U.S. Department of Energy international nuclear energy research initiative

In January 1997, the President of the United States requested his Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to review the current national energy research and development (R and D) portfolio, and provide a strategy to ensure that the United States has a program to address the Nation's energy and environmental needs for the next century. In 1999, in response to the PCAST recommendations, DOE established the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI). Recognizing the importance of a focused program of international cooperation, PCAST issued a June 1999 report entitled Powerful Partnerships: the Federal Role in International Cooperation on Energy Innovation. It highlights the need for an international component of the NERI program to promote bilateral and multilateral research focused on advanced technologies for improving the cost, safety, waste management and proliferation resistance of nuclear fission energy systems. The report further states that the cost of exploring new technological approaches that might deal effectively with the multiple challenges posed by conventional nuclear power are too great for the United States or any other single country to bear, so that a pooling of international resources is needed. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) established the International Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (I-NERI) to help overcome the principal technical and scientific issues affecting the future use of nuclear energy and to foster global cooperation in nuclear technology. (author)