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Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament: Shifting the Mindset (Executive Summary)
To download a full copy of this briefing booklet, click here.
Executive Summary
Throughout the Nuclear Age, leaders of the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, known as the P5 – have been locked in old ways of thinking about security. They believe that nuclear deterrence in a two-tier structure of nuclear haves and have-nots can hold indefinitely without significant nuclear proliferation and further use of nuclear weapons. This way of thinking continues to place not only the P5 and their allies in danger of nuclear annihilation, but threatens global catastrophe for civilization, the human species and most forms of life.
The policies of the nuclear weapon states have favored going slow on achieving a world free of nuclear weapons, preferring arms control and non-proliferation measures to nuclear disarmament. They have placed emphasis on small steps rather than taking a comprehensive approach to the elimination of nuclear weapons. While reducing their nuclear arsenals, they have simultaneously modernized them, and thus have demonstrated their continued reliance upon these weapons in their security policies.
However, cracks in this old and dangerous way of thinking have begun to show in the statements of former high-level policy makers in the United States and other countries and in the vision of a nuclear weapon-free world expressed by U.S. President Barack Obama.
This briefing booklet explores new ways of thinking in relation to the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. It presents the case that nuclear weapons abolition is the only rational and sane position to adopt toward current nuclear threats. In light of the overwhelming threat posed by nuclear weapons, all conference participants are urged to bear in mind the following in preparing for their deliberations:
• Nuclear weapons continue to present a real and present danger to humanity and other life on Earth.
• Basing the security of one’s country on the threat to kill tens of millions of innocent people, perhaps billions, and risking the destruction of civilization, has no moral justification and deserves the strongest condemnation.
• It will not be possible to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons without fulfilling existing legal obligations for total nuclear disarmament.
• Preventing nuclear proliferation and achieving nuclear disarmament will both be made far more difficult, if not impossible, by expanding nuclear energy facilities throughout the world.
• Putting the world on track for eliminating the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons will require a shift in thinking about this overarching danger to present and future generations.
The briefing sets forth a spectrum of perspectives on nuclear weapons, from Nuclear Believers at one end to Nuclear Abolitionists at the other. Between them are three other groups, the largest being the Nuclear Disempowered. This group is composed of most of the general public who are often ignorant, confused and apathetic about nuclear weapons as a result of government secrecy and manipulation of information about the role of these weapons in security policies and the consequences of persisting plans for their use. It is this critical group that must be made more aware of the nuclear threats to our common future and must make their voices heard in a new and vigorous global dialogue on nuclear policy.
The booklet reviews a number of proposals to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and sets forth five priorities for agreement at the 2010 NPT Review Conference:
1. Each signatory nuclear weapon state should provide an accurate public accounting of its nuclear arsenal, conduct a public environmental and human assessment of its potential use, and devise and make public a roadmap for going to zero nuclear weapons.
2. All signatory nuclear weapon states should reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their security policies by taking all nuclear forces off high-alert status, pledging No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapon states and No Use against non-nuclear weapon states.
3. All enriched uranium and reprocessed plutonium – military and civilian – and their production facilities (including all uranium enrichment and plutonium separation technology) should be placed under strict and effective international safeguards.
4. All signatory states should review Article IV of the NPT, promoting the “inalienable right” to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, in light of the nuclear proliferation problems posed by nuclear electricity generation.
5. All signatory states should comply with Article VI of the NPT, reinforced and clarified by the 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion, by commencing negotiations in good faith on a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons, and complete these negotiations by the year 2015.
The briefing then considers issues of double standards and concludes that such standards will result in predictable catastrophes. A more just and secure future for humanity will require leaders of all countries, and especially those in the nuclear weapon states, to exercise sound judgment and act for the benefit of all humanity. A thorough rethinking of nuclear policy is needed, with the goal of moving from minimal acceptable change to a comprehensive plan for achieving a nuclear weapon-free future.
A full copy of the briefing booklet can be downloaded
from our website at https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/goto/nptbooklet. To request a
hard copy, please call our office at (805) 965-3443. -
NATO Goes Anti-Nuclear?
This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.
President Obama’s call
for a nuclear-weapons-free world in Prague last April unleashed a great
outpouring of support from international allies and grassroots
activists demanding a process to actually eliminate nuclear weapons.
