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TechnoratiNew Generation of Nuclear Power Stations 'Risk Terrorist Anarchy'
Plans for more nuclear power stations increases the risk of terrorists seizing plutonium, report warns
The new generation of atomic power stations planned for Britain, China and many other parts of the world risks proliferation that could lead to "nuclear anarchy", a security expert warned in a report published today.
![[Greenpeace activists hold banners while beaming a sign onto the AREVA reprocessing facility, where mixed oxide is stored, in La Hague March 5, 2009. France is preparing to ship the mixed oxide, or MOX fuel, which contains 1.8 tonnes of plutonium, to Japan on Friday, Greenpeace said. Media reports quoted AREVA as saying the production of MOX is safe and that it helps reduce the levels of nuclear waste. REUTERS/Greenpeace (FRANCE). ]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/greenpeace_nuclear.jpg "greenpeace_nuclear.jpg")
Governments and multilateral organisations must come up with a strategy to deal the impact of the new nuclear age, which will produce enough plutonium to make 1m nuclear weapons by 2075, argues Frank Barnaby from the Oxford Research Group thinktank in a paper for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
"We are at a crossroads. Unless governments work together to safeguard nuclear energy supplies, the rise in unsecured nuclear technology will put us all in danger. Without this, we are hurtling towards a state of nuclear anarchy where terrorists or rogue states have the ways and means of making nuclear weapons or 'dirty bombs', the consequences of which are unimaginable," says Barnaby.
Any country choosing to operate new-generation nuclear reactors in future would have relatively easy access to plutonium, which is used to make the most efficient atomic weapons, along with the nuclear physicists and engineers to design them. These countries would be latent nuclear-weapon powers "and it is to be expected that some will take the political decision to become actual nuclear weapons powers," argues Barnaby in his paper submitted to the IPPR's independent Commission on National Security chaired by former Nato boss, Lord George Robertson.
The issue of nuclear proliferation security has been largely ignored until today as the nuclear power debate has concentrated on the economics, social issues and how to deal with radioactive waste.
Ministers in the UK have made clear their desire to see a new generation of facilities to replace existing ones at a time when North Sea gas is running out and the country needs to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels to meet its Kyoto protocol carbon emission targets. Nuclear power plants across the life cycle produce one third of the CO2 of gas-fired ones.
Barnaby says that a shortage of uranium for the kind of reactors that EDF and others are considering building in Britain could encourage them to reprocess fuel and produce more plutonium. But he is equally convinced that a nuclear renaissance will lead to fast breeder reactors which produce more nuclear fuel than they use and which could be useful to terrorists.
The Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have already suggested that uranium resources would last less than 70 years if processed using the current generation of light water nuclear reactors.
Barnaby wants the non-proliferation treaty strengthened at a "make or break" review conference next year and would also like to see countries as yet without nuclear capabilities discouraged from obtaining enriched uranium, a problem highlighted in the case of Iran.
Ian Kearns, deputy commissioner of the IPPR's security commission, said it was crucial that the rush to address climate change did not worsen the international security environment.
"A global nuclear renaissance, if badly managed, could bring enormous complications in terms of nuclear non-proliferation and terrorism. Policymakers need to be alert to the dangers and to construct policies that bring secure low-carbon energy and a stable nuclear weapons environment," he said.
Companies such as E.ON of Germany who want to build new nuclear plants in Britain declined to comment on the issue.
25 Comments so far
Show AllLet's let our unborn grand kids vote on this one.
"All New Generation Voters in favor of New Generation Nuclear Power Plant Proliferation say, 'Ay.'"
(silence....)
"Will the clerk please note for the common record that no New Generation Voters voted in favor of New Generation Nuclear Bullshit. Hearing adjourned."
The nuclear power industry keeps getting better at perfecting corporate welfare schemes in many nations. They have succeeded in convincing many elected officials and voters that nuclear power is the silver bullet that will solve greenhouse gas problems.
In Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, laws have been changed to allow power companies to charge ratepayers for the cost of new nuclear plants before they design or build them. Many of the plants will never be completed due to the high cost of construction.
The nuclear industry fails to mention that the remaining uranium will take much more fossil fuel burning to mine, scarce water resources will need to be diverted from domestic and agricultural purposes, and the State of Nevada is not going to absorb much, if any of the waste.
Using "Renaissance" to describe a resurgence of a deadly, dangerous and unneccessary industry, insults the meaning of Renaissance.
Given that solar is much cheaper, safe and abundant, if countries had no enemies would they want nuke power ?
Eze,
I don't think there are any countries that have no enemies but there certainly many that have no nuclear weaponry ambitions but are building new reactors:
Canada
Finland
Romania
Slovakia
Bulgaria
South Korea
Japan
Turkey
Bill
Why?
