Nuclear Industry Subsidies Part III: The Military Connection

This is the Part III of my review of Doug Koplow, Union of Concerned Scientists report titled, Nuclear Power: Still not viable without subsidies. The Part I offered some definition of subsidies, and noted that very large government subsidies to the renewable power industry had not made renewable generated electricity cheap. Part I noted that the definitions of subsidy and nuclear industry needed to be determined in any valid study of subsidies, and questioned whether Koplow had done so. Part II looked at Koplow's claims about subsidies to the uranium mining and determined that these subsidies were largely intended to support military uses of uranium, were typical of the energy and mining industry, had little effect on the cost of nuclear generated electricity, and had offered little long term benefit to the either the American uranium mining industry or to the American civilian nuclear power industry as a whole. At the end of Part II. I promised to look carefully at Koplow's claims concerning the relationship between military nuclear weapons programs, and the civilian nuclear industry.

Although Doug Koplow frequently makes many factual and logical errors in his report "Nuclear Power: Still not viable without subsidises," he is sometimes on the right track. He correctly acknowledges military involvement with the United States Nuclear program as creating problems for the Civilian Nuclear power industry. Koplow quotes

Sharon Squassoni, director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the “dual-use [civilian and military] nature of nuclear technology is unavoidable. For the five nuclear-weapons states, commercial nuclear power was a spinoff from weapons programs; for later proliferates, the civilian sector has served as a convenient avenue and cover for weapons programs” (Squassoni 2009a). By artificially accelerating the expansion of civilian programs, subsidies to nuclear technology and fuel-cycle services worldwide exacerbate the already challenging problems of weapons proliferation. To date, the negative externality of proliferation has not been reflected in the economics of civilian reactors.

In fact there have been several attempts to serve military interests with ostensibly civilian oriented nuclear R&D programs. In other instances scientists diverted military programs to civilian purposes. The ORNL report, AN ACCOUNT OF OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY’S THIRTEEN NUCLEAR REACTORS, by Murray W. Rosenthal demonstrates examples of both tedencies at ORNL. For example the ORNL gas cooled reactor was an attempted replication of the British dual purpose Magnox reactors.

The British wanted to produce plutonium for bombs and simultaneously generate nuclear power, and the 50 MW(e) Calder Hall power plants that they built used dual-purpose reactors that could do both. The British did not yet have enriched uranium and had no domestic source of helium, so the Calder Hall reactors were restricted to natural uranium and used carbon dioxide as the coolant. The metal fuel was clad in a magnesium alloy called Magnox, and from that they came to be called Magnox reactors. The Calder Hall reactors were the first to supply commercial amounts of power to a utility grid.

The dual-purpose Magnox reactors were followed in the United Kingdom by larger gas-cooled power reactors. They were still cooled with carbon dioxide but used low-enriched uranium in stainless-steel-clad UO2 fuel elements that enabled higher temperatures and thus higher thermal efficiency.

The British attempt to kill two birds with one stone was much admired by some members of the United States Congress who probably thought the British approach would save money. In fact, the Magnox reactors produced plutonium of an inferior quality. British and American weapons testing involving the use of Magnox plutonium's, proved so disappointing that work on the Oak Ridge gas cooled reactor was terminated before the reactor could be tested. This was unfortunate because the gas cooled reactor was probably safer than conventional water cooled reactors.

The ORNL Aircraft Reactor Experiment was an example of the diversion of money from a purely military program to civilian oriented scientific use. The idea was to design a reactor to power large military aircraft - bombers. The reactor had to be light and compact, but it also had to produce a lot of power. Oak Ridge engineers came up with a novel idea, a high temperature salt cooled reactor, with the uranium fuel dissolved in the liquid salt. None of the scientists and engineers involved in the project believed that the ARE would serve a military purpose.

The ORNL Thirteen Reactor Report states,

The Air Force was pleased with the performance of the ARE and brought Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Company aboard to develop the indirect cycle power plant. ORNL began the design of a compact 60 MW reactor. And in spite of growing skepticism about success and the recognition that missiles might substitute for bombers, industrial and political support kept the national program going. But it was killed in March 1961 soon after John Kennedy took office.

Thus ORNL’s ANP program came to an end, but in its 12-year run, it greatly expanded knowledge of the chemistry and technology of molten salts and made advances in materials, shield design, and other areas that enlarged the Laboratory’s ability to undertake new projects.

So basically ORNL Director Alvin Weinberg tricked the United States Air Force into developing new civilian nuclear technology.

The Shippingport Reactor was an apparently successful dual purpose nuclear program, but one which was to have a serious long term consequences for the United States nuclear industry. The design of the Shippingport reactor emerged from the design of the of a reactor intended to power air craft carriers. Early in the Eisenhower the Navy was not yet ready to build nuclear carriers, so when President Eisenhower proposed the Atoms for Peace Program Hyman Rickover offered to build an experimental nuclear power plant based on the Navy carrier reactor design, but with low enriched fuel, rather than the highly enriched fuel. The beauty of the Rickover plan is that the Navy got a reactor it wanted to test for nothing while seemingly operating the test reactor as a peaceful atomic project.

While the Shippingport project probably proved useful to the Navy, it may have had a negative impact on the development of the Civilian nuclear industry. Everyone involved in reactor development understood that there were safety problems with the Light Water Reactor (LWR). The military realized that there were safety problems with its LWRs, but thought that it could solve those problems with careful designs, reactor operator training, and rule books that cover every possible aspect of reactor operation.

The Soviets did not take reactor safety seriously, used careless naval reactor designs, allowed untrained people operate its reactors, and had operation rule books that were no where as strict and comprehensive. The Soviets had far more accidents, and worse accidents, so the U.S. Navy's approach works, but the U.S. submarines were Cadillacs driven by engineers who followed precise rules, while the Soviet subs were probably cheaper to own and operate. Sure accidents in Soviet Subs would every now and then kill a member of the crew, but there were always plenty of farm boys who could take their place.

Unfortunately the Cadillac approach is required to keep the Light Water Reactor safe, so towards the Light Water Reactor safety ends up costing money, which the Civilian Nuclear Power industry has to pay. LWR operators are expensive to train, and everyone has to follow detailed rulebooks. All of which makes nuclear power expensive. Those expensive reactors frightened the public too. Of course, nuclear power while expensive, is not as expensive as making renewable generated electricity reliable. And a reliable no-nuclear, all renewable grid can be built with big enough subsidies, built that is, if society does not collapse under the weight of the subsidies to renewable power.

Edward Teller had a different approach to nuclear safety. He thought that reactors should b e buried deep underground and operate with out human intervention. That way if the reactor broke, you could throw in a few shovels of dirt, and that would be all it took to keep the reactor safe forever, or so Teller thought. Towards the end of his life, Teller realized that Alvin Weinberg's Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) was safe, and that if you built MSRs they would not have to be buried so deep in order to protect the public. The MSR was very stable, in fact so stable that no operators were required. Since the reactor core was a molten fluid, you did not have to worry about nuclear meltdown. Teller explained it all in his last paper, Thorium fueled underground power plant based on molten salt technology.

We don't have MSRs because the government preferred to subsidize a money pit called the Fast Breeder Reactor. People at ORNL knew that the MSR would be cheaper to develop, cheaper to build, and cheaper to operate. But the fast breeder was capable of producing bomb grade plutonium. Could the MSR be built without subsidies? Undoubtedly yes, it would be no more expensive develop than a modern large passenger jet is. It would probably be no more expensive to buy as well. A business would just have to be willing to take an unsubsidized risk.

Thus the statement

commercial nuclear power was a spinoff from weapons programs;

is undoubtedly true, but the statement

the civilian sector has served as a convenient avenue and cover for weapons programs

is quite problematic. Many of the dual purpose technologies proved quite useless for military purposes, and in other instances development of military technologies for civilian purposes proved quite expensive as well as militarily useless.

The claim that

By artificially accelerating the expansion of civilian programs, subsidies to nuclear technology and fuel-cycle services worldwide exacerbate the already challenging problems of weapons proliferation.

is more than questionable. The fact is that with the exception of India, nuclear power programs played no role in the development of nuclear weapons, and India should have never been excluded from the original nuclear arrangement. It is absurd to suggest that cost related to nuclear proliferation and its prevention somehow represent a subsidy to the nuclear power industry. The global spread of nuclear technology has not lead to nuclear proliferation. Most nations which have developed nuclear weapons without authorization by anti-proliferation treaties, have done so without possessing civilian nuclear power industries. Knowledge of nuclear weapons technology is sufficient to start a nuclear weapons program, and that knowledge can be found in physics and physics and engineering text books. South Africa demonstrated that a limited number of nuclear weapons could be built from scratch very cheaply. The nuclear proliferation problem will not go away, or lessen even if there are no civilian power reactors, as long as there are physic and engineering textbooks.