One recent and unexpected initiative has come from America’s NATO
allies. Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway have called
on NATO to review its nuclear policy and remove all U.S. nuclear
weapons currently on European soil under NATO’s “nuclear sharing”
policy. Despite U.S. insistence on strict adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), which prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear
weapons states, several hundred U.S. nuclear bombs are housed in
Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey.Citing Obama’s announcement in Prague of “America’s commitment to
seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” the
NATO allies have broken ranks with the United States. All five
governments are experiencing domestic pressure to end the hypocrisy of
the NPT, where nuclear “haves” disregard their disarmament requirements
with impunity while using coercion, sanctions, threats of war, and even
actual war (as in Iraq) to prevent the nuclear “have-nots” from
acquiring nuclear bombs. Together with calls from major former political and military leaders to eliminate nuclear weapons, as well as UN Secretary General Ban-ki Moon’s proposal for a five-point program
“to rid the world of nuclear bombs,” these NATO members have seized the
political moment. They have decided to do their part to maintain the
integrity of the NPT in advance of the five-year review conference this
May at the UN in New York.The NATO five put NATO’s nuclear policy on the agenda
for an April strategy meeting in Estonia. They have neither been
dissuaded by Obama’s cautionary note that the goal of a
nuclear-weapons-free world “will not be reached quickly — perhaps not
in my lifetime,” nor discouraged by Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s mistaken qualification of Obama’s remarks when she said that “we might not achieve the ambition of a world without nuclear weapons in our lifetime or successive lifetimes” (emphasis added).Progress Elsewhere
Japan has also called for more rapid progress on nuclear
disarmament. The new Democratic Party government, which ended 60 years
of one-party rule, wrote Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to
disavow the pro-nuclear advocacy of former Japanese officials. U.S.
militarists often cited such advocacy as a rationale for maintaining
the U.S. nuclear “umbrella” over Japan. Supporting Obama’s call for a
nuclear-weapons-free world, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada urged the
United States to declare that nuclear weapons would be used only for
the “sole purpose” of deterring a nuclear attack. The declaration would
end current U.S. policy, first expanded by the Clinton administration
and maintained throughout the Bush presidency, to preemptively use
nuclear weapons against the threat or use of chemical, biological, or
conventional forces. Additionally, over 200 Japanese parliamentarians wrote to reassure
Obama that, contrary to assertions by U.S. military hawks, Japan would
not seek the possession of nuclear weapons were the United States to
declare a “sole use” limitation on its nuclear arsenal.These promising anti-nuclear positions come at an important
political moment. Obama has been expected shortly to deliver to
Congress a new nuclear posture review setting forth U.S. policy for the
use of nuclear weapons. Originally scheduled for a January release, the
review has been delayed several times. News of conflicting views among
the drafters and of Obama’s dissatisfaction with the most recent
version, which promotes the status quo on outdated Cold War nuclear policies, has been prominently reported in the mainstream press.Pentagon Pushback
Gates has defended existing nuclear policy and expressed dissatisfaction with our NATO allies. At a meeting to discuss NATO’s 21st Century Strategic Concept — and on the heels of the Dutch government’s collapse over the decision to extend its troop deployment in Afghanistan — Gates stated that:
The demilitarization of Europe — where
large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to
military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing
in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.At the same meeting, U.S. National Security Advisor General James
Jones said, “NATO must be prepared to address, deny, and deter the full
spectrum of threats, whether emanating from within Europe at NATO’s
boundaries, or far beyond NATO’s borders.”Clinton, furthermore, urged the exponential growth of “missile defense throughout the world and warned that:
[N]uclear proliferation and the
development of more sophisticated missiles in countries such as North
Korea and Iran are reviving the specter of an interstate nuclear
attack. So how do we in NATO do out part of ensure that such weapons
never are unleashed on the world?Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, commenting on the new NATO
strategic concept, raised Russia’s deep concerns that NATO’s assertion
of a right to use military force globally violated the UN Charter.
Russia views U.S. plans to ring Europe with missiles in Bulgaria,
Poland, and Romania, with a missile command center in the Czech
Republic, as a threat. The Obama-Medvedev negotiations on the first
round of nuclear arms cuts on START (the Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty) have been delayed repeatedly by disagreements on U.S. plans for missile proliferation.Momentum Builds
Nevertheless, there is extraordinary momentum behind calls to
abolish nuclear weapons. Thousands of international visitors are
expected to join U.S. citizens to assemble, march, and rally in New York during the NPT Review Conference in May. Mayors for Peace is working to enroll 5,000 mayors in its Vision 2020 Campaign to complete negotiations on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2020. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the Abolition 2000 Network
are committed to work for a nuclear weapons convention regardless of
the NPT outcome. Norway, host of the successful Oslo process to ban
cluster bombs, noted that the Oslo and Ottawa processes banning
landmines could be replicated to move forward on a nuclear disarmament based on
“powerful alliances between civil society and governments.” There has
been an unprecedented media focus on U.S. nuclear policy and debate
about whether Obama can make good on his pledge and earn his Nobel
Peace Prize.Nearly 25 years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev unleashed the forces of perestroika and glasnost
in the Soviet Union. These forces kindled people’s aspirations for
freedom, resulting in the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of
the Soviet empire. Despite the formidable array of powerful interests
lawlessly brandishing their missiles and refurbishing their nuclear
arsenals, Obama and Medvedev’s call for a nuclear-weapons-free world
may similarly have unleashed forces that will transform the 20th-century paradigm of perpetual war and terror. -
Jimmy Carter on Morality and Nuclear Weapons
In January 2010 the Middle Powers Initiative, a coalition of eight international civil society organizations working for a world free of nuclear weapons, held a consultation at the Carter Center in Atlanta on the May 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. A highlight of the meeting was a session with President Carter in which he expressed his views on the need for stronger efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament and prevent nuclear proliferation. In the question and answer period that followed his remarks, I posed a question to the former president about his own strong moral standards and his preparedness to use nuclear weapons in a counterattack against the Soviet Union. Douglas Roche, the chair emeritus of the Middle Powers Initiative, called President Carter’s response “the most poignant moment I have ever experienced at an MPI meeting.” The question and President Carter’s response follow.