Eze,
I can't speak for the leadership of the countries on the list but I would assume they desire to have a reliable source of baseload electricity with minimal CO2 emissions.
Solar is not used for baseload grid electricity anywhere in the developed world. Solar is, by its nature, an intermittent source. The energy storage capacity to use solar as a baseload source is cost prohibitive.
Bill
Do batteries, liquid fuel from solar, wind, wave, geo, bio, and other green sources cost more than nukes if you take into account the carbon costs of building nukes, the soaring costs of building nukes, nuke waste disposal, plant decommissioning costs, health costs of treating its cancer victims, costs of protection against terrorist attacks, permanent costs of safeguarding wastes, the costs of radwaste contamination of our air, water, land and food supply, the costs of nuclear war, the costs of having to evacuate contaminated cities forever, the cost of insurance against all these things, etc.?
eze,
Nuclear power plants, like all industrial facilities (including solar, wind, etc)have a carbon foot print from construction.
The total carbon footprint for nuclear is comparable to wind and concentrating solar and lower than PV solar according to most analyses. Nuclear power plants do have a continuing fuel cost both in dollars and in CO2 emissions. The dollar cost for fuel is included in any cost benefit analysis and the CO2 emissions from fuel mining and preparation is included in the total carbon footprint.
The Chernobyl accident did exact a terrible cost in lives and continuing health care. Greenpeace and other anti-nuclear organizations claim a large cancer cost for the TMI accident, however, this has not held up under impartial careful analysis. (Yes, there is a cancer cluster in the vicinity of TMI. There is also a very high radon concentration in that area. This is a naturally occuring ongoing radiation health hazard and has no relationship to the power plant. Radon is the second highest cause of lung cancer after smoking.)
Nuclear power does not cause or facilitate nuclear war.
Bill
If corporate owned nuclear power plants are run as well as Wall Street, we are screwed.
Not a true problem,
Blackwater, Xe Worldwide provides "State of the art Security, Anti-Terrorist Tasking, Perimeter and Internal Protection Services."
These soldiers are available and trained.
Because if a Dirty Bomb is put together, a true killing WMD that can fit in a suitcase, we all know where it will detonate,
And I don't mean New York. Joe.
Evidently the author is unaware of the fourth generation reactors called "Integrated Fast Reactors", in which the plutonium produced from U238 is burned in the reactor and is not set aside where it could be diverted for weapon manufacture. It is an integrated process, which has great potential to eliminate the risks of nuclear weapons proliferation and very long lived radioactivity. It was worked on for 30 years at Argonne National Laboratory, but for political reasons was discontinued under Clinton. In view of its promise, research on this reactor development needs to be resumed. See
http://skirsch.com/politics/globalwarming/ifr.htm
and references therein.
Yeah, those terrorists might just grab some nuclear fuel and, in their garage, put it all together in a super-nuke. Then, using an oxy-torch and some metal shelving, they might build an intercontinental ballistic missile and BOOM, the world is no more!
Oh, gee! Thank heavens the U.S. is there to protect us! Or is it to help itself?
www.dangerouscreation.com
In many ways this problem is already with us. Pakistan is in trouble. It probably wouldn't be that hard for organized crime in quite a few countries to divert medical or industrial rad waste for a small scale event. They are gradually closing down old Soviet nuclear labs and weapons sites in Ukraine and other former Soviet states. How well is that controlled? And the waste? Will there be a significant increase in cancers in Iraq from the bits and pieces of DU we have left all over the place?
From what I have read, the new energy projects would not produce high enough plutonium or U-238 concentrations at any point in the recycling process to make it worth going after for bomb material. Keeping recycling contained from the environment will be the hard part. Much harder than simply operating a reactor.
The author mentions "terrorists" getting hold of nukes. The US is a State Terrorist nation that HAS nukes and the only one that has USED them.
This article is pure scaremongering.
Paid nuclear industry boiler room bloggers aside:
A nuclear power plant is a bank for a terrorist. A bank is where the money is, and a nuclear power plant is where the radiological materials are. Moreover, any major destruction of the plant's wall will cause an immediate loss-of-coolant accident, which distributes the radioactive iodine, cesium, strontium and more onto an area once described as "the size of Pennsylvania".
We now know from experience that the evacuation plan won't work, simply because nobody drops dead in the first hour so higher-ups always assume there might be a 1% chance that it's a false alarm, and the nuclear power industry always, always errs on the side of no evacuation and lying through their teeth.
We also know that the industry and the government will always cut costs, including security costs, until some 9 year old lone terrorist can waltz in with a BB gun and set the whole thing off.
