Everyone is welcome to join this international panel session to learn about the links between nuclear power, SMRs, global security and nuclear weapons. Lots to learn! This event is free and open to the public.

Hosts: Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB) + Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) + Beyond Nuclear + NB Media Co-op

Synopsis: Through considerable organizing by civil society, the dream of a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) comes into force on January 22. The effort involved challenging existing claims about the value of nuclear weapons, creating a new narrative centered on human security, building new alliances between civil society and governments, and using international law and institutions to drive change.

Can these approaches help tackle the strong but subtle link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, halt emerging programs to build so-called small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), and finally end the reckless pursuit of nuclear energy programs worldwide.

Panel

Ray Acheson, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom: The keys to the success of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)
What were the TPNW campaign approaches, messaging and tactics? What are the lessons that can inform a similar effort to ban nuclear power?

Zia Mian, physicist, Senior Research Scholar and Co-Director, Program in Science and Global Security (SGS), Princeton University: The limits of the nuclear proliferation management approach. How have we tried to understand and manage the global security risks from nuclear power? What are the limits of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and supply side controls, and the challenges of the existing nuclear power international order? Is there a link between nuclear energy and the TPNW?

David Lowry, Senior International Research Fellow, Institute for Resource and Security Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts (but based in London, England): Next-generation nuclear reactors and the maintenance of military nuclear programs. How are new nuclear reactors tied to military nuclear programs through naval nuclear reactors? What are examples from the promotion of SMRs in the UK?

Gordon Edwards, President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility: Added proliferation dangers from next-generation nuclear power. What is ominous about the next generation nuclear energy fuel chain (SMRs, increased fuel enrichment level, reprocessing…), and its links to nuclear weapons? What is needed to break the proliferation chain, and create a stable energy framework compatible with a nuclear weapons-free world?