Q: President Carter, thank you so much. I was struck when you said in your remarks that you were prepared to launch a counterattack against the Soviet Union. Knowing you as a deeply moral individual – this is a personal question – I wonder how you could in your own mind take your moral, religious, spiritual values and contemplate retaliation with nuclear weapons with all the results and consequences that this would have.
President Carter: The most difficult issue I’ve ever had to face as a human being is what to do if a nuclear threat materialized when we were in the midst of the Cold War. I prayed constantly that I would not be faced with this decision. I didn’t see the rationality—it is difficult for me to talk about it. I couldn’t sit acquiescently and let the Soviet Union destroy my country without a response when we had the capability to do so.
I had been a submarine officer and military professional. I was ready to take action that would take human life to protect the integrity of my country. At the same time, I did everything I could to avoid it. I bent over backwards to understand the partially paranoid concerns of the Soviet leaders. I would sit sometimes in my White House office—I had a large globe there and I would deliberately turn the globe to Moscow and I would imagine myself as Brezhnev. I would imagine what things might cause me to resort to nuclear use and what might cause me to avoid it. We began to work with the Soviet Union in many ways, including on human rights.
I can’t say in good conscience now that my decision to respond would have been the correct one. It would have cost millions of American lives if we were subject to attack and it would have cost millions of Russian lives if we attacked. I cannot answer your question adequately. It is incompatible with my basic Christian beliefs to do that. What Jesus Christ would have done, I don’t know. When I took the oath of office of President, before God, I took the oath to defend my country. I felt that was the way I could prevent further destruction of my country. The fact that the Russians believed I would respond was the essence of the mutual deterrence. If I made any sort of public insinuation that the Russians could attack us with nuclear weapons without being the recipient of a response—that would have been unacceptable, unimaginable for me to do.
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New Think and Old Weapons
Every four years the White House issues a “nuclear posture review.” That may sound like an anachronism. It isn’t. In a world where the United States and Russia still have more than 20,000 nuclear weapons — and Iran, North Korea and others have seemingly unquenchable nuclear appetites — what the United States says about its arsenal matters enormously.
President Obama’s review was due to Congress in December. That has been delayed, in part because of administration infighting. The president needs to get this right. It is his chance to finally jettison cold war doctrine and bolster America’s credibility as it presses to rein in Iran, North Korea and other proliferators.
Mr. Obama has already committed rhetorically to the vision of a world without nuclear weapons. But we are concerned that some of his advisers, especially at the Pentagon, are resisting his bold ambitions. He needs to stick with the ideas he articulated in his campaign and in speeches last year in Prague and at the United Nations.
These are some of the important questions the posture review must address:
THEIR PURPOSE: Current doctrine gives nuclear weapons a “critical role” in defending the United States and its allies. And it suggests they could be used against foes wielding chemical, biological or even conventional forces — not just nuclear arms. Mr. Obama’s aides have proposed changing that to say that the “primary” purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack against the United States or its allies. This still invites questions about whether Washington values — and might use — nuclear forces against non-nuclear targets.
Given America’s vast conventional military superiority, broader uses are neither realistic nor necessary. Any ambiguity undercuts Washington’s credibility when it argues that other countries have no strategic reason to develop their own nuclear arms. The sole purpose of American nuclear forces should be to deter a nuclear attack against this country or its allies.
HOW MANY: President George W. Bush disdained arms control as old think, and Washington and Moscow have not signed an arms reduction treaty since 2002. Mr. Obama launched negotiations on a new agreement that would slash the number of warheads each side has deployed from 2,200 to between 1,500 and 1,675. The talks are dragging on, but there is hope for an agreement soon. Both sides should go deeper.
The review should make clear that the United States is ready to move, as a next step, down to 1,000 deployed warheads — military experts say half that number is enough to wipe out the assets of Russia, which is no longer an enemy. China, the only major nuclear power adding to its arsenal, is estimated to have 100 to 200 warheads. The treaty being negotiated says nothing about the nearly 15,000 warheads, in total, that the United States and Russia keep as backups — the so-called hedge. And it says nothing about America’s 500 short-range nuclear weapons, which are considered secure, or Russia’s 3,000 or more, which are chillingly vulnerable to theft.
The review should make clear that there is no need for a huge hedge, and that tactical weapons have an utter lack of strategic value — as a prelude to reducing both. Certainly no general we know of could imagine exploding a warhead on a battlefield. Today’s greatest nuclear danger is that terrorists will steal or build a weapon. That is best countered by halting proliferation and securing and reducing stockpiles and other material.
NEW WEAPONS: The United States built its last new warhead in 1989. So when aides to President George W. Bush called for building new weapons, with new designs and new capabilities, it opened this country to charges of hypocrisy and double standards when it demanded that North Korea and Iran end their nuclear programs.