Koplow boasts of his many reviewers,

We are grateful to the following people for reviewing versions of this paper: Michele Boyd (Physicians for Social Responsibility), Peter Bradford (University of Vermont Law School), Simon Carroll (Swedish Biodiversity Centre and Member, Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board, UK), Mark Cooper (University of Vermont Law School), Robert Cowin (UCS), Antony Frogatt (Chatham House), Ken Green (American Enterprise Institute), Autumn Hanna (Taxpayers for Common Sense), Dusty Horwitt (Environmental Working Group), Stan Kaplan (U.S. Congressional Research Service), Amory Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institute), Ed Lyman (UCS), Arjun Makhijani (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research), Alan Nogee (UCS), Doug Norlen (Pacific Environment and ECA Watch), Marcus Peacock (Pew Charitable Trusts/Subsidyscope), Mycle Schneider (Mycle Schneider Consulting), Henry Sokolski (Nonproliferation Policy Education Project), Sharon Squassoni (Center for Strategic and International Studies), and Steve Thomas (University of Greenwich Business School).

Didn't one of them catch the erroneous linking of the nuclear proliferation problem and subsidies? Of course most of these reviewers are strident critics of nuclear power, who may be emotionally incapable of spotting logically fallacious anti-nuclear arguments.

Thus the marriage of military and civilian nuclear technology proved to be quite unsuccessful, and in cases where it worked, expensive. Reactors that are both cheaper and safer are possible, and without subsidies. What is required is some investors who are bold and imaginative enough to take some risks. Government subsidies to the nuclear power industry have been relatively small, and have not enhanced nuclear weapons programs. A civilian nuclear power industry might flourish if left to its own devices and if it were willing to take a risk on the molten salt nuclear technology developed in Oak Ridge.

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The nuclear proliferation through reactor fuel recycling canard

Alvin Weinberg once pointed out that nuclear

[p]roliferation has become a sort of ultimate Sword of Damocles that hangs over nuclear energy.

Nuclear non-proliferation is a poorly understood, but important factor in the future global energy picture, that taints the prospects for post carbon nuclear energy use, despite nuclear's cost and reliability advantages over renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Consideration of the nuclear post-carbon option is potentially important, because as Alvin Weinberg long ago pointed out,

a plausible case [exists] for two major theses:

1. That mankind must have an alternative, essentially inexhaustible energy source. From what we now know, this source must be nuclear.
2. That there probably are no insuperable global effects even if nuclear energy from fission breeders reaches 60 times the total energy man now produces.

Weinberg suggested

we would do well to contemplate the full implications of a complete commitment to nuclear energy.

The alternatives, as Weinberg saw them were "abundant energy" through nuclear power, and

force population control by tightening the Malthusian vise, by not holding out hope for this energy panacea

But do proliferation concerns really impose on us Weinberg's dilemma of "abundant energy" and nuclear proliferation or the "Malthusian vice"? really pose such a significant impediment

Perhaps the most significant mistake made by United States non-proliferation policy makers was the exclusion of India from the Nuclear club. This was part of an ultimately disastrous, pig-headed, anti-Indian cold war foreign policy, perused by the United States during the Cold War. India preferred to remain neutral in the United States, Russian conflict, and American foreign policy makers saw that Pakistan was willing to cut deals, so they chose an alliance with Pakistan over Indian good will. Pakistan in many respects was an undesirable Allie, which formed an second alliance with a then United States Enemy power, Communist China. Thus the United States had to look the other way while Pakistan and nuclear armed China, both of which had fought border wars with India, motivated by territorial greed. The Pakistan-China alliance, thus posed a significant threat to India, and that threat feed into Indian concerns which created an Indian motive for proliferation.

The 1971 Indo-Pakistan war was the trigger of both Pakistani and Indian nuclear proliferation programs. During the war, India succeeded in dismembering Pakistan, although much of the credit for the loss of the East Pakistani wind must go to the West Pakistani Muslim land owning elite, who in alliance with the West Pakistani dominated Pakistan Army sought to prevent the emergence a democratic state.

The Pakistan conflict with India has always been a diversion from the larger social and economic problems of the failed nation of Pakistan, and hides its weaknesses. The 1971 war demonstrated that in an all out military struggle with India, Pakistan could be destroyed. As a consequence the Pakistani Army chose nuclear weapons as their last line of defense. The 1974 Indian nuclear device test, was a response to the Pakistani nuclear weapons program and a warning to nuclear armed China to not assume a nuclear disarmed India in the event of another conflict between them. India had no reason to push the development of nuclear weapons until Pakistan began stockpiling theirs in the 1990's. Thus the nuclear arming of India can be seen as a response to the illicit activities of A.Q. Khan.

Academic theories of proliferation have focused far to much attention on supposed ties between civilian nuclear power program. These ties appear far more imaginary than real. India is the only nation which moved from an active civilian nuclear power program to a nuclear weapons program, but India is clearly a special case, and India's nuclear weapons program appears to be a response to the nuclear weapons program of Pakistan, a nation that did not have a prior civilian nuclear power program.

One would expect that research on proliferation prevention, would focus on the actual routes that nations have taken to develop nuclear weapons, with special attention being given to the paths chosen by nations which chose to defy the international effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. This is not the case, however. The Dean of academic proliferation researchers is Professor Frank N. von Hippel of Princeton University and former Assistant Director for National Security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. during the Clinton administration. Von Hippel whose theory rests on the assumption that nuclear weapons proliferation can be controlled by controlling the spread of fissile materials.

Here Von Hippel commits a seeming blunder, because he argues that the fissile materials present in "spent nuclear fuel" constitutes a proliferation danger. Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is far to dangerous because it leads to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, according to von Hippel. Von Hippel states that what makes nuclear fuel most dangerous

is the fact that reprocessing provides access to plutonium, a nuclear weapon material.

Since by now a far larger amount of Plutonium is tied up in once through unprocessed nuclear fuel, this would make managing the Spent Nuclear fuel supply an urgent task in the prevention of nuclear proliferation, but is it? Stephen Packard of Depleted Cranium appears to know something that Nuclear Proliferation expert Frank von Hippel doesn't, namely Why You Can’t Build a Bomb From Spent Fuel. I have on several occasions called attention to the work of nuclear disarmament expert Alexander DeVolpi, who challenged von Hippel's assumption that spent nuclear fuel is weaponizable. DeVolpi discussed the controversy at some length, and found significant flaws in von Hippel's arguments. Von Hippel, in no small measure based his case on a paper that that famed nuclear bomb designer J. Carson Marks had written on the explosive properties properties of reactor grade plutonium.

DeVolpi stated:

Mark wrote a paper, “Reactor-Grade Plutonium’s Explosive Properties,” a definitive description of the topic published in 1990 by the Nuclear Control Institute.[1] At the behest of the Department of Energy, a revised version, “Explosive Properties of Reactor-Grade Plutonium,” was published in a 1993 issue of Science and Global Security (Vol. 4, pp. 111-129), which includes an “Appendix: Probabilities of Different Yields” by Frank von Hippel and Edwin Lyman. [2]

It is instructive to compare the 1990 and 1993 papers which are essentially the same except for a curious, but important difference: Missing from the 1993 version is Mark’s carefully defined term “weapon” as “an object suitable for a stockpile by a military organization.” No explanation for this obvious and crucial omission is supplied with the published revision. My personal interviews and conversations with Mark before 1993 confirmed the intended significance of his 1990 definition.
While reprints of the 1993 paper designate J. Carson Mark as the sole author, the Princeton University website index for Science and Global Security credits the revised paper to “Mark, J.C., von Hippel, F.N., Lyman, E.” The revised version acknowledges that “This article is adapted from an earlier paper” (a reference back to Mark’s original 1990 article).

Von Hippel's whole case against nuclear reprocessing collapses, if reactor grade plutonium can not be used to construct a nuclear device that meet J. Carson Mark's definition of a "weapon."

DeVolpi makes the case that reactor grade plutonium is not weaponizable, and therefore von Hippel and his followers are barking up the wrong tree by trying reactor grade plutonium found in "nuclear waste" to proliferation issues.

If proliferation scholars like von Hippel focused their attention on real rather imaginary behavior, they would find strong support for DeVolpe's argument. No nation has ever undertaken the development of nuclear weapons that use reactor grade plutonium. Military grade plutonium is produced by two types of reactors, graphite reactors and heavy water reactors. India appears to have produced all of the plutonium used in their nuclear weapons in small, non-power producing reactors, despite the fact that they have much larger amounts of reactor grade plutonium available from their civilian power reactor program. Anyone who argues that reactor grade plutonium represents an acceptable material for weapons construction, must explain why India chose not to use it in its nuclear arms program.

There is something seriously wrong with intellectual endeavors related to human behavior that do not test theories by references to actual cases of behavior. Thus the reputation of von Hippel as a nuclear proliferation expert, rests on his conclusions drawn from never tested assumptions. When the von Hippel assumptions are tested by reference to actual cases of proliferation, they prove invalid. Thus to the extent that the current international proliferation prevention system is based on the work of von Hippel and like minded "non-proliferation experts," it cannot be assumed to have a valid, well researched theoretical basis.

The nuclear proliferation through reactor fuel recycling is thus a canard.