Anti-nuclear mortality estimates for the Three Mile Island meltdown were about 50,000 people, and for Chernobyl, about 400,000 people. I trust these ball-park estimates. These are significant numbers even by tobacco industry standards.
Paul,
I missed my check from the Nuclear Energy Institute. Let me know if you see it.
The mortality estimates you cite are preposterous.
TMI had no documented fatalities. There was radiation released but the courts determined in the lawsuits that no member of the public was exposed higher than the legal safe annual limit defined by the AEC (the same limit is used today by the NRC and is the equivalent of about 1/2 a chest x-ray). There was expert testimony on both sides.
Chernobyl had approximately 50 fairly prompt fatalities from both injuries and radiation exposure. About 4000 cases of thyroid cancer, mostly in children, occurred. Thyroid cancer is normally treatable but about 10 kids did eventually die. 10,000 to 50,000 excess deaths are expected among the cleanup workers. The biggest ongoing health problems among the evacuees is alcoholism (much of it preexisting), poverty (much of it preexisting) and stress from the dislocation.
I did read a statement once from Greenpeace (I believe it has since been taken down) that everyone in the town of Pripyt (near Chernobyl and downwind) on the day of the accident was going to die. This is quite true. So is everyone that was in Muleshoe Texas and Walla-Walla Washington on the day of the accident. Some anti-nuclear organizations don't let truth get in the way of a good piece of propaganda.
OBTW, I do work in the nuclear industry but, to the best of my knowledge, my employer is not aware of my posting activities.
Bill
250 000 000 barefooted is the solution
/edweg
Hayduke Blogs
http://hayduke2000.blogspot.com/
Anarchy is not chaos. Anarchy means no rulers, not no rules. Anarchy is rule by the people, democracy taken seriously.
If we had nuclear anarchy, we could sleep better at night.
I bought an Escalade because it's bigger and better and I was assured cheap financing.
Then I sold the Escalade because I can't afford it, which left me at a loss.
Now the company that makes Escalades is going bankrupt even with government money.
And now I take light rail....
I can't think of anything that would be similar.
The smart countries will develop and use safe nuclear power and prosper. Those that do not,will not. New reactor concepts such as the molten salt breeder reactor will recycle the plutonium generated (and potentially burn most of the radioactive fission products) internal to the nuclear system and tremendously reduce or eliminate the proliferation risk and long-term radiation storage problem. Enough said, the arguments will go on and on,but will generally be worked out after I am dead.
statement that last 25 years of nuclear power ignorance wasted the development of one generation is not far stretched
/ edweg
There is a budding alternative to existing types of proliferation-prone nuclear fission technologies that could potentially replace them someday. It is called low energy nuclear reactions or LENRs. Quietly under development in the US, Japan, China, Russia, Europe, and Israel, this new 'under the radar' energy technology is not based on fission or fusion processes (which involve what physicists call the 'strong interaction'), but is instead based upon the 'weak interaction.' This fundamental difference in the underlying energy generation mechanism confers LENRs with potentially enormous advantages over fission and even hoped-for fusion. Specifically, LENRs do not produce any dangerous energetic neutrons, deadly gamma radiation, or environmentally hazardous long-lived radioactive wastes. Furthermore, in principle LENR-based reactors could be designed that neither burn nor produce any weapons-usable fissile isotopes. While little-heralded in the media or mainstream scientific journals, the science behind LENRs is real. That being the case, they have the potential to eventually be developed into a commercially viable, truly 'green' nuclear energy technology. I-SiS, an environmental group in London, UK, has published a series of 'plain English' articles on LENRs that can be found at the URL = http://www.i-sis.org.uk/scienergy.php
Most people, perhaps without giving it much thought, are not accustomed to saying anything like, "Flin Flon is full of cars. Don't go there; you're likely to be shot with a homebrewed gun." Nor would they remark that much of the Congo watershed is virtually car-free, so you need not fear being attacked with firearms if you venture there.
Any piston-in-cylinder car engine could, by a sufficiently determined weaponizer, be converted into a multibarrel cannon. They work on the same principle: internal combustion has its heat converted to work, propelling a round slider.
Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are, similarly, long-estranged distant relatives. That is why Barnaby speaks of X thousand bombs that could, by a sufficiently determined weaponizer without mentioning that the world's *past* production of nuclear energy, in displacing ~100 billion barrels of oil, has produced plutonium that could in principle be the makings of some smaller number, and has in practice been the makings of zero. All proliferation that were did not occur by the reactor-independent Hiroshima route has been by the small, low-temperature non-power reactor route, aka the Nagasaki route.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, ('How fire can be domesticated')
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/