Mr. Obama has said that this country does not need new weapons. But we are concerned the review will open the door to just that by directing the labs to study options — including a new weapons design — for maintaining the arsenal. The government has a strong and hugely expensive system for ensuring that the stockpile is safe and reliable. Mr. Obama has already vastly increased the labs’ budgets. The review should make clear that there is no need for a new weapon.
ALERT LEVELS: The United States and Russia each still have about 1,000 weapons ready to fire at a moment’s notice. Mr. Obama has rightly described this as a dangerous cold war relic. The review should commit to taking as many of those forces off hair-trigger alert as possible — and encourage Russia to do the same.
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In April, Mr. Obama will host a much needed summit meeting on the need to better secure nuclear material from terrorists. In May, Washington will encourage a United Nations-led conference to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the bedrock, and battered, agreement for curbing the spread of nuclear arms.
President Obama will also have to persuade the Senate to ratify the Start follow-on treaty, and we hope he will quickly press the Senate to approve the test ban treaty. He is also working with allies to revive nuclear talks with North Korea and to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. Getting the nuclear posture review right is essential for moving all of this ahead.
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A Nuclear Weapons Convention
This speech was delivered by David Krieger to the 4th Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
A Nuclear Weapons Convention is a treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons. Such a treaty does not yet exist, except in the form of a model treaty developed by non-governmental organizations and introduced by Costa Rica and Malaysia to the United Nations General Assembly. The model treaty shows that a Nuclear Weapons Convention is possible from a technical perspective. What it does not demonstrate is its feasibility from a political perspective.
If the goal is a world free of nuclear weapons, then a Nuclear Weapons Convention is the best vehicle for achieving this goal. When speaking about a Nuclear Weapons Convention, I generally add “a treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.” Let’s discuss those qualifiers.
Many leaders express concern about nuclear disarmament occurring too rapidly, without sufficient preparation, and thus being potentially dangerous and destabilizing. Of course, that concern must be compared to the considerable dangers of current nuclear weapons policies, including proliferation, terrorism, and inadvertent or intentional use. However, to avoid destabilization in the process of nuclear disarmament, the proposal is for phased elimination of nuclear weapons, which would allow for confidence building in each phase. As certain steps were accomplished in each phase, confidence in the system would be strengthened. For example, reductions in numbers of weapons can be set out for the various phases. Safeguards can be strengthened in phases, and so forth. There are many ways in which the phases can be designed, related to the number of phases, their length, and what is to be accomplished in each phase.
A principal concern related to nuclear weapons abolition is cheating. Thus, any disarmament system must be subject to verification. Ronald Reagan famously said, “Trust, but verify.” There need to be systems of inspection and verification so that there is confidence that cheating is not occurring. Individual states should not be allowed to control the methods of inspection and verification on their territories. Verification must not have limiting factors. It must allow for full inspections. Countries must be prepared to open their facilities to challenge inspections at any time and in any place. The right to full inspections to assure against cheating must be understood as a basic requirement for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. There are many ways in which verification procedures can be organized and designed, related to issues such as what entities would authorize and conduct inspections, and the timing and scope of the inspections.
Making disarmament irreversible is an important element of the process of moving to zero nuclear weapons. It is one of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament agreed to at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. Irreversibility is a matter of principle in order to hold on to the gains that are made in the process of disarmament and not allow for the possibility of backsliding. Some technical questions may be involved, including the determination of what constitutes irreversibility.
The final element I would stress is transparency. A Nuclear Weapons Convention should make the process of nuclear disarmament transparent so that all parties will have confidence that the required steps are actually being taken. This is an element that must be carefully thought through, however, so as not to increase the vulnerability of states as the number of weapons is reduced. There is a delicate balance between security and transparency that must be considered.
I view these four elements – phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent – as being essential for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. They are necessary for building confidence that the abolition of nuclear weapons can be accomplished. They will be guideposts in negotiating the treaty, but before there can be a treaty we must first get to the negotiating table.
Over the years, there have been many calls for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. In 1995, when the Abolition 2000 Global Network was formed following the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference, they called in their founding statement for the NPT nuclear weapon states to “[i]nitiate immediately and conclude…negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.”
In 1996, the International Court of Justice issued an Advisory Opinion on the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The Court stated unanimously: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” In effect, the Court said there is a legal obligation to pursue a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
On the opening day of the of the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation published an Appeal in the New York Times signed by, among others, 35 Nobel Laureates, including 14 Nobel Peace Laureates. The Appeal called upon the nuclear weapon states to “[c]ommence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.”
In 2008, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued an Action Plan for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament, emphasizing that the two are strongly interrelated. The first of his five actions is “[a] call for all NPT parties to pursue negotiations in good faith – as required by the treaty – on nuclear disarmament either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification.”
The Mayors for Peace Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol calls for negotiations for a Nuclear weapons Convention or a comparable Framework Agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2020. They have promoted this among their 3,500 member cities.
