Abstract: This Forum comes at a very appropriate moment, as countries are presently planning their energy strategies for the new millennium. I would like to thank the IAEA for having invited the Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD to present the role of nuclear power in OECD countries.
When looking toward the next century, it is clear that only policies which meet sustainable development criteria can be maintained. The OECD has pioneered the promotion of economic and social policies which are compatible with sustainable development. If we look at the Mission of the OECD established more than 50 years ago, in 1947, we see that it is the "promotion of policies to achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment,…."
The OECD is currently preparing a comprehensive report on Sustainable Development for the OECD Ministerial meeting of 2001. The NEA’s participation in this entails establishing the background of the nuclear energy component. While the NEA report will not be finalized until the end of next year, let me make some comments on how to relate sustainable development to nuclear energy.
The OECD considers that sustainable development policies have to incorporate three key elements, namely: globalization, linking economic, environmental and social dimensions, and having civil society as an active partner. Regarding the first factor - the need for global solutions to solve problems related to sustainable development, nuclear energy unquestionably occupies a favourable position.

Abstract: Energy, particularly electricity, is essential to economic and social development and improved quality of life. Electricity demand continues to grow worldwide, particularly in OECD countries, in spite of drastic efforts to increase efficiency and energy savings. Electricity growth in developing countries is expected to continue to be much faster than in present high-income countries. By the middle of the next century, today’s developing countries should have experienced a ten-fold increase in their power capacity compared to a doubling of the capacity in high-income countries. In Brazil, electricity demand has been growing much faster than primary energy and the economy, and this is expected to continue in the future. The concept of sustainable development used in the entire world today calls for the alleviation and mitigation of environmental impacts. By the beginning of the next century, all forms of primary energy for electricity production will be needed if global sustainable development is to be achieved. In this context, there is a moral obligation to utilize those energy resources which lead to the lowest possible environment impacts. In the power sector, there is a limited number of options that are technically mature and economically competitive which could substitute for fossil-fuel burning. Nuclear power is one of the electricity-generating options that has to be used if an environmentally-friendly development is to be achieved. This paper will demonstrate that nuclear power in Brazil has already started to make a contribution, however modest, to reducing the emissions of gas polluters, particularly greenhouse gases. Its future role will be important.

Abstract: The paper offers an analysis of the nuclear power option in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. It is focused on the common characteristics of nuclear power programmes in these countries, e.g.:

• restructuring of industry, decline in energy consumption and the role of nuclear power;
• substantial changes in national nuclear legislation;
• lack of fully developed nuclear fuel cycle and facilities;
• deficiency in infrastructure which can support sustainable operation of nuclear power plants.
  

The paper will cover the full spectrum of issues (legal structure, management and regulation of nuclear power, operational questions, modernization and life management of nuclear power plants, supply of nuclear fuel, management of radioactive wastes and spent fuel and emergency preparedness). Questions on construction of new reactors and decommissioning of existing ones and the relationship with the public are also discussed.
Russia is included in this analysis insofar as it has a complete fuel cycle and infrastructure of its own to develop and support a nuclear power option. Other countries, such as Romania and Slovenia, also do not fall within the scope of the paper as they operate western-designed nuclear power plants.