Enhancing Benefits of Nuclear Energy Technology Innovation through Cooperation among Countries: Final Report of the INPRO Collaborative Project SYNERGIES

The International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) was established in 2000 to help to ensure that nuclear energy is available to contribute to meeting the energy needs of the 21st century in a sustainable manner. INPRO focuses on key issues of global sustainability of nuclear energy with the aim of assisting in the development of long term nuclear energy strategies. INPRO Task 1, on global scenarios, analyses regional and global nuclear energy scenarios to achieve a global vision of how nuclear energy could be sustainable within the present century. Several collaborative projects were established by INPRO members within Task 1. The INPRO collaborative project Global Architecture of Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems Based on Thermal and Fast Reactors Including a Closed Fuel Cycle (GAINS) developed a framework for dynamic assessment of current and future nuclear energy systems with regard to sustainability. This publication presents the results of the follow-up collaborative project Synergistic Nuclear Energy Regional Group Interactions Evaluated for Sustainability (SYNERGIES). This collaborative project was jointly implemented in 2012–2015 by Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, Spain, Ukraine, the United States of America, Viet Nam and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency as participants or observers. The INPRO collaborative project SYNERGIES applied and amended the analytical framework developed in GAINS to model more specifically the various forms of collaboration among countries, assess benefits and issues relevant for collaboration, and identify those collaborative scenarios and architectures that ensure a ‘win– win’ strategy for both suppliers and users of peaceful nuclear energy technologies. The results of the study have increased understanding of how best to enhance sustainability of nuclear energy systems in the 21st century.