The most important issue confronting us is not the elements of a Nuclear Weapons Convention. These can be worked out through negotiations. The most important issue is how to generate the political will to commence negotiations. I believe that such political will must come from demands by the people. I also believe that the United States should lead the way, and this places a special responsibility upon the shoulders of Americans. If the US does not lead, it is hard to imagine the Russians joining; if the Russians don’t join, it is hard to imagine the Chinese joining, and so forth.
President Obama has called for the US, as the only country to have used nuclear weapons, to lead on achieving a nuclear weapons-free world. Unfortunately, though, he doesn’t believe the goal can be achieved in his lifetime. It is up to people everywhere to make their voices heard on this issue and to encourage him to convene negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention with a sense of urgency. President Obama has expressed strong concern about nuclear terrorism. He must be convinced that the threat of nuclear terrorism will only be eliminated when nuclear weapons are eliminated.
If the United States does not act in convening negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, Japan could take the lead. As the victims of the first atomic attacks, Japan has an equal, if not more valid, claim to leadership and responsibility on this issue. Most important, the voices of the bomb survivors, the hibakusha, must be ever present in the debate on achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.
In a Briefing Booklet that the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is preparing for the 2010 NPT Review Conference, we describe a spectrum of perspectives toward nuclear weapons. At one end of the spectrum are the Nuclear Believers, those who believe the bomb has been a force for peace. At the other end of the spectrum are the Nuclear Abolitionists, those who believe that nuclear weapons threaten the annihilation of the human species and most forms of life. In the center is the category of the Nuclear Disempowered, those who are confused, ignorant and apathetic. People in this category are often fatalistic and are inclined to defer to “experts.” It is this enormous group of disempowered individuals that must be awakened, empowered and engaged in seeking a world free of nuclear weapons. This is our challenge as abolitionists. If we can succeed in building a solid base of support for nuclear weapons abolition, a Nuclear Weapons Convention will be the vehicle to take us to the destination.
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Obama’s Atomic Blunder
As Vermont seethes with radioactive contamination and the Democratic Party crumbles, Barack Obama has plunged into the atomic abyss.
In the face of fierce green opposition and withering scorn from both liberal and conservative budget hawks, Obama has done what George W. Bush could not—pledge billions of taxpayer dollars for a relapse of the 20th Century’s most expensive technological failure.
Obama has announced some $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for two new reactors planned for Georgia. Their Westinghouse AP-1000 designs have been rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as being unable to withstand natural cataclysms like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.
The Vogtle site was to originally host four reactors at a total cost of $600 million; it wound up with two at $9 billion.
The Southern Company which wants to build these two new reactors has cut at least one deal with Japanese financiers set to cash in on American taxpayer largess. The interest rate on the federal guarantees remains bitterly contested. The funding is being debated between at least five government agencies, and may well be tested in the courts. It’s not clear whether union labor will be required and what impact that might have on construction costs.
The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts warn the likely failure rate for government-back reactor construction loans could be in excess of 50%. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu has admitted he was unaware of the CBO’s report when he signed on to the Georgia guarantees.
Over the past several years the estimated price tag for proposed new reactors has jumped from $2-3 billion each in some cases to more than $12 billion today. The Chair of the NRC currently estimates it at $10 billion, well before a single construction license has been issued, which will take at least a year.
Energy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute and elsewhere estimate that a dollar invested in increased efficiency could save as much as seven times as much energy than one invested in nuclear plants can produce, while producing ten times as many permanent jobs.
Georgia has been targeted largely because its regulators have demanded ratepayers put up the cash for the reactors as they’re being built. Florida and Georgia are among a small handful of states taxing electric consumers for projects that cannot come on line for many years, and that may never deliver a single electron of electricity.
Two Florida Public Service Commissioners, recently appointed by Republican Governor Charlie Crist (now a candidate for the US Senate), helped reject over a billion dollars in rate hikes demanded by Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy, both of which want to build double-reactors at ratepayer expense. The utilities now say they’ll postpone the projects proposed for Turkey Point and Levy County.
In 2005 the Bush Administration set aside some $18.5 billion for reactor loan guarantees, but the Department of Energy has been unable to administer them. Obama wants an additional $36 billion to bring the fund up to $54.5 billion. Proposed projects in South Carolina, Maryland and Texas appear to be next in line.
But the NRC has raised serious questions about Toshiba-owned Westinghouse’s AP-1000 slated for Georgia’s Vogtle site, as well as for South Carolina and Turkey Point. The French-made EPR design proposed for Maryland has been challenged by regulators in Finland, France and Great Britain. In Texas, a $4 billion price jump has sparked a political upheaval in San Antonio and elsewhere, throwing the future of that project in doubt.
Taxpayers are also on the hook for potential future accidents from these new reactors. In 1957, the industry promised Congress and the country that nuclear technology would quickly advance to the point that private insurers would take on the liability for any future disaster, which could by all serious estimates run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Only $11 billion has been set aside the cover the cost of such a catastrophe. But now the industry says it will not build even this next generation of plants without taxpayers underwriting liability for future accidents. Thus the “temporary” program could ultimately stretch out to a full century or more.
