 Good afternoon everyone and welcome. My name is Bill Burns and I'm the President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I am delighted to have the opportunity to welcome back to Carnegie, my friend and former colleague, Secretary of Energy Ernie Muniz. A year and a half ago at the very beginning of my time at Carnegie, I had the good fortune of introducing Secretary Muniz as the keynote speaker at our Nuclear Policy Conference. At the time, the prospect of a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran seemed remote. To be fair, so did Donald Trump's prospects to become the Republican nominee for president. But as we've all learned and as one of the great players on Secretary Muniz's beloved Boston Celtics once declared, anything is possible. This spirit of possibility is precisely what animated President Obama's nuclear agenda announced in Prague in the spring of 2009. And thanks to that spirit, the President's leadership and the remarkable efforts of Secretary Muniz and his colleagues across government and around the globe, today's world is safer from any number of nuclear dangers. The hard truth, however, is that we have a long way yet to travel if we were to fully realize President Obama's vision. The nonproliferation regime for all of its resilience is under extraordinary stress. It's not easy to adapt our own nuclear posture and strategy to new concepts and new realities. The world's two biggest nuclear powers have an increasingly complicated and sometimes adversarial relationship. North Korea continues to test nuclear weapons and threaten nuclear war. Trend lines for strategic stability in South Asia are uncertain. And developments in the non-nuclear realm, from cyberspace to long range hypersonic missiles and 3D printing, pose formidable new challenges for nuclear stability and nonproliferation. The next administration, like every one of its predecessors in the nuclear age, will have to tackle these and many other challenges head on. But it also has an historic opportunity, in which we approach the 50th anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to build on the progress of the past eight years and strengthen and update the global nuclear order. Carnegie's nuclear policy program is committed to doing its part to help. Over the past year, our global team came together to outline practical steps to do just that. These include the need to consolidate benchmarks for credible nuclear power programs, cement the principle of consistency between the production of fissile material and reasonable civilian needs, and define a clear firewall between civil and nuclear weapons programs. None of this will be easy. Nothing in the nuclear policy world ever is. But I'm convinced that these are all necessary and possible, and I'm deeply proud of our team's imagination, rigor, grit, and commitment to this endeavor. Our speaker today certainly has all of these qualities in abundance. He's kindly agreed to share his thoughts on the road traveled since Prague and the road ahead. We are very lucky to host such a timely address and such a critical issue by such a distinguished thinker and doer. So I hope you'll join me in giving Secretary Meese a very warm welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. And I remind you of another statement by Boston Celtics front court player. Welcome to the torture chamber. Now, if you can guess who that was, I'll be impressed. Kevin McHale. I'll give you the answer. Well, it's good to be back here. Bill, again, at Carnegie, as you've said, at a time when, and frankly, I'll be talking somewhat in terms of the upcoming transition. And what are some of the some of the issues that are still very much on our minds in that we will be talking about with the new team in not that many, not that many days ahead. The obviously, Carnegie's got a long history in terms of addressing these issues of nuclear security. And I think President Obama, certainly in spring of 2009, put those issues very much in the foreground in a way that I think was not the case with his Prague speech. That speech covered a lot of ground and certainly today covered generically the areas that I will touch upon somewhat episodically in terms of issues that again are very much on our minds. So it certainly questions about the future of nuclear weapons, the role in national security and foreign policy, and effective deterrent in the context of sustained strategic stability. Secondly, the need to secure and when possible eliminate nuclear materials. Certainly an issue heightened obviously in the post 9-11 environment and it's hard to believe it's already 15 years since that terrible, terrible event. And then a few words on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Including nuclear energy as a core element of a climate strategy and then touching upon, I know some of the discussions going on here at Carnegie. So that's what I would like to touch upon in my remarks before we get into the conversation. We just note that of course a lot's happened. You'll mention this in the last year. Certainly JCPOA implementation starting in January, December. The Paris climate meetings as I said implications for the clean energy agenda. Presumably the last of the leader level nuclear security summits. So certainly lots of lots of activities. DOE as I think this audience knows is engaged in all three of these areas, the nuclear weapons, non-properation of the materials and clean energy. And again as we have 129 days minus one hour and nine minutes to go, I'll be talking