President Barack Obama has welcomed India's offer to establish a ‘Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership’ to further international efforts for the promotion of nuclear security.
Taking the floor after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s speech at the Nuclear Security Summit here on Tuesday morning, the U.S. leader said: “We welcome the announcement of the setting of the centre by India. This will be one more tool to establish best practices".
Dr. Singh told the plenary gathering of 47 countries that India had decided to set up the Global Centre , visualised to be a state of the art facility based on international participation from the IAEA and other interested foreign partners.
"The Centre will consist of four Schools dealing with Advanced Nuclear Energy System Studies, Nuclear Security, Radiation Safety, and the application of Radioisotopes and Radiation Technology in the areas of healthcare, agriculture and food. The Centre will conduct research and development of design systems that are intrinsically safe, secure, proliferation resistant and sustainable. We would welcome participation in this venture by your countries, the IAEA and the world to make this Centre’s work a success", the Prime Minister said.
A four-page brochure prepared by the Department of Atomic Energy and distributed at the summit contained an outline of the programme modules to be offered at each of the four schools of the centre.
Thus, the School of Advanced Nuclear Energy System Studies would pursue design studies and analysis of advanced nuclear energy systems with features to achieve intrinsically enhanced safety, security, proliferation resistance and sustainability. These would include a focus on reactor systems, fuel cycle studies, accelerator driven systems and risk assessment studies.
