Nuclear energy and the global energy crisis — U.S.-Russian cooperation can help

Opinion: U.S., Russia should sign nuclear pact
The oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is only the most recent symbol of a far-reaching global energy crisis. Coping with this economic, national security and environmental crisis will be one of humanity’s greatest challenges in the 21st century. There is no magic bullet: Every energy technology will be sorely needed — including nuclear energy.

Russia, the United States and other countries must cooperate to enable large-scale growth of nuclear energy around the world while achieving even higher standards of safety, security and nonproliferation than are in place today. This will require building a new global framework for nuclear energy, including new or strengthened global institutions.

Without such a new framework, unbridled competition in nuclear energy could pose grave risks. Even a single catastrophe — whether a Chernobyl-scale accident, a successful sabotage (a “security Chernobyl”) or, worse yet, a terrorist nuclear bomb — would doom any prospect for nuclear growth on the scale needed to make a significant contribution to coping with climate change.

It is time for the U.S. and Russia to forge a nuclear-cooperation deal that would boost the global growth of nuclear energy while improving safety standards and allaying security concerns, write Evgeniy P. Velikhov and Matthew Bunn in this column. It is better if the two countries, which together possess the world's largest contingent of nuclear resources, to work with rather than against each other, the writers argue. The Hill/Congress blog