about some of those issues. Nuclear weapons, I'll just touch on a couple of points. One I'd like to just again say a bit of in my view unfinished business is certainly the ratification of the Comprehensive Pest Man Treaty there in this audience that I want to say is that we said this last year but I think it bears repeating that certainly going back to the 1999 unpleasant hearings on the CTBT which I had the honor to be part of in one of those hearings that when I was undersecretary the fact is that what I would argue is both of the substantive objections at that time have been addressed through technology. I think it's very important we understand that in particular science-based archipelago stewardship, maintaining the deterrent without testing has now gone on for more than two decades. And what I do want to emphasize and it's a little bit of perhaps bragging about our laboratories is that there was nothing easy about accomplishing that. And frankly in 1999 there was hope but not much more that science-based archipelago stewardship would in fact succeed in the way it has in terms of certifying a stockpile without testing year after year after year I want to emphasize that success was built upon an incredible degree of innovation. You know one part just one part of stockpile stewardship is the development of high performance computing to a new level at that time to help simulate the physics of a weapon if you like. And I think a lot of people think that just meant buying more boxes. No it was a new architecture of computing to be able to go to this new level so I don't want to I could go on and on in this for a long time but I just want to emphasize that that was an enormous accomplishment it shows every prospect of continuing for a very very long time and that plus the near completion of a global seismic network for determining underground explosions even at very very low yields really has addressed the two issues and so again as one looks forward into the next administration I certainly hope that this is an agenda item that can be revisited in a serious way. A second point on the nuclear weapons agenda is of course in this administration the new start treaty went forward but I want to emphasize there was another side of the coin there and that was a commitment to modernization. Modernization I will focus on again DOE elements because there's obviously a DOD element which actually has got a much higher price tag but the DOE price tag for modernizing our nuclear weapons production complex is in the 80-90 billion dollar range so obviously that's not small either. What I want to say is this is essential there's a lot of argument about this can we not spend that money is this inconsistent with diminishing the role of nuclear weapons in our in our security posture my view is very clearly to the the last part the answer was no and we need it. If you sit where I sit quite a part from policy about nuclear weapons etc this is also a question of safety we have people we have to sustain the president's prog agenda is about moving towards ultimate elimination hopefully of nuclear weapons we all understand that's a long-term prospect in the meantime we have as much as 70 year old very sensitive facilities doing high-risk work and there is if nothing else a plain and simple safety issue in terms of managing that so I just want to say that this has to happen uh it should not be confused with fundamental issues about nuclear nuclear posture it is an opportunity to downsize uh and streamline we have done that with the Kansas City plant but that's the easy one we've cut the footprint by half we've saved up to be saving 100 million dollars a year in operating expenses we need to do that systematically for the entire uh for the entire complex it relates also to the ability to pick up the pace of dismantlement of nuclear weapons and that's something that we would like to see happen so far we have not convinced congress of of that but I also want to add that this that the dismantlement it's not only a question frankly of getting to smaller numbers of weapons the stockpile we need to do dismantlement in order to do the life extension program of the of the weapon systems that we do have to sustain without testing so this is all a closely knit program and as long as we have to again maintain that that the time this is an essential essential task the I just mentioned that again I alluded to it and then I'll move on to the next next subject but again I believe it's a misplaced argument but one here's the argument that that modernization of the complex as well as modernization of the DOD delivery systems which again I'm not going to touch upon get asked to come back come here as well and we can keep and talk about that part but that again this is often talked about in the context of old war mentalities we haven't you know evolved from the cold war etc etc I just want to say that there's a very different way of invoking the failure to move beyond a cold war mentality and that's to think that the threats are the same completely different issues like North Korea issues like the situation in Russia bill mentioned some of the new capabilities but it's also regional geopolitics etc very different philosophies put forward for how nuclear weapons especially so-called non-strategic nuclear I use the interplay of that with conventional forces etc it is a completely different threat environment and I think moving beyond the cold war mentality is right this is the context in which in which it is the next you know again I'm