The International Summit on Nuclear Energy & Environment Development will be held in Weihai, China from May 15 to 17, 2019, hosted by the Chinese Academy of Engineering in cooperation with Chinese Nuclear Society, French National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Technologies.

The summit will focus on the application of civil nuclear technology, the sustainable development of nuclear energy, and will be professional gathering and exchange of the nuclear experts from China, France, Russia, Japan, Sweden, IAEA and the other nuclear players in the world.

As a sustainable, reliable and low-carbon energy source, nuclear power contributes over 11% of the global electricity. Across the globe, 16 countries rely significantly on nuclear power which accounts for more than 1/4 of domestic power supply in these countries.

With support of the 2017 program (Program Phase-I), three academies (the Chinese Academy of Engineering, French Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Technologies of France) from China and France jointly drafted a splendid report titled Joint Proposals On Future Of Nuclear Energy which received warm response after its release in the IAEA General Conference. In 2018, the three academies continued the cooperation to implement Program Phase-II and chose “nuclear energy and environment” as the topic of the joint research. It is expecting that the collaborative top-level research on the topic will not only put forward suggestions and proposals for healthy and sustainable development of nuclear energy, but also provide important references for policy-making of nuclear energy in both the countries and even the whole world.

The joint report deals with the central issue of the impact of nuclear energy on the environment considering all operations from uranium mining to radioactive waste disposal. It is more specifically focused on the four major environmental issues raised by the utilization of nuclear energy and perceived as so by the public:

I. The immediate radioactivity released by nuclear installations including fuel cycle facilities and power plants under normal operation;

II. The long-term radioactivity released from spent fuels and radioactive waste disposed of in geological repositories;

III. The radioactivity released by severe nuclear accidents;

IV. Whether and how the improvement of nuclear safety has positive effects on the environment.

On the one hand, nuclear energy has a positive effect in providing energy with a very limited level of greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power constitutes one of the most realistic solutions to the problem of climate change. On the other hand, considerable effort has been expanded to solve adverse effects of nuclear energy on the environment and make sure that the consequences to the environment remain limited if one such accident occurs.

The joint research results of the three academies Program Phase-II will be released on this summit which will invite experts from the world's authoritative institutions to conduct academic exchanges on the topic: “Nuclear Energy and Environment” through Keynote session, Plenary session, and Roundtable Discussion. We hope that the summit can bring new impetus to accelerating development of the world nuclear energy, enhancing influence of the nuclear industry and promoting more potential countries to realize nuclear power generation.