrophes like Cher-nobyl or Fukushima. Beyond nuclear safety, however, nuclear security, terrorism, and pro-liferation must also be added to the mix. The question before the Bulletin is how to weigh the risks and benefits of nuclear power against the expected very large and enduring costs and direct damage of climate change.

Conclusion

Rachel Bronson, executive director and pub-lisher of the Bulletin, lauded the symposium for opening a conversation that doesn’t currently exist. The Bulletin may have an important role

to play in the debate, but “we have to use our voice wisely,” she said, given the rising demands of climate change and the risks associated with nuclear power.

Bronson said she found it very disconcerting that so many countries are exploring nuclear power without the benefit of the United States’ long experience and strict regulation. “We believe we do it better here,” she said of the United States, but we might not have a seat at the table in future global governance discus-sions. “That will not be a good outcome,” she concluded.

If the Bulletin were to clearly lay out the risks of both nuclear power and climate change, and emphasize the urgency of discussing these risks, it might give Bulletin followers a better frame-work for considering what role nuclear power could and should play in the future energy landscape. It’s very easy to make an argument against any energy source, Bronson said. “I

don’t think we have that luxury to take any source off the table,” given growing global demand.

Acknowledgements

This symposium would not have been possible without the generous contributions of many supporters. The Bulletin of the

Atomic Scientists is grateful to the following for their generous support of this event and our broader work: the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, the Carnegie Cor-poration of New York, and the John D. and Cath-erine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Bulletin editor and columnist Dawn Stover pulled together this report quickly and faithfully rep-resented the November discussions. Lisa Mc-Cabe and Sophia Weaver ensured that the event ran smoothly and that participants had the right background materials available. The Bulletin could not undertake this type of work without the contributions of its annual supporters. We remain deeply appreciative for their on-going support.


Agenda

GETTING TO DEEP DE-CARBONIZATION: WHAT ROLE FOR NUCLEAR POWER?

Debate about the future of nuclear power has evolved rapidly over the last 10 years, gathering momentum in the early 2000s when there was widespread belief in a “nuclear renaissance” and slowing considerably after the frightening events at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant five years ago.

Today the collapse in natural gas prices and the dramatic reduction in the cost of renewable en-ergy make the future of nuclear power less clear. Industrializing countries like China, India, Tur-key and the United Arab Emirates continue to make big investments in nuclear power, but pow-er plants in Europe and in Japan are closing, or have closed. In the United States, the early clos-ings of operating plants in California and Illinois are raising questions about whether renewables will be able to make up the 60 percent of the United States’ carbon free electricity currently generated by nuclear power, or whether fossil fuels will continue to back up the grid—and con-tinue contributing to carbon emissions.

This expert workshop takes a hard look at medi-um- to long-term planning, and how energy will be provided to meet growing global demands. For many, nuclear power remains one of the cleanest sources of energy that can back up the grid; they consider it essential to reducing the destructive forces of climate change. For others, nuclear power is too risky—operationally, and for its connection with nuclear weapons prolif-eration—and too expensive to include in respon-sible future planning.

For decades, the Bulletin has been a leading source of debate and experience about the pros and cons of nuclear power and is uniquely posi-tioned to engage leaders and the public on this once-again timely topic. This workshop will bring together members of the Bulletin’s board—

comprised of leading climate and nuclear scien-tists, security experts, and corporate leaders—and select guests to explore whether and where the Bulletin can usefully focus its efforts on this topic, and thereby advance pressing public poli-cy discussions about the future of the global en-ergy landscape.

1:00 Welcome

Remarks: Rachel Bronson

1:10-1:50 The Global Energy Landscape

With access to newfound energy supplies and in-creases in efficiency, the United States has an en-ergy outlook that looks quite different and more promising than what the rest of the world faces. Particularly in emerging economies in China, India, and parts of Africa and the Middle East, growing populations are demanding a better quality of life. These demands have put all en-ergy options on the table, a fact that alarms most climate watchers. Unless radical steps are taken, deep-decarbonization seems unlikely. In this session, we will explore the pursuit of nuclear power in emerging economies, the role of nucle-ar-technology exporting countries like Russia, France, South Korea, and China, and the safety and security concerns this trade raises.

Framing Remarks: Steven MillerDiscussion leader: Robert Rosner

1:50-2:35 Will Technological Innovation Change the Debate?

Technological advances are revolutionizing the energy sector. Governments and business are making huge investments in renewable energy, and new nuclear designs have the possibility of creating safer and more affordable nuclear pow-er. In this session we will explore technological innovation with a devoted focus on nuclear pow-


er. Do future designs offer new opportunities? If the US doesn’t nurture its nascent industry, will others fill the vacuum? Does it matter if they do?

Framing remarks: Ashley Finan and Granger MorganDiscussion leader: Sonny Garg

3:00-3:45 Financing the Future

Increasing renewables can be cost effective, on a smaller scale. But can they be scaled up in an economical way to levels that are necessary to mitigate significant emissions? Many renewables are “cheap” in small increments. Do they be-come, in larger fractions, more expensive? How do we minimize costs of a needed energy transi-tion, not just in the short term, but in the long term, and is nuclear power an important part of cost minimization?

Framing Remarks: John ReillyDiscussion leader: David Titley

3:45-4:30 The Political Briar Patch

Climate change has been an extraordinarily po-larizing issue in the United States. However, giv-en growing public concern about the effects of climate change, there seems to be movement on both sides of the political aisle to rethink long-held assumptions. What is reasonable to expect in terms of the future debate over climate change, and where are there opportunities to move the discussion? Framing Remarks: Tia Nelson and Sam ThernstromDiscussion moderator: John Mecklin

4:30-5:00 Can and Should the Bulletin Move this Debate, and if so, How?