talking about again the next the next nuclear next administration and and presumably they will as did this administration early on relatively early on have a new nuclear posture review I think the nuclear posture review of this administration in 2010 was frankly I think very well done and and and very important but as I say there's been quite a bit of evolution in the threat environment and in the whole situation since that time so these are going to be important questions certainly we will be very actively briefing this and discussing this with the new team that comes in to our building presumably on November 9th so that's a set of issues around nuclear weapons again I'm just picking out issues that I think are going to be important in this in this efficient context let me say a couple words about nuclear materials certainly been a lot of progress I would say associated with the nuclear security summit and our non-proliferation programs in terms of of nuclear materials the first of all I think in terms of the summits I have to say it's just hard to imagine it seems to me that going back to the beginning of this administration that you can imagine the scale of like 50 leaders of countries basically coming together to discuss these issues I mean it's a remarkable change there and of course there's now going to be the question if these summits end how are we going to sustain that as I think in this room probably everybody knows the IAEA is picking up now a series of ministerial level nuclear security summits the second of which will be in December of this year and I will certainly go there but obviously that's still not the same as having leaders come together so I think we're all going to have to work on how we can sustain this level of attention to this to the set of set of issues I'll also say prior to the summit in March here in DC that the DUE organized partnering with the Netherlands the Netherlands having been the host of the previous nuclear securities that we partnered to do a exercise called Apex Gold at Livermore going through a cable top if you like in terms of nuclear materials nuclear weapons usable materials falling into terrorist hands I won't go through the whole scenario in case you do it sometime but again remarkable in my view that roughly 40 countries would come that ministerial or just below ministerial or head of regulatory agencies etc take part in a table top exercise so again this is this is progress that we cannot afford to in my view squander in terms of the level of attention but certainly in these oh and by the way the governor of California elbowing his way in because he thought it was so important to be there as well so it was really it was really quite quite quite interesting but you know during the administration I mean you know six tons of h.e. in plutonium taken out of out of harm's way 45 countries 15 additional countries since Prague free of h.e. which makes a total of 30 plus plus Taiwan the DOE and the NNSA within DOE has you know converting or or verifying the shutdown of of nearly a hundred facilities using that have used h.e. hundreds of kilograms of h.e. with plutonium from Japan that come to the United States up to the summit six new one two three agreement so lots and lots of these metrics of of making progress although as Bill said maybe we're kind of halfway through the agenda but lots of progress but I want to talk about one particular nuclear materials disposition challenge that remains with us and where maybe Carnegie's could be a part of the conversation as well and that is plutonium disposition in the United States controversy over the mox of mixed oxide fuel approach to disposing of this plutonium again in this room probably at least most people know that at the end of the Clinton administration there was a negotiated the plutonium management disposition agreement hey where us and Russia would each dispose of 34 tons of plutonium that is not proved so simple for either side but to be honest particularly right now for us in our dialogue I do I do want to say that John Holm and I heard the lead negotiators on the two tracks there was a certain similarity to the Iran negotiations in the sense that John Holm led the track in terms of political diplomatic aspects and and I led the Minatom the kind of the technical roadmap to disposition but I want to emphasize because people have forgotten this and frankly I was the one who insisted that there be two tracks mox and a dilution approach for getting rid of the plutonium now in the next administration that then got narrowed down to mox I think for a complex set of set of reasons that included some nuclear power advocates but whatever the case we then made the commitment with Russia to go to mox now one reason why in that 1999-2000 time period I certainly felt we needed to maintain a different option as well is because thermal reactors like water reactors let's say are just about the most inefficient way you have to make or to use plutonium and that ultimately lies at the foundation of why we have a very difficult in my view a sit practically speaking impossible task of actually carrying through on the mox disposal option it's way too expensive the Russians appealed to the United States as was in the agreement and asked if they could switch to a fast reactor which is a much more efficient burner of plutonium but in their case of course they're doing that anyway as part of a nuclear power program we have no such no such program so our estimates and and we've been wrestling with this now for three