Nuclear Proliferation: Devices and Weapons

Discussions of nuclear proliferation are tainted by some fundamental problems. Some academic "nuclear proliferation experts" appear to be unable to distinguish between nuclear weapons and nuclear devices. There are important differences. A nuclear weapon is deliverable by military means. That is it is possible to place a nuclear weapon at a particular spot and at a particular time, with a reasonable assurance that it will do what it is intended to do. A weapon must be storable, without short term deterioration. Finally a weapon should not kill the people who manufacture or handel it primary to delivery. A nuclear device on the other hand may be too heavy to deliver by conventional military means. Thus a device can be designed with radiation shielding materials that would be too heavy to use in a conventional nuclear weapon. A device may be constructed from material that immediately begins to damage parts of the device. A device might require immediate use in order to be effective. A device could be constructed in a special laboratory, which could be equipped with expensive and difficult to design and manufacture equipment intended to protect workers from high levels of radiation from fissionable and associated materials. Thus a device could contain materials that would be considered militarily useless or worse in a weapon.

On July 23, 1953 Edward Teller wrote a letter to Sterling Cole, who was then the
Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy. Teller argued that there could be a

connection between power production and military application. . . . there is a great and increasing need for fissionable materials in the military field.

Teller suggested

It seems to be doubtful whether, on the basis of present technology, atomic energy can produce power in an economically profitable manner. Power production can, however, be conducted in such a manner as to produce militarily useful materials. It would seem to me reasonable to stimulate the construction of power-producing reactors by guaranteeing a price at which the Government will buy the militarily useful by-products. This price should of course be set lower than the price at which the Atomic Energy Commission is producing fissionable materials at the present time.

In fact both and Cole knew that this plan had not originated with Teller, in fact it had its origins in the United Kingdom. During the 1950's and 1960's the militant British Coal Miners Union, was a thorn in the flesh of the British Government, the British Economy, and the British public. Electrical power generation in the UK was dependent of coal mined by union miners, and thus the possibility existed that the British ability to generate electric power would be lost in the event of a long coal miners strike. Thus the British government proposed to build the Calder Hall Magnox Reactors the ability to generate electricity. The catch was that electricity produced by Calder Hall Magnox Reactors would be far more expensive than electricity produced by coal fired plants, but the British government had an answer to that. The real function of the Calder Hall reactors was the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons. Thus the British built a series of Magnox reactors for dual purpose use.

In October 1953, less than three months after the Teller letter to Cole, the British tested two devices made from some of the Calder Hall produced plutonium in a South Australian desert. The Totem devices both went off with quite a bang, but some thing about the test displeased the British mightily, for they never went through with their plan to weaponize Calder Hall Plutonium. These events have never been satisfactorily explained. In moderated reactors, if Uranium-238 absorbs a neutron, it is likely to be transformed into plutonium-239 rather than fission. Pu-239 is fissionable, but in moderated reactors 36% of the time Pu-239 undergoes transformation into Pu-240. Pu-249, like U-238 is not fissionable in moderated reactors.

Plutonium-240 does have one unusual quality. It undergoes spontaneous fission. Quite a lot of it as a matter of fact. Every pound of Pu-240 will produce something close to 200,000 fission events a second. And each fission event will produce neutrons, that can trigger fission in fissionable isotopes. Unlike U-235 and Pu-239, Pu-240 does not need to absorb a neutron prior to fission, and absorbing a thermal neutron does not trigger fission in a Pu-240 atom, which then becomes Pu-241. Pu-241 is fissionable in a moderated reactor.

A moderator is a material that, such as graphite, that decreases the energy level of neutrons. Moderators increase lower the criticality threshold of low enrichment nuclear fuel. With a graphite moderator it is possible to create a chain reaction in natural uranium. Since the first American reactors were built before the United States had the ability to produce enriched uranium, they had to use a moderator to create a chain reaction, and American reactor designers chose graphite. If a Neutron is absorbed by a U-235 atom, most of the time, the U-235 splits, and releases neutrons. If one or more of those neutrons is absorbed by U-235 atoms, we have a chain reaction. If a neutron is absorbed by a U-238 atom in a moderated reactor, the U-238 will undergo a nuclear transformation and become Plutonium-239. Now Pu-239 is fissionable, but it is more fissionable with fast neutrons, In a moderated reactor if a Pu-239 atoms absorbs neutrons, 64% split, and 36% become Pu-240.

For weapons designers, Pu-240 is a bad thing. If spontaneously fissioning Pu-240 is mixed with Pu-239, neutrons from the Pu-240, will start to trigger the fission of the Pu-239. If enough Pu-239 is precent, this can trigger a nuclear explosion, although one which might be of far less power than would be expected in an plutonium based nuclear weapon. In nuclear weapons the timing of the beginning of the nuclear explosion is very important. If the trigger goes off too soon, the explosion can loose most of its potential power.

If Pu-240 is present in a plutonium based bomb, its neutrons will trigger a premature explosion of a Plutonium based weapon, compromising its military effectiveness. The way weapons designers control this is to limit the mount of Pu-240 in nuclear weapons. Since 36% of Pu-239 will become Pu-240 in a moderated reactor, it is highly desirable to get it out of a moderated reactor almost as quickly as it is created. But power reactors need to be run very differently than weapons production reactors. A power reactor functions best when fuel is kept in the reactor as long as possible. This will produce Plutonium, but a mixed form of Plutonium called Reactor Grade Plutonium. RGP includes Pu-238, Pu-239, Pu-240 and Pu-241. From the weapons viewpoint this is very undesirable. In preparing Calder Hall plutonium for the Totem tests, the British pulled the nuclear fuel from the reactor quickly, and processed it. This lead to mix of about 90% Pu-239 and 10% Pu-240. The Totum experiment demonstrated that this a vigorous explosion could be produced with this Plutonium mix, but other results of the experiment proved less than satisfactory, and the British gave up the idea of using plutonium from the Calder Hall reactors to produce nuclear weapons.

The United States also ran a nuclear test with Calder Hall plutonium in 1962, probably with even less satisfactory results than the 1953 British experiments. In fact, by the mid 1960's the British thought the Calder Hall reactors were so useless for military purposes, that they declassified their plans, something they never would have done, if they believed that the Calder Hall could produce weapons useful Plutonium.

From the 1960's onward increasing amounts of discarded RGP, became available in both the West and in the Soviet Union, as a byproduct of civilian power reactors, yet no nation ever chose to weaponize RGP. Clearly then there are significant disadvantages to the use of RGP for weapons purposes. Some of these disadvantages are understood. Not only is a weapon built from RGP likely to be of limited explosive power, when compared with ordinary nuclear weapons, but heat and radiation from RGP are likely to damage the weapons triggering mechanism. Thus if kept on the shelf for too long, the RGP weapon is likely to disarm itself. How long is too long? it could be a period as short as a few days or even a few hours.

In addition there are the problems of building a nuclear weapon from highly radioactive materials like RGP.

It is possible for people in places like Los Alamos to design and build nuclear devices using "Reactor Grade Plutonium", and successfully trigger those devices. It does not appear possible to build triggerable nuclear weapons from RGP. Thus self styled academic nuclear experts who speek knowingly of nuclear proliferation using Reactor Grade Plutonium, simply don't know what they are talking about.

DV82XL on Proliferation II: Debates with Axil

I previously have called attention to views on nuclear proliferation offered by Axil and DV82XL. The initial views were expressed in a thread devoted to recent diplomacy directed toward an improved international anti-proliferation agreement. Comments at the end of this post come from another thread that was triggered by an Internet drive-by that occurred on the Discussion Forum. As the reader will quickly discover the discussion between Axil and DV82XL was quite lively and sometimes acrimonious.
DV62XL:

This is a subject that has always made me see red, I guess because coming from a nation that has a lively nuclear sector and doesn't have a weapons program, I can hardly believe it when my own countrymen blithely offer this worn out adage that nuclear power leads inevitably to nuclear weapons. I have had several very animated discussions on this subject over the years, to the point where now I can feel my long-suffering wife's stare boring into the back of my head from across a room full of people if the conversation strays into that territory.

What set me off was the unquestioned belief that India used their CANDU power reactors to breed Pu for their weapons program, and calls from Canadian antinuclear groups to stop export of this technology, claiming Canada was 'one of the worse proliferators on the planet'. Worse this lie about CANDUs was circulating outside Canada, and being repeated as an unquestioned truth.

The truth is that India used a pool type reactor based on AECL's NRU, with enriched uranium and heavy water from other sources to breed. And of course Canada cut all nuclear commerce with India after their first test, because the reactor had been sold with a no weapons clause that predated the NPT.

The unfortunate thing is this myth of nuclear energy being the handmaiden of nuclear weapons,not just in reference to Canada, but as a generally accepted truth has become so entrenched that it is now assumed to be a given even by most on the pronuclear side. What I try to show, (what I've tried to show in this thread) is that any critical examination of the available evidence shows that this is certainly not the case among the Secondary Nuclear States, and that the situation is a good deal more complex than many on both sides want to believe.

