The Hoover Institution hosted the Nuclear Enterprise Conference during October 3–4, 2011, a group that contained Hoover senior fellows George P. Shultz and Sidney Drell. Topics discussed included the safety issues of nuclear weapons, nuclear reactor safety, economic and regulatory issues, and matters relating to media and public policy. The purpose of this conference was to bring together informed scientists and engineers, thoughtful economists, and experts in public policy to explore the similarities and differences in the nuclear energy and nuclear weapons arenas, with the goal of contributing to the discourse surrounding the ongoing reassessment prompted by the recent events in Fukushima, Japan.
Both Shultz and Drell are members of the Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy, which addresses energy policy in the United States and its effects on our domestic and international political priorities, particularly our national security. Shultz is also the chair of the Energy Task Force as well as advisory council chair of the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency at Stanford University and chair of the MIT Energy Initiative External Advisory Board.
Last year, the Energy Task Force hosted a conference on key energy issues. That conference, “Evaluating America’s Energy Policies One Year into the Obama Administration,” brought together leading experts in energy-related fields to assess current policies and address available energy resources and their underdevelopment. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed energy policies at the conference. Other issues included those defined as legacy issues, including distributed energy, energy efficiency, and the nuclear fuel cycle, and others viewed as emerging issues, including synthetic biology, carbon pricing, research and development policy, and international relationships.