years with the Congress I'll come back and I'll say that we are in no man's land where we spend enough money to not get anywhere the we now estimate that the entire plot not just the factory for making mox fuel but the entire program because you need to do a lot of other things too together with it will have a lifecycle cost in today's dollars or somewhere between 50 and 60 billion dollars we think it's a let's call it it's a billion dollar program for half a century let's say there's nothing wrong technically with the idea of doing this as agreed our judgment is and has been if anything supported by data that there is no way the Congress is going to commit a billion dollars a year for half a century to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium so with a long process we have come to an alternative which is to go to a dilution and disposal approach just as we have already used to dispose of five tons roughly of plutonium a lot of rocky flats for those of you who know you know the nuclear geography it's been disposed of at WIPP the waste isolation pilot project in Mexico it's a salt bed repository and so we believe that a much more sensible approach now is to go to these 34 tons in a dilution and disposal approach the cost is still being nailed down but we would say the cost lifecycle cost here is probably in the 15 to 20 billion dollar range and we'll start and finish between 10 to 20 years earlier and so that's the proposal that we've been going back and forth on it's not simple to take a project that's already spent five billion dollars okay that well maybe that wasn't the best idea but again as I as I believe the Congress has shown the ability to fund this at approximately 350 million dollars a year and that is not a billion but it's just about right to do the dilution approach over over some some number of decades that's very important but there are three issues one and this is where I think dialogue in a place like quantity could be very important is dilution as opposed to quotes burning in a reactor is that irreversible disposal I personally would have no problem saying yes frankly maybe better and of course putting it in into a deep into a deep repository but that's a big question and there is no question that in the 1990s in particular the national academy sciences came out with a report that's somehow that argued you had to change the isotopic composition of the plutonium for it to come so that's a big issue that really needs to be grappled with if we're going to finally resolve this question a second one is that according to the agreement just as the russians came to us and asked to change to a fast reactor and we said yes we have to go to them and ask well can we change to dilute and dispose right now we don't know that there would be a yes coming we do have a few other issues to deal with uh with russia at this time and it's maybe not the most proficient time for that question as president Putin has pointed out but so that's an issue and and how do we grapple with this problem in the midst of all these other other challenges and that commitment and finally there is the question of a disposal place I mentioned that whip in new mexico already has about five tons with its current license structure it could take another 13 tons but it cannot take the full amount of plutonium that we are looking at so either there would have to be a change in the acceptance criteria at at at whip or we would have to build a new secure disposal facility somewhere probably in the salt bed and go forward so so we're not trying to sugarcoat this the there's three tough issues there but but that's a very important problem that just has to be resolved you cannot in my view afford to spend our national security money in a way that will never converge to accomplishing accomplishing the mission I might note that earlier this summer two individuals well known to this group who were involved in those 1990s discussions Gary Seymour and Matt Bunn published an assessment of the mocks approach that they were very much part of launching and they wrote and I'll quote it is clear that the project has become too expensive it's time to stop throwing good money after bad and pursue cheaper alternatives that will serve our national security better the Obama administration has proposed to cancel this boondoggle and pursue a dilute and dispose alternative that would simply mix the plutonium with inert materials to make it more difficult to recover and dispose of it as waste current estimates suggest this alternative would cost a matter of less since it is much simpler it would not require building these facilities but I should I should have added that also with the mocks approach we certainly judge there to be continuing technical risk that could still drive the cost up higher dilute and dispose has no technical risk either so so anyway that statement by from Gary and Matt just kind of repeated some of the things I said but what's interesting is these are people who were very much involved in this and very much supported mocks in those years that's a big a big materials disposal issue that remains to be resolved finally let me just turn to a few things on peaceful uses nuclear energy and the climate connection obviously again you said in paris there was a obviously in my view a major first step towards addressing climate that then has a dry that results in a dry clearly for very low carbon energy and I might say that I have never seen a credible scenario of addressing climate change at the levels that we need