A State arming itself with nuclear weapons is not a trivial matter, not for the State in question, not for the rest of the world, consequently it cannot be addressed with trivial solutions.

----------------------

DV82XL wrote:

Axil wrote: In summary, the key advantage of the Thorium fuel cycle is that it allows for nuclear fuel breeding without the need to ever isolate a pure fissile bomb capable product to come into existence.

Would this work?

OK fine, we have a solution - to a problem that I have tried to show doesn't exist. In all honesty I have to ask if I have not make the point clear that the evidence indicates that proliferation is not driven by the adoption of nuclear power? That even if a proliferation-proof power generating technology were adopted, without the meaningful threat of military intervention, nations that want to, and are capable of mounting a weapons program will do so?

Events in the world have also moved past the point where it is possible to dictate terms on the use of nuclear energy, and at any rate as the clipping I posted up thread indicates, anti-proliferation is seen now more as an attempt by large nations to maintain hegemony by the size of their conventional forces.

I contend that efforts to control the technology or the traffic in materials, or the actions of sovereign nations within their own borders will fail unless backed up by force, and if this is the case it matters little what technology is being interdicted.

Can anyone show me why this is wrong?

Axil responded to DV82XL

In your version of the world, weapons proliferation is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. In your view, the real intent of the big 5, is to further their national interest in the maintenance of national power through an unspoken agenda of power projection. I personally have trouble addressing an argument on multiple levels especially when the motivation “the unspoken agenda” is a metaphysical musing that must be deduced to facilitate the formation of an opinion from an analysis of actions and reactions of geopolitical players that may or may not be true in a given point in history.

All this unspoken maneuvering is the stuff of conjecture and tremendously complicates and obscures the proliferation question. Keep things simple. Your argument is an exercise in a speculative projection of all the possible future outcomes that might occur derived from an opinion of the current state of history.

The golden rule of diplomacy is “Say what you mean and mean what you say.” I want to just address the “riddle” of weapons proliferation and leave the "mystery" and the "enigma" aspects of this question to the march of history. Solve one thing at a time; address the visible aspect of the problem, and wait for the invisible aspect to surface of its own accord and at its own pace.

DV82XL responded:

Axil wrote: In your version of the world, weapons proliferation is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. In your view, the real intent of the big 5, is to further their national interest in the maintenance of national power through an unspoken agenda of power projection. I personally have trouble addressing an argument on multiple levels especially when the motivation “the unspoken agenda” is a metaphysical musing that must be deduced to facilitate the formation of an opinion from an analysis of actions and reactions of geopolitical players that may or may not be true in a given point in history. [/quote]

There are no metaphysical musings involved in my arguments at all, and there is no mystery, I have not conjectured here, but shown that events have unfolded in such a way as to indicate clearly that generally accepted wisdom on proliferation is categorically wrong, and continuing to pursue policy based on it is counterproductive.

Frankly I don't see how any rational study of history can be anything but an analysis of actions and reactions of geopolitical players, or that ignoring these and depending on inductive analysis can yield better results. Herman Kahn, the most celebrated and controversial nuclear strategist of his day can be excused for taking this path, simply because there was no history to draw on. We need not take that route, we have half a century of experience behind us.

The fact is none of the scenarios predicting the proliferation made at that time has come to pass despite the almost laughably porous security of 'nuclear secrets' in West at least, and what amounts to open trade in uranium. This is a matter of record, not speculation.

The revised view, extended by people like Stuart Slade ex-RAND (you can find links to his seminal essay on this matter up thread) again supported by fact, and analysts like Mark Hibbs a twenty-year veteran writing for the Platts' publications [i]Nucleonics Week[/i] and[i] Nuclear Fuel[/i], (two publications with ultra-high subscription rates and correspondingly low circulations), have shown that events have unfolded very differently. To ignore these observations and cling to old shibboleths does not advance the cause of nuclear power or nuclear disarmament.

Axil wrote: All this unspoken maneuvering is the stuff of conjecture and tremendously complicates and obscures the proliferation question. Keep things simple. Your argument is an exercise in a speculative projection of all the possible future outcomes that might occur derived from an opinion of the current state of history.

Rubbish. The proliferation issue is not a theoretical exercise, it is a practical one that is playing out in real-time as we debate. It cannot be simplified anymore than prosecution of any conflict between nations can, where this the case the Middle East would be at peace, Africa wouldn't still be in the Dark Ages, and the two Koreas would have a open border. Simple answers to big geopolitical issues belong in pubs after several beers, not in any rational debate.

As far as making speculative projections, I have limited myself to reporting fact and avoiding opinion as much as possible, at least on the subject of proliferation, if there is any speculation being done in that area it is implied. Again, if we cannot make objective predictions of possible future outcomes based on the current state of history what is left?

Axil wrote: The golden rule of diplomacy is “Say what you mean and mean what you say.” I want to just address the “riddle” of weapons proliferation and leave the "mystery" and the "enigma" aspects of this question to the march of history. Solve one thing at a time; address the visible aspect of the problem, and wait for the invisible aspect to surface of its own accord and at its own pace.

Well good luck with that although for the life of me I cannot see, based on what is actually happening and the dynamics at work, that this issue is can be solved with that approach. To reiterate, facts show that nuclear power has not contributed to the problem to the degree that the antinuclear community or the disarmament community is convinced it has.

To address my contentions, to make me see that this route of passing international law and mandating only certain power generating technologies will have an impact on this issue, you have to show where my facts are in error, and others exist to support your position.

I'm afraid you haven't done that here,

Axil wrote in response:

DV82XL wrote:To address my contentions, to make me see that this route of passing international law and mandating only certain power generating technologies will have an impact on this issue, you have to show where my facts are in error, and others exist to support your position.

Under your view of the world, the realistic and prevailing view, you always assume the worse case when an unfriendly country undertakes any nuclear project.

In Iran, legal and NPT authorized uranium fuel reprocessing could lead to weapons development, so impose global economy killing sanctions.

No country can have Highly Enriched Uranium because that is a bomb waiting to happen so abolish HEU.

If Syria buys a reactor, bomb it, because this reactor may eventually be used for bomb production.

Only the big 5 can have the power, the ultimate defense.

If Iraq just says it has the ability to produce a weapon it is invaded even though absolutely no weapons capability is subsequently found; even when international inspectors continually and confidently assert that no nuclear capability was possible. Destroy the country in the off chance that it might some day decide to go nuclear.

It is preferable to supply the nations of the world both friends and foes with a trusted nuclear technology that can be deployed without assuming the absolute worse case vis'-à-vis' unfriendly country or a friendly country that may someday go rogue and turn into a foe; a technology that won’t be bombed, or result in sanctions, or cause an invasion.

If such a technology can be fashioned, it won’t stop the possibility of weapons production; but it would be a good first step in the right direction. It might not clean the evil from the hearts of men, but at least it will allow nuclear power to expand in an equable and fair handed way throughout the world. It might stop the sanctions, the bombings and the invasions, which would be a small step in the right direction.

DV82XL wrote:

Axil wrote: Under your view of the world, the realistic and prevailing view, you always assume the worse case when an unfriendly country undertakes any nuclear project.

No, if you look back on what I have written I have on more than one occasion stated that the expense of a nuclear weapons program is such that no country embarks on one without solid reasons. This is just the opposite to the standard view that access to any uncontrolled nuclear technology will inevitably lead to bomb-making.

Axil wrote: In Iran, legal and NPT authorized uranium fuel reprocessing could lead to weapons development, so impose global economy killing sanctions.

Again that is a restatement of the standard position, which I do not support. I have pointed out that Iran continues to work on enrichment despite the imposition of sanctions, indicating that this method is ineffectual, and not likely to generate the mood of trust that would make Iran feel they need not have nuclear weapons.

Axil wrote: No country can have Highly Enriched Uranium because that is a bomb waiting to happen so abolish HEU.

Categorically not, in fact this whole thread started because I objected to plans by the Conference on Disarmament to suggest a full ban on production of highly enriched uranium. If you look back you will see that I object to this because it means the end of the possibility of small reactors.

Axil wrote: If Syria buys a reactor, bomb it, because this reactor may eventually be used for bomb production.[

I don't like it, I don't even agree with it, but it would seem that this is the only effective way to interdict. Sanctions applied to India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea, have been abject failures.

This being the case there is no need for regulations that will limit the [i]legitimate[/i] use fissile materials. As Jaro pointed out not permitting Canada to buy HEU for commercial isotope production due to fears about proliferation is ludicrous.

Axil wrote: Only the big 5 can have the power, the ultimate defense.

That seems to the position of the NPT, is it not? I am no fan of that treaty to begin with and I'm not supporting it per se, I'm only saying that it cannot be strengthened by imposing more restrictions on [i]compliant states[/i] which seems to be what the Conference on Disarmament wants to do.

Axil wrote: If Iraq just says it has the ability to produce a weapon it is invaded even though absolutely no weapons capability is subsequently found; even when international inspectors continually and confidently assert that no nuclear capability was possible. Destroy the country in the off chance that it might some day decide to go nuclear.

