Nine companies that manufacture and export nuclear power plants jointly signed the “Principles of Conduct,” which include improved safety of commercial reactors, promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and other items of declaration. It took three years for the companies to develop the principles with the support of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) in the United States.
The nine companies that participated in the development of the principles are Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Toshiba Corp., Areva (based in France), Atmea (joint venture of Areva and MHI), Atomstroyexport (based in Russia), Candu Energy (based in Canada), Korea Electric Power Co. and Westinghouse Electric Co. (based in the U.S.). Their announcement came on September 16 Japan Time.
The aim of the principles is to reaffirm that the companies exporting nuclear plants will not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The declaration of the principles is “beneficial to sales” in providing a sense of security to the governments and companies of nations that are planning to introduce nuclear reactors, according to manufacturer sources.
CEIP convened a meeting to develop the Principles of Conduct in October 2008, when plant manufactures started to gain momentum in nuclear export. Since then, experts and the management of the nine companies have been working on the development. The announcement of the principles was delayed because safety provisions were added in light of the Fukushima accident. Other than the companies that contributed to the development, Chinese companies willing to export nuclear plants are expected to sign the principles shortly.