to do not just in the next 10 or 15 years but mid-century into the end of the century I've never seen a scenario that does not involve at least two major steps forward and that is strong success on the demand side if demand is not managed it's extremely difficult to meet the deep carbonization goals and secondly essentially full decarbonization of the electricity sector on a half century kind of time scale and that's because the electricity sector frankly is a lot easier to decarbonize relative to the transportation sector or the industrial sector now some of the solutions of course let's say for transportation may be in fact more electrification using low carbon low carbon electricity so those are important and that's where nuclear comes in obviously as a major contributor to low or zero carbon energy in fact today nuclear power in the United States accounts for roughly 60 slightly more than 60 percent of our low carbon or zero carbon energy so nuclear has clearly got a big role and I want to emphasize that often the discussion is about well okay nuclear 10 years from now 20 years from now etc the reality is utilities investors make major capital allocations of the kind that we're talking about here way in advance if nuclear reactors in the United States retire after 60 years I'm talking about 80 but right now there's been some relicensing for 60 years and it's just simple arithmetic that the big wave of retirements starts around 2030 well that's only 14 years away and the capital planning for these kinds of projects uh is certainly decadal in uh in time scale so the message is that if if we are going to be serious about nuclear power maybe it's with small modular reactors maybe it's with current technology maybe it's with more advanced or other kinds of reactive technologies but if we are going to be serious about nuclear playing a role then the message is we need the signals and the certainty or quasi certainty at least for utilities and investors essentially now you can argue within a couple years two three years but by the end of this decade that's what's needed tomorrow there will be a markup in the house houseways and means committee in fact on some tax incentive structures especially for small modular reactors as the next generation but we need clear signals on carbon management and we need clear signals on what's going to be the financial engineering if you like to make these very very large capital capital investments so I want to say again that's not an issue for 10 years from now or 20 years from now it's actually an issue for the next administration in their first term to to work on that now of course in doing that and coming back to the subject today perhaps more closely obviously if that's going to happen we also have to manage that from the point of view of non-proliferation in those issues particularly not in the United States so much but particularly of course as new as new geographies come into play a second issue that is going to have to be resolved to not act as a major anchor in trying to have nuclear as part of the low carbon solution is nuclear waste obviously in this country we remain challenged but frankly you know there's some progress in in some countries more than we've seen here but but it's a it remains a challenge in many contexts now I will just mention three things that we think are very important and this follows from the blue ribbon commission on the future of your energy country one is that we remain convinced that as challenging as it is we won't we ain't going to get there without a consent-based approach certainly have data that the opposite approach does not seem to work number two we need to move to interim storage to consolidated interim storage of spent fuel start moving it away from from from reactors and what's encouraging here is the emergence of private entities that are prepared to direction with what appears to be consent along the required political chain and finally last year the president reversed a 1985 decision that had been made that was that would mingle bring together pavilion spent fuel and military defense waste the stuff that we generated frankly in producing the degree of weapon stockpile and which we're desperately trying to clean up but that I believe that's going to be a big policy issue in play in terms of implementation but we now have the authority certainly from the president of separating those waste streams I personally believe that the high the higher probability is that separating those streams will lead to faster cheaper results cheaper only because it faster and and so that's that's extremely extremely important now I will make a connection between this nuclear waste issue and issues we discussed earlier specifically issues of mocks and reprocessing spent fuel frankly I think that we have now reached the point where virtually no one is arguing that this reprocessing mocks approach is more expensive but the argument used is that but it helps us on waste management a primary argument is that it helps on waste management by reducing the volume substantially the merit of that statement is simply that it's true but is relatively inconsequential because the volume doesn't matter in a mine repository if all of the heat is contained into smaller volume so so I think that that there are in principle more advanced recycling ideas that in principle would address longer-term waste management issues they are far from certain demonstrated and certainly will be very very costly so I think this is a again these are things are all connected and managed and getting waste management right through geological isolation has economic environmental and security security implications so that's extremely important a second topic around the peaceful uses of nuclear energy is the JCPOA Iran I don't want to spend a lot of a lot of time on this but I just first of all a reminder the basic structure of the agreement is that Iran has significant constraints on it's on what it can do in the nuclear program for 15 years though I do want to emphasize the other side of the coin is they can maintain some level of activity in most of the technologies of relevance so that's that was laying a foundation for 15 years from now more aggressively pursuing peaceful uses of nuclear energy a second part of it is that our breakout time is at least a year for at least 10 years with a soft landing after that much much longer for plutonium by the way third that a procurement channel is established and the joint commission is established particularly for Iran to pursue any purchases that are that are part of a nuclear supplier group items and fourth extraordinary transparency and verification measures specific activities up to 25 years like uranium supply chains additional protocol quotes forever and in addition with a specific response time for IAEA requests for looking at undeclared undeclared sites and I might say a huge and important and expanded responsibility for the IAEA to meet all of the requirements I've often said let's say uranium supply chain the good news is we have verification for 25 years of the uranium supply chain the bad news is we have verification for 25 years of the uranium supply chain meaning we got to stick to it for for 25 years so this is a big big should not be underestimated the enormity of the task and the responsibilities over the IAEA now in addition the fifth commitments let's say beyond the NPT structure in particular I would say the no weaponization activities like explosively driven neutron sources no modeling simulations of nuclear explosives no implosion devices and for 15 years no work on uranium metallurgy so these are new things in terms of not just saying we won't have weapons but that we will not also carry out the activities for developing weaponization now you saw just last week the third IAEA quarterly report since implementation and you know the the basic message is that Iran is is carrying out its obligations the inventions are are being being observed I don't want to give the impression that this is easy this is hard work all around but the reality is we continue to work to work through issues that come up any agreement this complex is going to have lots and lots of issues to prove what's remarkable is that I think this this agreement on the nuclear dimensions is far more prescriptive than anything we have seen before and even then you cannot avoid that they're going to be ambiguities issues that have to be have to be resolved and so there's a lot of people I just want you know there are a lot of people working a lot of time literally like every every week and sometimes every day in terms of working at technical and political levels to implement it but the good news is I think it's is going well many are pitching in the United States well known we purchased some heavy water which is useful I mean we and we got it at you know a good deal market rates but you know it was not not politically simple but Russia is pitched in and China is pitched in and Norway is pitched in and Kazakhstan is pitched in so a lot a lot of a lot of countries are really working hard to make this this make this a a success on the Iran side you've undoubtedly seen a lot of news a lot of complaints about well the economic benefits are not what was anticipated frankly in my view the economic benefits are probably in line what might have been anticipated they are certainly deriving a lot more oil revenue from exports and the agreement is often criticized not for what it is but for what it is not it is not resolving the issues of terrorism and terrorist support etc but the flip side of that coin is that it is a scriptally nuclear weapons agreement nuclear weapons and nuclear energy agreement and therefore the relief is only on nuclear sanctions so there remains a set of additional sanctions which obviously complicate some of the decisions at least in the early stages of the agreement of foreign banks and foreign companies in terms of the land but I think today looked at all around I think to me the agreement looks even better than it did on on July 14th or on January 16th finally I just want to say that I've probably gone on too long sorry that I know here at Carnegie and I've been involved in some discussions especially with the irrepressible elite in terms of discussions about kind of nuclear firewalls that thinking and knew about how do how do we kind of separate civilian and and military applications I just want to say that I personally strongly encourage the continuation of that kind of dialogue because things have been changed so much since you know since 40 days of the NPT and I think we need to look at these questions in the context of new technology and geography and geographic realities it's certainly not a not a simple simple task it's a simple task maybe to have a discussion it's not a simple task to have those discussions go forward and get anything like the international international consensus of course the IAEA and its and its governance structure will be central to any such natural progress here but I want to say