POLíTICA NUCLEAR
ment of safety questions. This in turn should hopefully, assist in
instilling sorne confidence in the public of authority judgements
and decisions. The decline in confidence in national authoríties is
really at the root of the nuclear opposition movernents that we see
appearíng for example, in 'Vestern Europe at the pre"ent time.
"\Vhile the international safety standards work is based on experien–
ce and very valuable, there is still one element that is missing, and
that is the fact that there has been no industrial scale demonstra–
tion of the viability of final geological disposal of high-Ievel waste,
either nationally or internationalIy. Such a demonstration must
now be gíven a very high priority as a possible way to meet what is
now the focus of the environmentalists' arguments. It would seem
that such a demonstration would be feasible and even more valid
under international auspices, whether it would concern spent nuclear
fuel or waste from reprocessed nuclear fuel. Without such a de–
manstration it seems difficult to meet the concerns which are at
the present time expressed not only by the public opposition but
also on political levels in many countríes. This seems to be at the
present time the most important problem in the ecology sector.
It
is certainly not technícally insoluble. Quite to the contrary, techni–
cal solutians have been worked out, but what is missing is a de–
monstration that can be seen and accepted.
The major uncertainty which nuclear energy must overcome at
the present time, is however, not technological, but polítical and
lies in the changing policies of governments. At the root of these
are, as already mentioned, the rising concerns about further prolif–
eratian of nuclear weapons. This of course, is of direct concern to
the
lAEA.
It's safeguards system was created expressly to give assu–
rances that diversion of material to nuclear weapons uses does not
take place.
With the certain increase in demand for nuclear power, there is
an equally certain Íncrease in the demands for access to and trans–
fer of nuclear technology both as regards power reactors and the
nuclear fuel cyele. There will
be
an increasing number of deve–
loping countries who will request assistance. In Latin America
there .are now three countries with at least one power reactor und r
construction. Additional countries in this regíon are now at the
stage of formulation
oC
nuclear power programmes. The techno-