First it is naïve in the extreme to believe that Iraq was not developing nuclear weapons, in fact given their current position they would have been stupid not to. Nevertheless [b]IF[/b] a decision was made to put a halt to their efforts, it is clear that sanctions did not work. Now I think they would only keep an arsenal as a defensive deterrent, but it would seem others do not, so what other options are there? You seem to be suggesting that should they have had proliferation-proof reactors all would be well. I'm saying that wouldn't change their conceived need of nuclear weapons, and we are back to square one.

Axil wrote: It is preferable to supply the nations of the world both friends and foes with a trusted nuclear technology that can be deployed without assuming the absolute worse case vis'-à-vis' unfriendly country or a friendly country that may someday go rogue and turn into a foe; a technology that won’t be bombed, or result in sanctions, or cause an invasion.

If such a technology can be fashioned, it won’t stop the possibility of weapons production; but it would be a good first step in the right direction. It might not clean the evil from the hearts of men, but at least it will allow nuclear power to expand in an equable and fair handed way throughout the world. It might stop the sanctions, the bombings and the invasions, which would be a small step in the right direction.

Well obviously I don't share your idealism. I believe I have shown that it is not the retasking of nuclear power technology which enables weapon production to begin with, so I cannot see that your prescription will have any real impact on the issue.

---------------------------------------------
In another thread the discussions turned to the anti-proliferation concerns of policy makers.

Dv82XL wrote

The only concern that policy-makers have is getting re-elected. To that end they need money and votes.

They get wads of money from fossil-fuel interests who are not likely to see any good from any nuclear powered future for themselves. They get voyes from a population that is by in large ignorant of the ins and outs of nuclear energy.

Our side can't afford to buy politicians, but we can outreach to the public. But not the public represented by the Greens because they will never be converted to nuclear energy because they want to see less energy usage not more. We have to get the message to the others, the ones that want to see progress, but understand that the current supplies of energy are not going to get us there. They are the only ones that can put enough pressure on the government to change.

But you can't do this by pandering to irrational fear. I said it up thread, and I will say it again: dwelling on this issue plays right into the hand of our opponents by giving it the cachet of legitimacy. They are going to take it and drive it right up our rear-ends, because you just can't make these guarantees, and they know it.

Nuclear energy has beaten itself up for the past thirty years because the geeks and nerds can't get it through their heads you can't fight rhetoric with reason unless you have the masses behind you. And we're not going to get them dancing to the tune of of our opponents.

We will not 'end up doing trade-off studies' anymore than they did it for wind and solar that are getting their way right now. That's because this is a game with winners and losers, not right and wrong.

-----------------------------------------
Axil wrote

Enforcement is the key to eliminating proliferation; strict, uncompromising, ever vigilant, air tight enforcement.

DV82XL responded

"If the Dutch put A. Q. Khan is jail for life when he first showed sighs of rogue behavior, no proliferation in Iran, North Korea, and Libya would have resulted. THEY could have snatched him out of Pakistan on a Rendition. They could have done the same thing with his European supply network operatives.

These people are terrorists in the worst sense of the word. There should be no duel use excuse for selling enrichment equipment.

You have stopped making any sort of sense. Stand back and take a deep breath.

You say:[i]"Enforcement is the key to eliminating proliferation; strict, uncompromising, ever vigilant, air tight enforcement.[/i]

I agree. Now if this were possible, if this was the certain outcome every time someone tried to make a nuclear weapon, or even as A. Q. Khan did in the Netherlands, write his own government volunteering his services after the Indian test. If this person was thrown in jail for life, and the world was OK with these sorts of draconian measures, I ask the question: why would you need proliferation proof reactors?

Axil wrote

The inability to control nuclear technology leads many policy-makers to desire its elimination.

DV82XL responded

Nuclear technologists need to give them better tools to make control possible.

Even if this was true - and it is not - you still haven't given them the means to stop someone else from using other technologies in another country have you?

Axil wrote

"…..I agree. Now if this were possible,"

I see the anti-proliferation effort as a product of both enforcement and anti-proliferation technology. If one is strong the other can be weak. But both cannot be weak.

Since enforcement has been oftentimes weak in the past, anti-proliferation technology must be correspondingly strong.

Like money in the bank, if the police are lax and corrupt, the safe in the bank must be strong. But if the police always get their man, then there is no need for a bank vault.

If neither the police are effective nor the bank has a good vault, you will be well advised to keep your money under your mattress. Kill the uranium fuel cycle and replace it with the thorium fuel cycle.

In terms of enforcement, you remember the case of the spies Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg. If life terms were dispensed to the proliferators, there would be a decidedly deterrent effect to counter the proliferation profit motive. People would think twice before they risk the consequence of making a quick profit on proliferation. They might think about robbing banks instead.

"Even if this was true - and it is not - you still haven't given them the means to stop someone else from using other technologies in another country have you?"

You kill those other technologies the best that you can and provide a proliferation proof technology in its place so that at the end of the day all nuclear power throughout the world is highly proliferation resistant.

You kill the uranium fuel cycle and replace it with the thorium fuel cycle.

------------------------------
DV82XL wrote

"It is ironic in a thread devoted to ridiculing a demagogue from the antinuclear side I find myself arguing with a demagogue from the pronuclear side."

Axil -

You are demonstrating that you have absolutely no understanding of realpolitik, or awareness of current events, or recent history.

You are on a crusade based on faith, faith that your way will lead to the outcome you desire and nothing - certainly not fact or reason - will dissuade you from this path. Unfortunately you and those that agree with you, blinkered campaign to apply your solution to this issue will not only end in bitter failure, but will be likely used as an argument against the very thing you desire.

Years of watching the broader nuclear debate has made one thing crystal clear to me: the antinuclear movement in all its various denominations is by several orders of magnitude, better at influencing popular attitudes and social behavior on a large scale, framing, propaganda, public relations and every other aspect of social engineering.

[color=#FF0080]Until we come to grips with the fact that all of the 'problems' with nuclear power are just bait that the other side is using to get us to fight on ground of their choosing and that they have framed these issues in such a manner that they can claim they cannot be solved to their satisfaction, we are going find ourselves working against our own cause.[/color]

Being right just isn't enough.

Now obviously I have not made any inroads here on this board convincing anyone that proliferation is not a thorium issue and not a MSR issue in any meaningful way, so I will leave you to polish this idea to your hearts content, but I am not going to waste anymore time on this topic.

I have refrained from taking sides in this debate, but I have noted that nuclear technology that already is regarded as "proliferation resistant" should not be crippled by unrealistic anti-proliferation concerns. Sophisticated nuclear technology that is designed, built and deployed in the United States is not going to contribute in any meaningful way to a North Korean Nuclear Weapons program. Proliferation becomes a concern only if nuclear technology is sold to nations that are not nuclear capable. I am also in agreement with DV82XL that would be proliferators should be assumed to be motivated by rational concerns.

DV82XL On Nuclear Proliferation I

DV82XL is another outstanding participant in the EfT Discussion Forum debate on nuclear proliferation/non-proliferation. I have already recorded Axil's views. DV82XL has taken strong exception to Axil's views.

The current round of debate began when DV82XL commented on new anti-proliferation negoruations:

Arms body breaks 12 years of deadlock on nukes
The 65-nation Conference on Disarmament broke a dozen years of deadlock Friday and opened the way to negotiate a new nuclear arms control treaty.....a top candidate for a new treaty is one to ban production of so-called "fissile materials" — highly enriched uranium and plutonium — needed to create atomic weapons

.http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iG7WhUdeF49qBeiz4r7im3oF04aAD98G1V3G1

I can't see much good coming out of that idea.

Kirk Sorensen commented:

This will be used to attempt to prevent the creation and use of U-233, thus slowing the development of LFTR, thus leading to more and bloody wars over energy.,

DV82XL responded:

Of course this is what it is all about, not just for LFTR but any of the several small reactor designs that hope to use HEU fuel, and it will probably put hobbles on reprocessing as well.

After twelve years one has to ask why suddenly this idea shows up out of nowhere, and the unfortunate truth is it looks like someone dropped this in with the objective of making life difficult for nuclear energy more than any practical insinuative to reduce nuclear weapons. I mean really most of tyhe big players have more weapons-grade PU than they know what to do with. How is this going to shrink their arsenals?

Axil commented:

]In order to entice non unclear nations to abide by these restrictions, these nations are provided nuclear fuel or even small sealed reactors at no or low cost in exchange for spent fuel or decommissioned small reactors. This is guarantied to all signatories to the non proliferation treaty by an international fuel agency that can not use access to nuclear power as leverage in political situations.

DV82XL responded

Ya right.

I mean the NPT provided for technology transfer too, and access to fuel among its litany of failed clauses, why is it going to be any different this time?

And as for an 'international fuel agency that can not use access to nuclear power as leverage in political situations' I take it you mean some organization like the IMF, which was supposed be the same thing for money. Their record as an apolitical player is well documented...not! There are several Third-World countries in penury because of the 'unbiased' attention of that agency.

The day that any international trafficking in energy is not used as diplomatic chip is not coming soon.