that you know that things like the the statements that if we could get a variety of you know more or less standard conventions convention on safety convention on physical protection of nuclear material safety of spent fuel management supplementary compensation for nuclear damage which of course is recent only came in the force there we go 2015 but having those kind of come together and understood and understood to be the norm for countries with nuclear weapons nuclear power excuse me not with nuclear weapons and nuclear power but it's about a half dozen countries who are NPT signatories for nuclear energy that are that do not subscribe to all of those conventions in one case frankly Iran subscribes right now to none of those conventions and we had discussions during the JCPOA negotiations and I think it's recognized that it's important as they build nuclear energy that they be viewed as having kind of a responsible energy program that subscribes to be to these conventions so I think that kind of discussion is is is is very important I must say that the idea that however the JCPOA has multiple new opponents like the no weaponization components for example that would sound very attractive for a new firewall between between these I just want to caution that you know JCPOA in Iran is a very special case after all it is built upon a situation of a lack of trust in the international community and and that may be an awkward place to start with the the discussion so I think but you know taking a blank sheet of paper and and talking about what could be a frankly multi-year process to to generate new steps in this in this context would be would be very very valuable for quantity and others to carry forward so with that a lot done a lot left to do Bill Burns said that already I'm just I'm just repeating it and again I can assure you that these these topics will be very prominent certainly the Department of Energy in our in our transition to the new administration that will start November the ninth as I say and that's only 57 days away and we would love to get any input from you now or in these next 57 days as to what we might do with the new with the new team thank you very much oh I went on too long well thank you Mr. Secretary my name is James Acton I'm the co-director of the nuclear policy program here at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a physicist myself albeit a much less illustrious one than our guest today it's a particular pleasure for me to ask him a couple of questions then I'm going to throw the questions open to the audience the Secretary has a hard cut off at 2 p.m so we're not going to have much time for questions so let me jump right to it Mr. Secretary you made an extremely compelling case for why the US domestically should go down the dilutin disposal route rather than mox burning when it comes to disposing of excess US military plutonium you've also acknowledged that by executive agreement the US is currently bound to burn that plutonium as mox not dilutin dispose and you've acknowledged that you don't know if Russia would have any interest in changing the agreement if Russia says no if Russia has no interest in amending the agreement do you think this is such a good idea that the US should go down the dilutin dispose route anyway irrespective of Russian concerns we will certainly pose the options to the next next administration if we had more sorry I mean the reality is again in my view I just cannot imagine the mox approach with that price tag converging so you know if we want to dispose of the of the plutonium I see the other the other direction as being the only practical way you know if Congress wants to stand up and say look we want mox we want to we're going to spend a billion dollars a year for 50 years okay I have no policy objection I do think it's got more technical risk it's slower all kinds of reasons but you know it isn't a policy objection but you know with Russia then I think the discussion will have to probably be bundled with some other considerations the other the other side of the plutonium balance is obviously the production of plutonium and here we're thinking about US allies producing plutonium for civilian purposes France is doing so Japan is doing so back in March this year you're on record with the Wall Street Journal talking about expressing concerns not about US ally but about in the context of China opening a largely processing plant a number of us think that from the perspective of building up a firewall between civilian and military purposes establishing some kind of norm where you only produce the material that you actually can use it's good for non-proliferation it's also good from the perspective of nuclear security as well how far what do you see as the role of US policy in discouraging reprocessing in foreign countries how far should the US go in trying to sway what's often been what's viewed in those countries as a domestic sovereign decision about energy policy well first of all as you know with with Japan for example there is the issue of kind of the principle of no accumulation which is what what you're talking about and I think that's critical if one is doing the mocks approach but I think the number one I can't hide from a track record when I was an academic of stating that in that approach in our view is neither economic nor a significant boom for waste management and that comes back to one of the things that we can do to discourage it we and other major nuclear programs is to really get the waste management resolved