Discussion leaders: Rachel Bronson and Lynn Eden

Agenda (cont.)


List of Attendees

Participants

John Balkcom, President Emeritus, St. John’s College, Santa Fe; Bulletin Governing Board member

Kennette Benedict, Senior Advisor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Stephen Brick, Senior Fellow, Climate and En-ergy, Chicago Council on Global Affairs

Rachel Bronson, Executive Director and Pub-lisher, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Marilyn Diamond, Honorary Consul General for Morocco in Illinois

Lynn Eden, Senior Research Scholar (Emerita), Stanford University; Bulletin Science and Secu-rity Board co-chair

Rod Ewing, Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University; Bulletin Science and Secu-rity Board member

Steven Fadem, Chairman, Global Data Sentinel; Bulletin Governing Board member

Sissy Farenthold, civic leader

Ashley Finan, Project Director for Advanced Energy Systems, Clean Air Task Force

Lee Francis, President and CEO, Erie Family Health Center; Bulletin Governing Board Chair

Dan Fraser, Director, Strategic Alliance for Global Energy Solutions, Argonne National Laboratory

Sonny Garg, Solutions Lead, Energy, Uptake; Bulletin Governing Board member

Thomas Graham Jr., Chairman, Lightbridge

Brian Hanson, Vice President, Studies, The Chi-cago Council on Global Affairs

Tom Hundley, Senior Editor, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Lawrence Krauss, Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Departments, and Director, The Origins Project at Arizona State University; Bulletin Board of Sponsor Chair

Jodi Lieberman, Senior Advisor, Strategic Al-liance for Global Energy Solutions, Argonne National Laboratory, Bulletin Columnist

Herb Lin, Senior Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation; Re-search Fellow, Hoover Institution at Stanford University; Bulletin Science and Security Board member

George Lopez, The Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies, Notre Dame

Suzet McKinney, Executive Director, Illinois Medical District Commission; Bulletin Science and Security Board member

John Mecklin, Editor-in-Chief, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Steven Miller, Director, International Security Program, Belfer Center for Science and Inter-national Security; Bulletin Science and Security Board member

Granger Morgan, University and Hamerschlag Professor of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon Uni-versity


List of Attendees (cont.)

Tia Nelson, Managing Director, Climate, Out-rider Foundation

Raymond Pierrehumbert, Halley Professor of Physics, University of Oxford; Bulletin Science and Security Board member

Keith Porter, President and CEO, The Stanley Foundation

R. Rajaraman, Emeritus Professor, Physics, School of Physical Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Bulletin Science and Security Board member

John Reilly , Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Climate Change, MIT Sloan School of Management

Eleanor Revelle, 7th Ward Alderman, City of Evanston

William Revelle, Professor, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University; Bulletin Governing Board Vice-chair

Robert Rosner, William E. Wrather Distin-guished Service Professor, Department of As-tronomy & Astrophysics and Physics, University of Chicago; Bulletin Science and Security co-chair

Lowell Sachnoff, Counsel, ReedSmith, LLP; Bul-letin Governing Board member

Jennifer Smyser, Vice President Director of Policy Programming Strategy, The Stanley Foundation

Richard Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emer-itus and Research Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; Bulletin Science and Security Board member

Sharon Squassoni, Director and Senior Fellow, Proliferation Prevention program, Center for Strategic & International Studies; Bulletin Sci-ence and Security Board member

Jeff Terry, Professor, Physics, Illinois Institute of Technology

Sam Thernstrom, Executive Director, Energy In-novation Reform Project

David Titley, Professor of Practice in Meteorol-ogy, Affiliate Professor, Penn State School of International Affairs; Director, Center for Solu-tions to Weather and Climate Risk; Bulletin Sci-ence and Security Board.

Lew Watts, retired CEO of PFC Energy; Bulletin Governing Board member

Karen Weigert, Senior Fellow, Global Cities, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

David Wolf, President, Fremont Group, LLC; Bulletin Governing Board member

Observers

Quinton Armitage, Student, Harris Public Policy, The University of Chicago

Carol Balkcom, retired

Lucien Crowder, Senior Editor, Development and disarmament Roundtable, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Daniel Drollette, Associate Editor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Elisabeth Eaves, Contributing Editor, Colum-nists, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Ellen Fierer, Science Teacher, Evanston Town-ship High School


List of Attendees (cont.)

Andrew Ivers, Associate Editor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Liping Jiang, Student, Harris Public Policy, The University of Chicago

Vann R Newkirk II, Staff Writer, The Atlantic

Janice Sinclaire, Communications Director, Bul-letin of the Atomic Scientists

Dawn Stover, Contributing Editor, Energy, En-vironment, and Climate, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Xiao Zhang, Science Teacher, Francis W. Parker School


About the Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsThe Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists engages science leaders, policy makers, and the interested public on topics of nuclear weapons and disarmament, the changing energy landscape, climate change, and emerging technologies. We do this through our award winning journal, iconic Doomsday Clock, public access website and regular set of convenings. With smart, vigorous prose, multimedia presentations, and information graphics, the Bulletin puts issues and events into context and provides fact-based debates and assessments. For 70 years, the Bulletin has bridged the technology divide between scientific research, foreign policy and public engagement.

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