In the interim, Obama has all but killed Nevada’s proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. He has appointed a commission of nuclear advocates to “investigate” the future of high-level reactor waste. But after 53 years, the industry is further from a solution than ever.
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reported that at least 27 of America’s 104 licensed reactors are now leaking radioactive tritium. The worst case may be Entergy’s Vermont Yankee, near the state’s southeastern border with New Hampshire and Massachusetts. High levels of contamination have been found in test wells around the reactor, and experts believe the Connecticut River is at serious risk.
A furious statewide grassroots campaign aims to shut the plant, whose license expires in 2012. A binding agreement between Entergy and the state gives the legislature the power to deny an extension. US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has demanded the plant close. The legislature may vote on it in a matter of days.
Obama has now driven a deep wedge between himself and the core of the environmental movement, which remains fiercely anti-nuclear. While reactor advocates paint the technology green, the opposition has been joined by fiscal conservatives like the National Taxpayer Institute, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation.
Reactor backers hailing a “renaissance” in atomic energy studiously ignore France’s catastrophic Olkiluoto project, now $3 billion over budget and 3 years behind schedule. Parallel problems have crippled another project at Flamanville, France, and are virtually certain to surface in the US.
The reactor industry has spent untold millions lobbying for this first round of loan guarantees. There’s no doubt it will seek far more in the coming months. Having failed to secure private American financing, the question will be: in a tight economy, how much public money will Congress throw at this obsolete technology.
The potential flow of taxpayer guarantees to Georgia means nuclear opponents now have a tangible target. Also guaranteed is ferocious grassroots opposition to financing, licensing and construction of this and all other new reactor proposals, as well as to continued operation of leaky rustbucket reactors like Vermont Yankee.
The “atomic renaissance” is still a very long way from going tangibly critical.
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Obama Goes Nuclear
This article was originally published on Counterpunch.
Is there any chance that President Barack Obama can return to his long-held stand critical of nuclear power? Is he open to hearing from scientists and energy experts, such as Amory Lovins, who can refute the pro-nuclear arguments that have apparently influenced him?
Obama’s declaration in his State of the Union speech on January 27 about “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country” marked a significant change for him. His announcement Tuesday on moving ahead on $8.3 billion in federal government loan guarantees to build new nuclear plants and increasing the loan guarantee fund to $54.5 billion was a further major step. Wall Street is reluctant to invest money in the dangerous and extremely expensive technology.
Before taking office, including as a candidate for president, Obama not only was negative about atomic energy but—unusual for a politician—indicated a detailed knowledge of its threat to life.
“I start off with the premise that nuclear energy is not optimal and so I am not a nuclear energy proponent,” Obama said at a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa on December 30, 2007. “My general view is that until we can make certain that nuclear power plants are safe, that they have solved the storage problem—because I’m opposed to Yucca Mountain and just dumping…in one state, in Nevada particularly, since there’s potentially an earthquake line there—until we solve those problems and the whole nuclear industry can show that they can produce clean, safe energy without enormous subsidies from the U.S. government, I don’t think that’s the best option. I am much more interested in solar and wind and bio-diesel and strategies [for] alternative fuels.”
As he told the editorial board of the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire on November 25, 2007: “I don’t think there’s anything that we inevitably dislike about nuclear power. We just dislike the fact that it might blow up…and irradiate us…and kill us. That’s the problem.”
Yes, that’s the big problem with splitting the atom—one that has existed since the start of nuclear power and will always be inherent in the technology. Using the perilous process of fission to generate electricity with its capacity for catastrophic accidents and its production of highly toxic radioactive poisons called nuclear waste will always be unsafe. And it is unnecessary considering the safe energy technologies now available, from solar, wind and other clean sources.
Just how dangerous it is has been underlined in a book just published by the New York Academy of Sciences, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. Written by a team of scientists led by noted Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, using health data that have become available since the 1986 accident, it concludes that the fatality total “from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated at 985,000 additional [cancer] deaths.” This is in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other countries where Chernobyl’s poisons fell. The toll, they relate, continues to rise.
Chernobyl was a different design from the nuclear plants which the U.S., France and Japan seek now to build but disasters can also happen involving these plants and they, too, produce the highly toxic nuclear waste poisons. The problem is fission itself. It’s no way to produce electricity.
Obama has been aware of this. As he stated at a Londonderry, New Hampshire town meeting on October 7, 2007: “Nuclear power has a host of problems that have not been solved. We haven’t solved the storage situation effectively. We have not dealt with all of the security aspects of our nuclear plants and nuclear power is very expensive.”
He still left the door open to it. His Energy Plan as a candidate stated: “It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table. However, there is no future for expanded nuclear without first addressing four key issues: public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and [nuclear weapons] proliferation.”
In his first year as president, nuclear power proponents worked to influence him. Among nuclear opponents, there has been anxiety regarding Obama’s two top aides, both of whom have been involved with what is now the utility operating more nuclear power plants than any other in the United States, Exelon.
