In 1958, the European Nuclear Energy Agency (ENEA) was formed as a special agency within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development with the United States as an associate member. With the entry of Japan in 1972, the name was changed to the Nuclear Energy Agency.
The mission of the NEA is to "assist its Member countries in maintaining and further developing, through international co-operation, the scientific, technological and legal bases required for the safe, environmentally friendly and economical use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes."
There are thirty member counties including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The NEA deals with nuclear safety and regulation, nuclear energy development, radioactive waste management, radiation protection and public health, nuclear law and liability, nuclear science, nuclear information and communication. NEA members host about eighty five percent of the nuclear generating capacity of the world. Almost a fourth of the electricity produced in the member nations is generated by nuclear reactors.
The NEA utilizes a relatively small staff to coordinate technical committees charged with carrying out the seven primary functions of the Agency. The committees are composed of technical experts from the member nations. The committees foster discussions, technical exchanges, cooperative research programs, consensus building and cost reduction in nuclear research. The NEA has made major contributions to nuclear waste disposal and reactor technology development during the past 30 years.
The NEA just released its strategic plan for 2011-2016. The three main topics or concern are supplying the increasing world demand for energy, insuring the security of the energy supply and minimizing impacts on the environment. The document emphasizes that the current trends in energy supply and use are unsustainable with increasing demands, reliance on fossil fuels, competition for natural gas and oil deposits, increasing CO2 levels and severe environmental impacts. The plan calls for increased use of nuclear power because of it releases no CO2 or other pollutants and it is currently cost competitive with coal, oil and natural gas. The challenge for greater acceptance of nuclear power lie in finding solutions to the long term management of spent nuclear fuel, the safe and permanent disposal of radioactive waste, the security of nuclear materials and facilities and the insurance of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Despite the positive view that the NEA promotes for the greater use of nuclear power, the challenges they list are not just a matter of better government regulation, greater competence and integrity of the private nuclear industry, and greater education of the public. There are very serious questions about the release of massive amounts of CO2 during nuclear plant construction, supplies of water for cooling, concerns over available sites and technologies for waste disposal, possibilities of nuclear accidents, cost of recovery from nuclear accidents, increasing cost of uranium, and many other problems that must be solved to make nuclear power safe, efficient and cost effective.
