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Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b6d3ce/nuclear_regulatory) has announced the addition of the "Nuclear Regulatory Frameworks - Fuel Processing and Waste Disposal Policies Critical for Industry Growth" report to their offering. Nuclear Regulatory Frameworks - Fuel Processing and Waste Disposal Policies Critical for Industry Growth, that provides an insight into the nuclear regulatory frameworks of the major nuclear power countries of the world. The study, which is an offering from the company's Energy Research Group, provides information about the major nuclear agencies and associations across the world, major nuclear treaties and protocols and comparison between different countries on the basis of selected parameters which define the presence of nuclear power in a country. The research also provides the nuclear policy, regulatory frameworks, key nuclear policies and regulations and also the major nuclear affiliations for major nuclear power generating countries in each of the five geographic regions. The report is built using the data and information sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary research and in-house analysis by a team of industry experts.

Carbon Emission Reduction Protocol to Play an Important Role in Nuclear Policies Formulation

Improved Nuclear Waste Disposal Policy Instrumental in Revitalizing the Nuclear Industry

The calls these days for a technological “energy revolution” are widespread. But how do you spark breakthroughs when the natural bias of businesses, investors and governments is toward the here and now? In governance, politics creates a bias toward the short term. This is why bridges sometimes fall down for lack of maintenance. That’s also why it’s so hard to sustain public investment in the research and intellectual infrastructure required to make progress on the frontiers of chemistry, biology and physics, even though it is this kind of work that could produce leaps in how we harvest, harness, store and move energy. (This is why I asked, “Are Chemists and Engineers on the Green Jobs List?” back in 2008.)

To get the idea, you only have to look at the sputtering state of President Obama’s mostly unfunded innovation hubs, or look once again at the energy sliver in the graph showing America’s half-century history of public investment in basic scientific research. (There’s not much difference in research patterns in most other industrialized countries.) You can also look at the first Quadrennial Technology Review produced by the Department of Energy (summarized by Climate Progress earlier this week). The review was conducted after the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology wisely recommended regular reviews of this sort as part of its prescription for accelerating change in energy technologies.

This excerpt from the new review articulates the tension pretty transparently for a government report: There is a tension between supporting work that industry doesn’t— which biases the department’s portfolio toward the long term—and the urgency of the nation’s energy challenges. The appropriate balance requires the department to focus on accelerating innovation relevant to today’s energy technologies, since such evolutionary advances are more likely to have near- to mid-term impact on the nation’s challenges. We found that too much effort in the department is devoted to research on technologies that are multiple generations away from practical use at the expense of analyses, modeling and simulation, or other highly relevant fundamental engineering research activities that could influence the private sector in the nearer term.

Following is an excerpt from the Government Accountability Office's description of the chronology of efforts in this direction:

Nuclear energy, which supplied about 20 percent of the nation’s electric power in 2010, offers a domestic source of energy with low emissions but also presents difficulties — including what to do with nuclear fuel after it has been used and removed from commercial power reactors. This material, known as spent nuclear fuel, is highly radioactive and considered one of the most hazardous substances on earth. The current national inventory of nearly 65,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel is stored at 75 sites in 33 states and increases by about 2,000 metric tons each year.

In June 2008, DOE submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeking authorization to construct a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain. NRC has regulatory authority to authorize construction of the repository. DOE planned to open the repository in 2017, but later delayed the date to 2020.