Rahm Emanuel, now Obama’s chief of staff, as an investment banker was in the middle of the $8.2 billion merger in 1999 of Unicom, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago, and Peco Energy to put together Exelon. David Axelrod, now a senior Obama advisor and formerly chief campaign strategist, was an Exelon consultant. Candidate Obama received sizeable contributions from Exelon executives including from John Rowe, its president and chief executive officer who in 2007 also became chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the U.S. nuclear industry’s main trade group.
It’s not only been nuclear opponents who have seen a link between Exelon and the Obama administration. Forbes magazine, in its January 18th issue, in an article on John Rowe and how he has “focused the company on nuclear,” displayed a sidebar headlined, “The President’s Utility.” It read: “Ties are tight between Exelon and the Obama administration,” noting Exelon political contributions and featuring Emanuel and Axelrod with photos and descriptions of their Exelon connections.
The Forbes article spoke of how last year “Emanuel e-mailed Rowe on the eve of the House vote on global warming legislation and asked that he reach out to some uncommitted Democrats. ‘We are proud to be the President’s utility,’ says Elizabeth Moler, Exelon’s chief lobbyist,” the article went on. “It’s nice for John to be able to go to the White House and they know his name.’”
Chicago-based Exelon’s website boasts of its operating “the largest nuclear fleet in the nation and the third largest in the world.” It owns 17 nuclear power plants which “represent approximately 20 percent of the U.S. nuclear industry’s power capacity.”
The climate change or global warming issue is another factor in Obama’s change on nuclear power. An Associated Press article of January 31 on Obama’s having “singled out nuclear power in his State of the Union address and his spending plan for the next budget,” began: “President Barack Obama is endorsing nuclear energy like never before, trying to win over Republicans and moderate Democrats on climate and energy legislation.”
MSNBC’s Mike Stuckey on February 9 reported about “Obama’s new support for nuclear power, which some feel may be a down payment for Republican backing on a climate change bill.”
After the “safe, clean nuclear power” claim, Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, declared: “Politically, Obama likely was simply parroting the effort being led by Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham to gain support for a climate bill by adding massive subsidies for nuclear power, offshore oil and ‘clean’ coal. But recycling George W. Bush energy talking points is no way to solve the climate crisis or develop a sustainable energy policy…Indeed, Obama knows better. Candidate Obama understood that nuclear power is neither safe nor clean.”
Climate change has been used by those promoting a “revival” of nuclear power—there hasn’t been a new nuclear plant ordered and built in the U.S. in 37 years—as a new argument. In fact, nuclear power makes a substantial contribution to global warming considering the overall “nuclear cycle”—uranium mining and milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication and the disposition of radioactive waste, and so on.
Climate change is also one argument for pushing atomic energy of another major influence on Obama on nuclear power, Steven Chu, his Department of Energy secretary. Chu typifies the religious-like zeal for nuclear power emanating for decades from scientists in the U.S. government’s string of national nuclear laboratories. Chu was director of one of these, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, before becoming head of DOE.
First established during World War II’s Manhattan Project to build atomic weapons, the laboratories after the war began promoting civilian nuclear technology—and have been pushing it unceasingly ever since. It has been a way to perpetuate the vested interest created during World War II. The number of nuclear weapons that could be built was limited because atomic bombs don’t lend themselves to commercial distribution, but in pushing food irradiation, nuclear-powered airplanes and rockets, atomic devices for excavation and, of course, nuclear power, the budgets and staffs of the national nuclear laboratories could be maintained, indeed increase.
That was the analysis of David Lilienthal, first chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which preceded the Department of Energy. Lilienthal in his 1963 book Change, Hope, and the Bomb wrote: “The classic picture of the scientist as a creative individual, a man obsessed, working alone through the night, a man in a laboratory pushing an idea—this has changed. Now scientists are ranked in platoons. They are organization men. In many cases the independent and humble search for new truths about nature has been confused with the bureaucratic impulse to justify expenditure and see that next year’s budget is bigger than last’s.”
Lilienthal wrote about the “elaborate and even luxurious [national nuclear] laboratories that have grown up at Oak Ridge, Argonne, Brookhaven” and the push to use nuclear devices for “blowing out harbors, making explosions underground to produce steam, and so on” which show “how far scientists and administrators will go to try to establish a nonmilitary use” for nuclear technology.
Chu, like so many of the national nuclear laboratory scientists and administrators, minimizes the dangers of radioactivity. If they didn’t, if they acknowledged how life-threatening the radiation produced by nuclear technology is, their favorite technology would crumble.
A major theme of Chu, too, is a return to the notion promoted by the national nuclear laboratories in the 1950s and 60s of “recycling” and “reusing” nuclear waste. This way, they have hoped, it might not be seen as waste at all. The concept was to use radioactive Cesium-137 (the main poison discharged in the Chernobyl disaster) to irradiate food, to use depleted uranium to harden bullets and shells, and so on. In recent weeks, with Obama carrying out his pledge not to allow Yucca Mountain to become a nuclear waste dump, Chu set up a “blue-ribbon” panel on radioactive waste—stacked with nuclear power advocates including Exelon’s John Rowe—that is expected to stress the “recycling” theory.