DV82XL argued:

Nuclear weapons are not going away, and those that own them are not going to give them up. This is a given and any realistic look at the situation yields that conclusion. Nor, at this point, is any nuclear power nation going to place their energy security in the hands of some international body that they don't control outright making the whole plan a transparent farce from the outset. As was said previously at best this is a bald attempt to deny an other nation the right to enrich or reprocess nuclear fuel and this can only have a chilling effect on the growth of nuclear energy should it be adopted. I still think this is the real purpose of this plan, because it has come out of left field at a very opportune time on the heels of the DPRK's latest test. The whole thing smells contrived.

DV82XL observed:

We have got to get rid of this simplistic idea that if this technology isn't controlled nations will be 'tempted' to make nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapons program is a unbelievably expensive undertaking ("we were eating grass" as they said in Pakistan) and no nation decides to engage in such a project lightly.

It is a misnomer to talk about nuclear weapons as “weapons” in any meaningful sense. When a country first acquires nuclear weapons it does so out of a very accurate perception that possession fundamentally changes it relationships with other powers. What nuclear weapons buy is the fact that once the country in question has nuclear weapons, it cannot be beaten - it can be defeated, that is it can be prevented from achieving certain goals or stopped from following certain courses of action - but it cannot be beaten. It will never have enemy tanks moving down the streets of its capital, it will never have its national treasures looted and its citizens forced into servitude. The enemy will be destroyed by nuclear attack first. A potential enemy knows that so will not push the situation. The effect of acquiring nuclear weapons is that the owning country has drawn a line in the sand in any conflict in which it is involved.

When 181 nations signed the 1968 NPT they thought they were taking the first step toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. In short, they took the Treaty seriously. Article VI of the NPT, for instance, states: “Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measure relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international controls.”

This was the heart of the NPT. The smaller countries agreed to forgo nuclear weapons only because the nuclear powers agreed to scrap theirs and, further, disarm their conventional forces. Instead, the Big Five increased the number of warheads in their arsenals and raised their military budgets.

Finally, they have invaded non-nuclear countries such as Iraq, and Afghanistan among others. Then in 2006, former French President Jacques Chirac warned “states who would use terrorist means” risk a “measured” response, but “of a different kind,” and it was clear from the context that he meant by nuclear weapons.

As long as the great powers maintain the ability to invade countries, overthrow regimes, and bomb nations into subservience, weaker countries will inevitably try to offset those advantages. The quickest and cheapest way to do that is to develop nuclear weapons.

In simple terms nuclear weapons will not disappear until the weak need no longer fear the strong. Sanctimoniously trying to prevent small nations from doing so by what amounts to controlled market operations, is laughably infective and will only have the effect of limiting the adoption of clean nuclear energy, without making the world one wit safer.

Clearly this current idea that the processing of fissionable material could be controlled will have more of an impact on the growth of nuclear power. It will do nothing to inhibit any minor Power that feels threatened enough to build weapons.

-------------------

Nuclear energy is in and of itself, not a proliferation risk. No more than a fertilizer production industry necessarily means that a nation also has artillery shell industry. The conceived need for the latter, does not depend on the existence of the former, which is in essence what is implied by this scheme under discussion.

Within that context, no thorium based alternative is going get any traction, because one is still left with the problem of enforcing controls against uranium based activities inside a sovereign country, which is the issue right now with stopping a nation from mounting a nuclear weapons program.

Ultimately, the only effective measures that can be taken are those that the Israelis have on those occasions when they wished to stop the development of nuclear weapons in a perceived enemy: military intervention. The only way any plan to stop the spread of nuclear weapons can be effective is by enforcing it by the projection of might and once that has been decided it matters little what nuclear power technology is being forbidden.

Furthermore I am saying that this move to to ban production of fissile materials is a naïve idea that is being pushed for secondary reasons, because it also implies surrendering energy security to some extranational body, which is unlikely to meet the realities of domestic realpolitik in any independent country. Therefor I am drawing the conclusion that this idea has been put forward more to inhibit the adoption of nuclear energy than prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons, which at any rate it will not.

In responce to "arcs_n_sparks" DV82XL wrote:

Why am I having a hard time getting the point across that no country has ever proceeded with a nuclear weapons program, just because it was able to? There has to be a really strong perceived need for this capability, that when present is enough to carry the task through as much international pressure as can be applied short of military.

Look at those countries that have acquired the Bomb after the US did, even England and France were under a great deal of pressure not to arm, but did so despite both being very economically and politically in debt to the US at the time, and both were rebuilding after having been damned near burnt to the ground. Much of the friction between DeGaul and the Americans was rooted in the French pursuing nuclear weapons against American pressure not to.

Israel and South Africa mounted programs because they recognized they were vulnerable to invasion, India needed a deterrent against Chinese incursions into Kashmir and to draw a line in the sand with Pakistan, who in turn looked at India to the East, Communists to the North, and Fundamentalists to the West and knew their armed forces could not successfully defend the country with conventional weapons alone. All of these States faced sanctions, that truly hurt domestically, India in particular was desperate for more nuclear energy, and found itself cut off from the world in this matter at a very critical time. Even North Korea's program is motivated more by fear than by self aggrandizement, irregardless of propaganda to the contrary.

Meanwhile countries like Canada, Japan, Germany, Brazil, South Korea could build a deliverable weapon inside a year should they want to, and Australia, and several European nations could mount programs which could do the same within five if pushed, yet they don't. Even South Africa dismantled their weapons as soon as the threat diminished. The reason is because this is a cripplingly expensive capability to acquire and maintain and no nation will do so without its back to the wall. Even the Big Five are effected by this and most of the push for nuclear arms reduction is motivated by financial pressure more than ideological.

The point here is that the pursuit of these programs, if there is a perceived need, will be carried out with or without the existence of proliferation proof reactors. A.Q. Khan did not depend on the domestic nuclear program, its two nuclear power reactors were under international safeguards during the time Khan was building Pakistan's weapon capability. Had those two power reactors been replaced with nice sealed proliferation proof nuclear batteries fueled on thorium the impact on Khan's effort would have been nil.

To recap: So far none of the countries "illegally" producing their own nuclear weapons to date have given one wit about international sanctions; none of them have leveraged their nuclear power sectors in any meaningful way; and all of them were driven by extreme geopolitical pressure in their perceived need for a N-weapon capability. As I pointed out up thread the only successful interdictions to date were by destroying the physical plants, and as far as I can see this will remain the only sure way to accomplish this end in the future. If anything proliferation proof nuclear reactors will only serve as an excuse not to monitor countries.

This whole idea that proliferation is some sort of accident waiting to happen, and that unchecked will lead to a domino effect is pure fantasy based on the overactive imaginations of Cold War strategists like Herman Kahn who were working in a vacuum. Events, real events on the ground have proven their theories short-sighted, and they should not be applied to the current situation. It is time to re-evaluate the whole foundation of proliferation risk based on historical fact rather than inductive reasoning.

DV82XL responded to an argument by "jaro":

[We could} assumes that just the availability of HEU would be an overwhelming temptation for some random Third-World nation to start fabricating N-weapons. This is just too simplistic a view of the whole issue of what motivates a country to obtain an N-weapon capability. It presumes that the nation in question is going to treat the acquisition of this capability as lightly as they would any other item of military hardware. Worse, coming from this forum, it trivializes the other technical challenges of making a reliable, deliverable, device. Much of this thinking is a product of Cold War thinking that itself was based on assumptions that events have proven to be false.

In short, no country has shown any signs of working towards making a nuclear arsenal unless they feel that their very existence is threatened, but once that determination has been made, nothing that the international community can do, short of military action can stop them from getting one.

Hand wringing inside and outside of the pronuclear power community on the issue of weapons proliferation seems to be locked in theories first put forward in the 1960's which events since that time has proven wrong. If you recall, it was assumed by those theories there would be more than a dozen new nuclear weapons States by the turn of the century - is is obviously just not so. Even if the question of suppling weapon-grade fissile material is removed, it still requires a sizable technological infrastructure and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars to make a weapon. The costs of a more ambitious program aimed at producing a militarily significant number of weapons can easily run into the billions of dollars, and the idea that such a project could be carried out by surreptitiously stripping power reactors of their fuel belongs in pulp novels, not in any rational discussion of the issue.

-------------------

The fact remains that despite this popular view of what will happen, and a strong belief that it would in the anti-proliferation community, the truth, born out by by examining events of the last thirty years, is that it hasn't turned out that way. That's the point I have been trying to make in this thread. Proliferation myths, like most of the nuclear mythos that grew as a consequence of a mix of ignorance, inexperience and Cold War propaganda, has been shown to be false. Continuing to expect policy to follow those falsehoods is ineffectual at best and counterproductive at worst.

