U.S. and India hold the Third Meeting of the Indo-United States Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group

India hosted the third meeting of the Indo-United States Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group in Mumbai, on Feb. 3-4, 2010. Civil nuclear is one of five working groups established under the Energy Dialogue as a result of the 2005 Joint Statement issued by then President Bush and Prime Minister Singh. The Working Group first met in 2006 and held its second meeting after the U.S. and Indian governments completed the Indo-U.S. Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. The Agreement, signed in October 2008, aims to provide new opportunities for trade and job creation for both economies; to cooperate with India to meet its rapidly increasing energy needs in an environmentally responsible way; and to enhance the global security and nonproliferation efforts supported by both countries.

Dr. Warren Miller, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, and Dr. Ravi Grover, Director of India’s Strategic & Planning Group in the Department of Atomic Energy, served as co-chairs of the meeting. They opened the dialogue by reaffirming their commitment to work collaboratively, echoing the sentiments of the recent meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Singh. The working group developed a memorandum of meeting that establishes a coordinated joint effort on specific projects for collaboration and named technical experts to lead those efforts. This interface between the countries’ scientific community is expected to facilitate communication and provide a structure for the long-term cooperation in the civil nuclear arena.

Meeting discussions focused on deepening mutual understanding of each country’s nuclear energy development plans, including high temperature reactors, fuel development for high temperature reactors and passive safety features for reactors.

The co-chairs agreed that the U.S. would host the next Working Group meeting planned for late 2010.