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International Work

Franco British Nuclear Forum

The Franco-British Nuclear Forum was announced following the Prime Minister's meeting with President Chirac in June 2006. The announcement said that: We have agreed to explore and further develop the opportunities of working together in the civil nuclear field. To that end we have agreed to establish a regular Franco-British Nuclear Forum, involving representatives from government, industry and technical experts. The Forum will provide a vehicle to discuss Franco-British nuclear cooperation, including research, skills, decommissioning and waste management.

The aims of the Forum are: to develop further existing relationships between French and British policy makers, regulators, industry and scientists; to develop collaboration on existing and new areas of mutual interest; and to draw more value from work being done in France and the UK both separately and collaboratively.

There have been two meetings of the Forum to date, the first was held in Paris on 29 November 2006, and the second was held in London on 29 March 2007.  Both were co-chaired by Lord Truscott, former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI, now BERR) and Francois Loos, French Industry Minister with responsibility for Energy.

The meetings focused on three broad areas using the framework of working groups:

  • Workshop No 1 on Political Environment, looking at the regulation of safety and security, legal framework and other issues that provide for public acceptance of nuclear activity;
  • Workshop 2 on Skills including benchmarking existing skills and engagement with the supply chain;
  • Workshop 3 on the Economic Environment, including the question of the comparative competitiveness of the nuclear energy and the long term costs of nuclear power.

The London event in March assessed the outputs of the working groups since November and identified further work on Franco-British nuclear co-operation.  The number and frequency of subsequent events is still to be agreed.

The Nuclear Industry Association: Franco - British Nuclear Forum website contains presentations from the meetings and some details of the current work of the working groups.

Forum membership is made up from Industry, policy makers, regulators and scientists.  The following organisations are represented:

  • Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Regime
  • Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
  • Commission on Radioactive Waste Management
  • Scottish Executive
  • University of the Highlands and Islands
  • Foreign and Commonwealth Office
  • Her Majesty's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (HSE)
  • Environment Agency
  • Office of Civil Nuclear Security
  • Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
  • Enrichment Technology Ltd
  • British Nuclear Group
  • British Energy
  • Urenco Group
  • Nuclear Industry Association
  • Cogent SSC
  • Deloitte
  • UKAEA
  • Ernst and Young
  • Morgan Stanley
  • British Nuclear Energy Society
  • Dalton Nuclear Institute (University of Manchester)
  • SERCO
  • AMEC NCC
  • Nexia Solutions

French counterparts are drawn from similar organisations.

Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)

The UK joined the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) on 26 February 2008.

GNEP is a US initiative announced by President Bush as part of the US Advanced Energy Initiative. It aims to increase international nuclear generation to help meet growing energy demand, reduce volumes of waste and reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation. Other GNEP members include: Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, Ghana, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Slovenia, Ukraine and the United States.

The UK is one of a small number of countries that possess the whole fuel cycle capability and appropriately skilled personnel. NDA and other UK organisations are potentially well placed to take part in and benefit from GNEP.

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