A Civil Super-Manhattan Project in Nuclear Research for a Safer and Prosperous World
10 Pages Posted: 2 May 2015
Date Written: April 27, 2015
Abstract
Humankind is confronted with a "nuclear stewardship curse'', facing the prospect of needing to manage nuclear products over long time scales in the face of the short-time scales of human polities. I propose a super Manhattan-type effort to rejuvenate the nuclear energy industry to overcome the current dead-end in which it finds itself, and by force, humankind has trapped itself in. A 1% GDP investment over a decade in the main nuclear countries could boost economic growth with a focus on the real world, epitomised by nuclear physics/chemistry/engineering/economics with well defined targets. By investing vigorously to obtain scientific and technological breakthroughs, we can create the spring of a world economic rebound based on new ways of exploiting nuclear energy, both more safely and more durably.
Keywords: social instabilities, nuclear stewardship, innovation, investment
JEL Classification: O30; Q43; N70
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation