Background

The East Asia Science and Security (EASS) Workshops produce collaborative research, involving groups from Australia, China, the DPRK, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, the ROK, Taiwan, and Vietnam, on different paths to address energy security issues in the region. The workshops build on the extensive quantitative and qualitative research and analysis done as part of the Asian Energy Security project to investigate the future nuclear alternative paths, and to develop realistic policy options for implementable policies to reduce the proliferation potential of nuclear power in the region.

Collaborative research under the EASS project looks at on both national and regional approaches to nuclear power and energy security concerns. Along with our partners in each country, we have worked to update the national energy supply-demand databases and projections that determine the need for electricity, and for nuclear power, in each country involved in the projects. A main focus of the EASS project is on different “paths” for nuclear power development in those countries in the region where nuclear power is used, including paths where future development of nuclear generation capacity is at “minimum” and “maximum” plausible levels. We then used this data to evaluate the costs and benefits of different spent fuel management strategies. These energy security results were then further reviewed for lessons related to policy formulation.

The EASS project meeting uses updates from each country on the overall energy, energy policy, and energy security situations and models different energy futures (including paths that include regional energy cooperation strategies) for each country using the energy/environmental analysis software tool (LEAP more information available at: www.energycommunity.org).