However you do obliquely bring up another point. Most if not all the public concern over the acquisition of nuclear weapons by other nations is centered on the belief that they would see that the best way to deploy them would be on ICBMs or some other long-range delivery system so as to threaten the Great Powers. However, (again looking at facts on the ground) if one examines the stated or unstated (but widely understood) nuclear doctrines of the secondary nuclear States, one finds that nuclear weapons are to be deployed as tactical weapons to meet strategic ends. These weapons are meant as defensive assets, to be used against masses of armor crossing one's border, or a fleet of warships threatening one's littoral zones. While that reduces the need for complex long-range delivery systems, it does not mean stockpiling an effective, reliable deterrent is a trivial, or inexpensive undertaking.

Again I suggest in the strongest possible terms that we do not oversimplify the issue. This will only lead to the belief that there are simple solutions, and that unfortunately is just not the case. Worse, pursuing simple solutions can only have a deleterious impact on the deployment of nuclear energy to those places most desperately in need of it, without improving security in any meaningful way.

DV82XL argued that would be proliferators have rational motives:

We have to be very careful about declaring any international player's motivations irrational.

North Korea has gained much from their program in the way of concessions that they probably wouldn't have got otherwise. Since the fall of Communism in China and Russia the attitude of all the previous stakeholders has been to starve NK into submission by neglect. By embarking on the pursuit of nuclear weapons Kim Jong Il has made his nation impossible to ignore, and has basically been paid-off after every display. Off-hand one could say it is one of the more successful uses of nuclear weapons since the Americans ended the war with Japan.

Quoting, this time verbatim, from Stuart Slade's, [i]The Nuclear Game - An Essay on Nuclear Policy Making: [/i]

"...the direct effects of nuclear weapons in a nation's hands is to make that nation extremely cautious. They spend much time studying situations, working out the implications of such situations, what the likely results of certain policy options are. ...Aha, I hear you say what about the mad dictator? Its interesting to note that mad, homicidal aggressive dictators tend to turn into tame sane cautious ones as soon as they split atoms. Whatever their motivations and intents, the mechanics of how nuclear weapons work dictate that mad dictators become sane dictators very quickly. After all its not much fun dictating if one's country is a radioactive trash pile and you're one of the ashes. China, India and Pakistan are good examples. One of the best examples of this process at work is Mao Tse Tung. Throughout the 1950s he was extraordinarily bellicose and repeatedly tried to bully, cajole or trick Khruschev and his successors into initiating a nuclear exchange with the US on the grounds that world communism would rise from the ashes. Thats what Quemoy and Matsu were all about in the late 1950s. Then China got nuclear weapons. Have you noticed how reticent they are with them? Its sunk in. They can be totally destroyed; will be totally destroyed; in the event of an exchange."

Again it is overly simplistic to think that leaders like Kim Jong Il or the Ayatollahs work in a vacuum, and if one individual doesn't understand the implications of holding nuclear weapons, others do. The fact remains we have yet to see a "madman with an A-bomb" show up outside of pulp fiction, nor are we likely to.

More to come.

AXIL on Controlling Nuclear Proliferation

The discussion on the Energy from Thorium Discussion Forum is beginning to become an important contribution to the current discussion of energy on the Internet. Many of the discussions conducted on the Energy from Thorium Discussion Forum pages are conducted at a very high level, and worthy of being known outside the small EfT circle. This is most certainly the case for the currently excellent discussion of Nuclear Proliferation control issues.Since I have a blanket permission from AXIL to use his comments in my posts I will offer some quotes from his comments to illustrate why readers who are aware of the importance of the proliferation issue in the future of world energy should read this discussion.

Axil wrote:

In a nut shell, what Holden and his associates in the administration want to keep out of the hands of the proverbial rogue nation is highly enriched uranium, plutonium, reprocessing and enrichment.

In order to entice non-nuclear nations to abide by these restrictions, these nations are provided nuclear fuel or even small sealed reactors at no or low cost in exchange for spent fuel or decommissioned small reactors. This is guaranteed to all signatories to the non proliferation treaty by an international fuel agency that can not use access to nuclear power as leverage in political situations.

The goal is to remove the need for the rogue nation from developing a nuclear infrastructure and a large trained nuclear work force that could be used to develop nuclear weapons on the side and in the dark of night.

By so decoupling nuclear power from the ability to produce nuclear weapons, any nation that persists in acquiring and independent nuclear capability must by doing it to develop nuclear weapons.

---------------------------

The NPT was conceived during the cold war. The current cooperation between the nuclear powers including Russia is a powerful facilitator to the internationalization of nuclear power.

One of the rights that a signatory nation currently has is the right to enrich Uranium. The US wants to remove this ability from the NPT participants. As a participant of the NPT, Iran has the right to enrich uranium. Iran has taught the US some lessons about the shortcomings of the existing NPT.

This current thinking on nuclear power still divides the world into nations that are fully nuclear capable and those that are not; this could be a fatal flaw in the new international fuel strategy.

Let us hope that the first world has matured and can control their use of power at least in regards to the international use of nuclear fuel. The main question is as follows: “are the current nuclear powers willing to cede their monopoly of nuclear power to the rest of the world”? The alternative is that tens of nations could produce bomb grade material and have the knowhow to construct a device with the number increasing each year.

Solving this dilemma is and important step in combating global warming.

------------------------------

Thorium breeding is the possible technical solution to the nuclear proliferation dilemma as follows.

Uranium use would be phased out along with it associated fuel reprocessing or enrichment.

If nuclear power production is decoupled from nuclear weapons production by eliminating the uranium fuel cycle and uranium mining, reprocessing and enrichment, this would free nuclear power to grow unimpeded by proliferation fears.

Besides making the production of a plutonium bomb far more difficult, weapons would have nothing to do with nuclear power. Thorium would be the nuclear power paradigm. Uranium would be the nuclear weapons paradigm.

The technical challenge is to make thorium fuel in the form of pebbles near proliferation proof.

If a nation runs a thorium once through deep burn (<90%)> A blanket pebble is a ceramic coated graphite ball containing only a small amount of fertile thorium each. They are breed to contain fissile U233 in the blanket region of the reactor to form seed pebbles which support the nuclear reaction. The blanket pebbles can be spiked with Th230 to produce additional U232. The U233 content can also be easily denatured by dumping in some U238 (20%) to denature the thorium is the blanket pebbles. There is no such process available for denaturing plutonium..

A large number of seed pebbles (in the hundreds of thousands) would be required to construct a nuclear device enabled through U233 enrichment. Even a diversion of a small number of seed pebbles would cause a subcritical shut down the reactor. Reprocessing/enriching of U233 does not currently exit and would require a huge research and deployment effort by the proliferator.

Very little or a trace amount of PU239 (.001 of the amount contained in LWR waste) is present in the spent pebbles and the Pu238 would make it difficult for weapons construction.

The waste in the pebbles would be short lived (cooled in a few hundred years) and not capable of use in weapons development at any stage. The most long lived waste would be carbon 14 which can be sequestered by absorption in certain minerals at the bottom of a bore hole. Would this work?

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If nuclear power production is decoupled from nuclear weapons production by eliminating the uranium fuel cycle and uranium mining, reprocessing and enrichment, this would free nuclear power to grow unimpeded by proliferation fears.

Besides making the production of a plutonium bomb far more difficult, weapons would have nothing to do with nuclear power. Thorium would be the nuclear power paradigm. Uranium would be the nuclear weapons paradigm.

The only thing remaining is to make the seed thorium pebbles near proliferation proof; simple.

As I indicated there are other, equally worthwhile comments that I do not have permission to quote.

John Holdren curious statement on nuclear power

During an April 30th Keynote speech to the 34th Annual Forum on Science and Technology Policy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Presidential science advisot John Holdren made the following statement:

If nuclear energy is to make a big dent globally, then we're going to have to be attentive to breaking the linkages between nuclear energy technology and nuclear weapons technology, and I think the administration will be attentive to how we can do that, as well."

This statement is curious because it seems to suggest Mr. Holdren believes two things that are not obviously matters of fact. First there is the assertion that there is a linkage between nuclear energy technology and nuclear weapons technology that American policy seeks to break, it is not clear however what Dr. Holdren thinks that linkage is. For example in 1997 Dr Holdren wrote:

[Because] the isotopics are different, weapons using this plutonium would have to be redesigned, which would require nuclear tests. That means the path to reuse of spent fuel would be more difficult technically and politically — as well as easier to detect — than reusing weapons plutonium extracted from glass.

This statement would tend to suggest a view that in the absence of bomb tests it would not be possible to build reliable nuclear weapons with reactor grade plutonium without bomb tests that could be detected. In the absence of such tests, it would appear that there would be no link between nuclear energy technology and nuclear weapons technology, since plutonium produced by civilian nuclear energy technology does not meet minimal standards for nuclear weapons technology.

The second curious aspect of this statement is that the postulates link is stipulated to effect global deployment of nuclear energy because this is United States policy. This smacks of the sort of unilateralism that damaged American foreign police during the last administration. i seriously doubt that the United States has the power to enforce its non-proliferation ploicy on Russia, China and India. Widespread deployment of nuclear energy technology is a matter of certainty regardless of Ameerican ploicy regarding nuclear proliferation,

What i find disturbing is that Holdern appears to be taking a position about link between nuclear energy technology and nuclear weapons technology that seems to contradict his own previously stated view. Further he seems to be offering an American policy towards large scale global nuclear deployment that appears to suggest that he believes that American views on proliferation will automatically prevail over the views of other countries.

