IERE First General Meeting was held in Cape Town ,South Africa on Nov.28, 2001. It is the first IERE General Meeting after the re-birth of IERE in January, 2001 and held just after IERE African Forum in Cape Town, Nov.26-27, 2001.

1. Opening Session
After Mr. R. Ballay, Chair of IERE, made an opening comment as a Chair of the General Meeting, Mr. T. Gcabashe, Chief Executive Officer of ESKOM, made a welcome address. His speech was focused on following 4 key technology themes :

a)  Environmental technologies----World summit 2002 on sustainable development in South Africa

b)    Catalyzing economical and social development

c)   Future customer interfaces----intelligent devices utilization

d)    Technology competition----incorporating telecommunication, information technology and knowledge management

2. Plenary Session

Mr. R. Lanoue of Hydro-Quebec, Session Chair, made a short speech comparing various power generation options on greenhouse effect, emission and energy payback. Mr. M. Sato of CRIEPI reviewed present energy and electricity consumptions in the world pointing out regional disparities and referring to future outlook until 2020. He also introduced historical trend of power generation mix in Japan after the oil embargo in 1973 and emission factors of SOx, NOx and CO₂ from thermal power plants. It was shown that increased nuclear power share considerably contributed to the impressive reduction of emission from the power sector of Japan.

Mr. D. Madet(on behalf of Mr. J. P. Bourdier)  of EDF presented the perspectives for electric industry of European Union in terms of sustainable development. Although renewable energies still need support in a highly competitive power market, the goal of their share in 2010 is set to 22% from 13.9% in 1997.

Dr. H. Elahi of General Electric Power System presented the tremendous changes and possible future directions in electric power industry of United States. After generation market opened to IPP in 1996, a number of power plants up to 250~300GW in total have been planned and will be commissioned in 2~3 years. In transmission market, change of owners or organization is also proceeding. However, transmission network installation lags behind generation commission.

After Dr. T. Tanaka, Secretary General of IERE, briefly introduced mid-term strategy of IERE, Mr. R. Ballay, Chair of IERE, presented the core of the strategy between 2002 and 2007. He talked about SWOT(Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat) analysis, vision, mission or role, strategic objectives focusing on the contribution to cooperation between developed and developing economies. Dr. S. J. Lennon, Vice Chair of IERE, introduced the discussion about short term action plans. Among them are : keynote presentations by IERE Officers in WEC and/or E7, cooperation with IEC, issue of IERE Newsletter, developing focused user groups on potential focus areas, circulation of information necessary for decision of investments in technology, developing guidelines to quantify added values of R&D, definition and expression of ethical values and so on. He also referred to African Forum action plan and policy document for input to participants of World Summit for Sustainable Development hosted by South Africa in 2002.

3.  Round Table Debate for "HTGR----Small and Safe Nuclear Reactors"

This Round Debate was participated by 6 debaters. In the first part, each debater made a short presentation. Mr. V.M. Nilekani of Exelon reviewed the R&D history of HTGR and explained passive safety features and operational features of modular HTGR. He also referred to key challenges for realization including technological developments. Mr. A.M. Vallee of Framatome explained R&D experiences by international cooperation with USA, Russia and Germany. The key issue is to realize capital cost less than $1000 / kW and construction time less than 4 years.

Prof. Y. Sun of Tsinghua University introduced the HTR-10 reactor project which is a 10MW pebble bed test reactor and currently under commissioning test. The merit of this type reactor is to provide high efficiency generation and process heat to industrial facilities. Dr. D.R. Nichollas of PBMR presented commercial PBMR project. As for the target specification, maximum power output is 120~125 MW, construction schedule is 24 months and cost is $1000 / kW. He also explained heat cycle of PBMR and plant and building design. The PBMR plant is now under assessment of the installation plan and design by related shareholders, government and regulating authorities.

Dr. N.G. Kodochigov of OKBM presented GT-MHR design which is a modular helium reactor using the closed gas-turbine cycle. He also introduced development history of HTGR in Russia.   Mr. M. Uotani of CRIEPI talked about the state-of-the-art of nuclear power generation in Japan and HTGR R&D activities in Japan. JAERI(Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute) developed the 30MW engineering test reactor, namely HTTR, which achieved first criticality in 1998.

In the second part, round debate among debaters were done about following points.

a)         Passive safety design
b)         Advanced gas turbine technology leading to utilization of higher temperature gas
c)         Quality assessment in terms of stable and safe operation in comparison with LWR
d)          Modular concept of PBMR in comparison to large scale LWR
e)          Proof of economy and future price of helium gas
f)           Regulation and safety criteria
g)          Fuel processing production
h)          Control software and practical operation

4.      Business Meeting

Dr. T. Tanaka, Secretary General of IERE, introduced the 2nd Board Meeting on Nov.25, 2001 as follows:

a)  Review of membership
Presently IERE has 52 members, among them 17 Executive Members and 35 Regular Members. This figure includes 7 new members who joined from January to November, 2001.

b)     Budget and finance
In FY2001, revenue by membership fee is US$ 140K and expense is US$ 120K. In FY2002, budget size is US$ 150K. As a whole financial state can be considered sound as long as activities are in present level.

c)      Activities in 2002
(1)        Forum Suite
There are four possibilities of China Forum, Central and Eastern Europe Forum, Latin America Forum and Thailand Forum. The 4th Board Meeting and 2nd General Meeting are to be held simultaneously with the selected Forum.

(2)      Workshops
Zurich Workshop on implications of decentralized power generation was decided to be held on June 12-13, 2002. The 3rd Board Meeting is to be held on June 14, 2002 in the same venue. Several other workshops were proposed. Irukutsk Workshop on energy integration in northeast Asia proposed by RAO EES Rossii to be held in September,2002. EDF Workshop on risk management in deregulated markets, Hydro Quebec Workshop on preparing next generation of electrical research scientists and several CRIEPI Workshops and Seminars on environmental issues of thermal power plants.

(3)        Website
Contents were already installed. In addition Newsletter and e-Forum were discussed for upload.

After Dr. Tanaka's speech, Mr. R. Ballay added the plan of another workshop by Grenoble National Institute.

5.            Closing Remarks

Dr. S. J. Lennon made a closing comment and thanked to all attendants.

(#) Proceedings of this First General Meeting was issued on January 18, 2002 from IERE Central Office.