I mean for one thing that would give probably everyone you know more confidence to move forward with various forms of geological isolation but also it could even open up more ambitious approaches like so-called fuel leasing where for small countries with small programs where it does not make sense economically certainly to either enrich or reprocess that fuel leasing would mean that let's say United States or Germany or not Germany probably not France let's say whoever else Japan produces fresh fuel leases it to country with a small program and takes the fuel back for disposal in whichever way it manages its own spent fuel like for us I would argue geological isolation so I think you know that's why I really want to put the waste management the continuing waste management challenge is I think a real non-proliferation problem it underpins the argument even though I don't think it's a strong one but it underpins the argument of going to reprocessing although I mean fuel leasing which I could not agree with you more would be a very valuable non-proliferation measure in some states it wouldn't solve the problem of the large reprocessing program correct which you already which you yourself in your role as secretary of energy not just as an academic have flagged up as a concern correct so how far do you see US policy having a role in in Japan's program or China's program or France well I think that we need to keep pushing on the issue of as I said no no accumulation that is you know that if you're going that route you you kind of get into equilibrium you always you always need some kind of working stock but fundamentally into equilibrium of producing it and then and burning it clearly once it is put into the reactor then the then the non-proliferation risks obviously go down because of the irradiation um I'd love to continue this dialogue we have five minutes left so I'm going to open the floor to two to two questions before take at the same time at the end of this secretary monies has to leave promptly at two so I'm just going to ask everyone to stay in their seats until the secretary has left and you're all invited to lab day on the hill oh today sorry sorry sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry um let me let me ask if we have any questions and can I plead with people to ask thought trenchant questions rather than make prolonged statements on this occasion yes right at the back please wait for the microphone and do say who you are so Tatiana element I'm working for ten um one question have you ever considered involving Russia in the disposition of plutonium and let me let me let me take one other question at the same time yes sir and just just wait for the microphone and please introduce yourself I uh hunter student at the george washington university what do you see as the timeline for getting waste disposal up and running you said you wanted a geological repository how long do you think until we have enough geological storage to safely dispose of this plutonium them thoroughly short questions of the plutonium as opposed to the spent spent fuel reactors just to clarify yes so the first question as I understood it was possible collaboration with Russia in terms of the plutonium proposal that's certainly that idea has been floated I don't think I can't say it's really gone anywhere at this at this time but but again we're both somewhat challenged on this and I certainly would be amenable to to to discussions about that with regard to the geological disposal and plutonium what we're talking about here is a very very small amount uh if we go to the existing repository in New Mexico with which is going to hopefully within months get restarted we had a little problem there uh earlier last year uh as I mentioned there are five tons already there and 13 more tons are licensed already within their license envelope the remainder would require mining if you if if one were to do it there as opposed to some other place give you a scale all it would require is one more so-called panel a relatively small room uh you know 20 some tons let's say of this stuff is not a large bottom now it's diluted to maybe 10 percent you know etc but it's just one small mined room just that right now it's not in the licensed envelope that's all so it's actually it's technically extremely straightforward and and we hope to start diluting some plutonium we are let me let me make it clear we have the 34 tons of military plutonium to get rid of we have an additional six tons to get rid of those six tons we are moving to dilution and we will be starting that within um with great regret I have to say this is all we have time for today um as some of you can probably tell from my accent I wasn't I wasn't born around here um and one of the things that always amazes me coming from the UK into the US system within the UK um you know cabinet ministers are drawn from the legislative branch and they're not necessarily fully expert in in in in their subject matter one of the incredible things about the american system is the extraordinary degree of expertise that uh members of the president's cabinet have on their subject matter and I think you know I I I I for one I'm always incredibly impressed as I'm sure you are by the secretary sheer grasp of the issues at his disposal all that remains for me to say to do is to thank the secretary very much for his time today to remind you once more to please stay in your seats until he's left with the room and just to thank him on behalf of everyone here today thank you thank you