Al Gore's poorly informed account of nuclear proliferation

Axil wrote:

You say we need to challenge the argument that current technology would lead to nuclear proliferation.

Al Gore has recently said “Whatever countries such as the US and the UK do, it will have a demonstration effect for the rest of the world. As the world comes to grips with how to solve the climate crisis, we in the US and the UK have a leadership role. If we told the rest of the world that nuclear is the answer [they would follow]. For the eight years that I spent in the White House every nuclear weapons proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a reactor programme. People have said for years that there are now completely different [nuclear] technologies. OK, but if you have a team of scientists that can build a reactor, and you're a dictator, you can make them work at night to build a nuclear weapon. That's what's happened in North Korea and Iran. And in Libya before they gave it up. So the idea of, say, Chad, Burma, and Sudan having lots of nuclear reactors is insane and it's not going to happen.”

This guy has won a Noble prize. His opinion was officially ratified and affirmed by the world. He told Obama to hire Chu. Chu is loath to offend his good friend: Gore. . How do you fight this? I am groping here.

The only thing that might do the trick is a full proof device. It may well be vaporware now, but the argument may need to be made.

Al Gore's argument that "every nuclear weapons proliferation problem we dealt with (during the Clinton administration) was connected to a reactor programme" is absurd. Iran's nuclear technology did not originate from an Iranian reactor. Nor was Pakistan's or South Africa's weapons programs linked in any way to reactor programs. Libya bought an enrichment facility from an international criminal gang. Local scientists and reactor technology had nothing to do with it. Al Gore has fallen for Amory Lovins's argument without giving it the slightest amount of thought.

The argument that building reactors in the United States will in any way contribute to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by dictators is not backed by evidence. In none of the cases which Gore mentioned did American nuclear technology contribute to the proliferation. UK technology did contribute to the North Korean nuclear program, but only because the British Government shortsightedly put the plans for a plutonium production plant into the public domain.

My view is that LFTR research needs to have a proliferation component. The proliferation component needs to answer central questions.

1. Is it plausible that producing LFTRs in the United States for internal use lead to nuclear proliferation in other countries?
2. Is it plausible that producing LFTRs in the United States for internal use lead to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists?
3. Is it plausible that selling LFTRs to nuclear armed nations would lead to nuclear proliferation or the increase the likelihood that terrorists would acquire nuclear weapons?
4. Should Pakistan be considered a special case in this group?
5. Would the sale of LFTR technology to countries deemed to be politically unstable lead to an unacceptable political risk?
6. What policies would best contain LFTR related proliferation risks?

A non-Idiots Guide to Arguments Against Nuclear Energy: Jacobson

Opponents of nuclear power have a standard repertoire of arguments that they habitually make against it. Many people, including myself have reviewed these arguments and pointed to both logical and factual flaws in them. I believe that people wishing to assess the debate ought to think things through for themselves.

The first argument which the enemies of nuclear power use is the argument that building reactors in the United States will cause bad people to acquire nuclear weapons. The bad people may be non-nuclear states which wish to acquire nuclear weapons for bad purposes, or they may be terrorists who wish to use nuclear weapons against us. A more extreme version of this argument asserts that building reactors in the United States will cause the use of nuclear weapons against civilian populations and exchange of nuclear weapons attacks by third parties. Lest my reader think that this argument is too crazy to be used by anyone who is not on anti-psychotic drugs, a supposedly reputable energy expert, Mark Z. Jacobson made the following statement last year:

Because the production of nuclear weapons material is occurring only in countries that have developed civilian nuclear energy programs, the risk of a limited nuclear exchange between countries or the detonation of a nuclear device by terrorists has increased due to the dissemination of nuclear energy facilities worldwide. As such, it is a valid exercise to estimate the potential number of immediate deaths and carbon emissions due to the burning of buildings and infrastructure associated with the proliferation of nuclear energy facilities and the resulting proliferation of nuclear weapons. The number of deaths and carbon emissions, though, must be multiplied by a probability range of an exchange or explosion occurring to estimate the overall risk of nuclear energy proliferation. Although concern at the time of an explosion will be the deaths and not carbon emissions, policy makers today must weigh all the potential future risks of mortality and carbon emissions when comparing energy sources.

Jacobson's argument is logically flawed. First, what is he claiming here? Is he claiming that knowledge of nuclear physics acquired in civilian settings causes the development of nuclear weapons? Would the publication of nuclear physics textbooks cause the acquisition of nuclear weapons? Would the publication of papers on nuclear physics in scientific journals or the reading of scientific papers on nuclear physics at a professional conference make a causal contribution to the development of nuclear weapons? There is little doubt that knowledge of nuclear physics is a necessary requirement in the development of nuclear weapons. Does Dr. Jacobson believe that knowledge of nuclear physics should be suppressed, that physics textbooks, professional papers by scientists, and speeches at scientific conferences should be censored? Probably not.

Is it then the spread of nuclear technology that Dr. Jacobson objects too? Does he believe that the use of radiation or radioactive materials in medicine causes the spread of nuclear weapons? Probably not.

It would appear then from the context, that Dr. Jacobson is arguing for a causal relationship between the development of civilian power reactors and nuclear weapons. As near as I can tell Dr. Jacobson's hypothesis is that the acquisition of power reactors is a necessary cause for the acquisition of nuclear weapons. But is there evidence that this is the case? Of the first five nuclear powers, four - the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China - had no civilian power reactors at the time they exploded their first test nuclear device. Of other current and past nuclear powers, Israel and India developed their nuclear bomb programs using civilian research reactors that were not designed for power-producing purposes. North Korea based their nuclear program on a British reactor design that was primarily intended to produce plutonium for military purposes. There is no indication that North Korea intended to build reactors for civilian power purposes. South Africa successfully developed developed a Uranium enrichment technology during the 1970's. South Africa had no civilian power reactors at the time of its weapons development program.

Pakistan and Iran developed their nuclear programs using stolen technology. Pakistan's first small civilian power reactor was under international control, and played no role in that country's nuclear weapons development. Of other current or past nuclear powers, only France had a civilian power reactor program prior to the development of its nuclear weapons.

Thus if Dr. Jacobson's suggesting that civilian power reactors are causally related to the development of nuclear reactors, his claim is demonstrably false. This is not quite what Dr. Jacobson says. Jacobson's claim is that

The production of nuclear weapons material is occurring only in countries that have developed civilian nuclear energy programs.

As we have seen, in most nuclear armed countries the development of civilian power reactors occurred after the development of nuclear weapons, and thus cannot be a cause of weapons development.

No one who had the slightest acquaintance with the history of nuclear weapons would believe this false claim. We have to ask if Dr. Jacobson knowingly lied when he advanced the claim. Jacobson then argues that

the risk of a limited nuclear exchange between countries or the detonation of a nuclear device by terrorists has increased due to the dissemination of nuclear energy facilities worldwide.

Does this argument make the least amount of sense? Consider the following argument, "murder occurs in every country where dancing is permitted, therefore the world wide dissemination of dancing causes murder in countries where dancing occurs." This argument has the same underlying logic as Jacobson's argument. Jacobson might point out that murder might take place in countries where there is no dancing, but it can be pointed out in response that nuclear proliferation has taken place in South Africa and North Korea, countries where there were no civilian power industry.

There is no absurdity so great, that Mark Z. Jacobson can't compound it. Jacobson tells us,

it is a valid exercise to estimate the potential number of immediate deaths and carbon emissions due to the burning of buildings and infrastructure associated with the proliferation of nuclear energy facilities and the resulting proliferation of nuclear weapons.

It is clear then that Jacobson attributes both the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and probable future nuclear exchanges, to the "proliferation of nuclear energy facilities". We must ask why is this valid. It is certainly not because there is a demonstrated connection between the building of nuclear power facilities and the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Nor is there an overt connection between the building of nuclear energy facilities and nuclear weapons exchanges: there have been no nuclear exchanges despite the building of hundreds of nuclear energy facilities. Nor have we seen the use of nuclear weapons by terrorists, let alone a connection between the building of nuclear facilities and such use. Jacobson does not supply us with a theoretical argument for such a connection, and thus we must ask, how does he justify his far fetched contentions?

Thus having arrived at this utterly absurd conclusion Dr. Jacobson then wishes to count the deaths and CO2 emissions from the supposed nuclear exchange as liabilities for nuclear power technology. We could argue with a rationality that equals Jacobson, that injuries inflicted on elderly and deranged Spanish gentlemen, by windmills as they tilt with them, are liabilities to for the wind industry.


We have to ask about Jacobson's reasoning, how can he say this?

1. Is he so dumb that he fails to see the fallacies in his reasoning?

2, Or is he so cynical that he believes that he can get away with a dishonest line of reasoning?

3. Or is he playing a practical joke on his readers?

4. Or is Jacobson simply insane?

Whatever the case it is clear that Jacobson has weighed his assessment of energy sources by resorting to irrational means.