SG - Nuclear Revival or Relic?

About Nuclear Revival or Relic?

Tonight we look at the politics of nuclear energy in real time now. States, societies and energy stakeholders find themselves in renewed debates about the future of nuclear power in the current climate crisis. How does this weigh up against narratives that this technology is best buried deep as a relic of the past? Guest speaker Jan Haverkamp returns to share his expert insights, this time as Greenpeace’s leading global authority on nuclear energy lobby movements and facilities. He will revisit stakeholders’ positions in the past in relation to gamechangers, the disruptive factors and dynamics around nuclear safety and risk right now.

About Jan Haverkamp

Jan Haverkamp MSc (1959) is a senior nuclear energy and energy policy expert with the World Information Service on Energy (WISE) and Greenpeace Netherlands, and he is co-founder and vice-chair of Nuclear Transparency Watch. He is a Dutch citizen and since 2017 based in the Netherlands after having lived 21 years in the Czech Republic and Poland and having worked since 1985 in Central Europe.

His work as developer of environmental organisations in Central Europe, as energy campaigner and nuclear energy specialist brought him into contact with nuclear power and energy policy in all EU and EU accession countries operating, having operated or having taken moves to operate nuclear power stations, as well as Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Switzerland, Canada, Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, and the USA. He also worked for four years as Greenpeace's EU nuclear policy advisor in Brussels, among others during the start of the Fukushima nuclear crisis and the following nuclear stress tests. He was involved in the development and following implementation of the Euratom Nuclear Safety Directive, the Nuclear Waste Directive and the Directive on Basic Radiation Standards. He has a long track record on issues of nuclear transparency, especially the implementation of the Espoo and Aarhus Conventions in the nuclear sector. He participates as an independent civil society expert in the European nuclear waste research project EURAD.

Jan received his level 5B certificate as radiation protection advisor from the Technical University Delft. He was involved in radiation protection work in Spain, Japan, Ukraine and France.

Jan Haverkamp has taught between 2004 and 2020 at the environmental studies department of the faculty of social sciences of the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.

He undertook a bachelor degree in biochemistry from the State University in Leiden, the Netherlands, and a bachelors and masters degree (academic engineer – Ir.) in environmental sciences from Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

He is married, has a son and a daughter in their twenties and three grandchildren.