“We are aggressively pursuing nuclear energy,” declared Chu in January as he announced DOE’s budget plan—which included an increase in the 2011 federal budget in monies for nuclear loan guarantees to build new nuclear plants cited by Obama Tuesday. “We are, as we have repeatedly said, working hard to restart the American nuclear power industry.”
The $8.3 billion in loan guarantees Obama announced Tuesday is to come from $18.5 billion in guarantees proposed by the George W. Bush administration and authorized by Congress in 2005. “My budget proposes tripling the loan guarantees we provide to help finance safe, clean nuclear facilities,” said Obama Tuesday, referring to the DOE plan which would add $36 billion and bring the loan guarantee fund to $54.5. And this despite candidate Obama warning about “enormous subsidies from the U.S. government” to the nuclear industry.
The $8.3 billion in loan guarantees is to go toward the Southern Company of Atlanta constructing two nuclear power reactors in Burke, Georgia. These are to be AP1000 nuclear power plants designed by the Westinghouse nuclear division (now owned by Toshiba) although in October the designs were rejected by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as likely being unable to withstand events like tornadoes and earthquakes.
Obama’s change of stance on nuclear power has led to an earthquake of its own politically. MoveOn, the nonprofit advocacy group that has raised millions of dollars for Democratic candidates including Obama, gauged sentiment of his State of the Union speech by having10,000 MoveOn members record their views. Every few seconds they pressed a button signaling their reactions—ranging from “great” to “awful.” When Obama got his line on energy, the overwhelming judgment was awful. “The most definitive drop in enthusiasm is when President Obama talked about nuclear power and offshore drilling,” said Ilyse Hogue, MoveOn’s director of political advocacy. “They’re looking for clean energy sources that prioritize wind and solar.”
“Safe, clean nuclear power—it’s an oxymoron,” said Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace USA. “The president knows better. Just because radiation is invisible doesn’t mean it’s clean.”
“From a health perspective, the proposal of the Obama administration to increase federal loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors poses a serious risk to Americans,” said Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project. “Adding new reactors will raise the chance for a catastrophic meltdown. It will also increase the amount of radioactive chemicals routinely emitted from reactors into the environment—and human bodies. New reactors will raise rates of cancer—which are already unacceptably high—especially to infants and children. Public policies affecting America’s energy future should reduce, rather than raise, hazards to our citizens.”
As to government loan guarantees, “The last thing Americans want is another government bailout for a failing industry, but that’s exactly what they’re getting from the Obama administration,” said Ben Schreiber, the climate and energy tax analyst of Friends of the Earth.
“It would be not only good policy but good politics for Obama to abandon the nuclear loan guarantee program,” said Mariotte of NIRS.
After Obama’s Tuesday declaration on loan guarantees, Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project of the organization Beyond Nuclear, said: “Unfortunately, the president’s decision is fuel for opposition to costly and dangerous nuclear power. It signals a widening of a divide as the administration steps back from its promise for a change in energy policy and those of us who are committed to a change.”
“We are deeply disturbed by President Obama’s decision,” said Peter Wilk, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Not only does this put taxpayers on the hook for billions, it prioritizes a dirty, dangerous, and expensive technology over public health. From the beginning to the end of the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear reactors remain a serious threat to public health and safety. From uranium mining waste to operating reactors leaking radioactivity to the lack of radioactive waste solutions, nuclear power continues to pose serious public health threats.”
Nuclear opponents have been disappointed in a lack of access to the Obama White House of those with a critical view on nuclear power—who could counteract the pro-nuclear arguments that Obama has been fed. Will President Obama open himself to hearing from those who question nuclear power?
Obama has credibility trouble already. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote on January 26:
“Who is Barack Obama? Americans are still looking for the answer…Mr. Obama may be personally very appealing, but he has positioned himself all over the political map…Mr. Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose rhetoric, however skillful, cannot always be trusted. He is creating a credibility gap for himself, and if it widens much more he won’t be able to close it.”
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Towards a Nuclear Weapon-Free World
This is an unofficial translation of an article published by the Belgian newspaper De Standaard.
President Barack Obama’s commitment to the goal of abolishing
all nuclear weapons deserves our full support. While nuclear weapons
have in the past perhaps fulfilled a stabilising role, we live today in a
world in which the proliferation of nuclear weapons steadily continues
and the risk of a terrorist attack with nuclear weapons demands drastic
action. The Cold War is history. It is time to adapt our nuclear policy
to current circumstances. Countries like Pakistan, India and North-Korea
have recently joined the nuclear club. The chance is high that Iran and
other countries in that region will follow, which would provoke
unprecedented destabilization in an already volatile region. Therefore,
the crucical question is how can we manage this situation?It is impossible to continue to deny nuclear weapons to other
states as long as we ourselves have them. The choice is as follows: a
world in which we accept that a growing number of states produce nuclear
weapons, or a world in which the nine existing nuclear weapon states
greatly reduce the salience of nuclear weapons, and take the goal of
their elimination seriously. The nuclear weapon states must respect
international agreements calling for the elimantion of their arsenals,
which they have not done to date despite the obligation to disarm
contained in the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed by all formal
nuclear weapon states. When experts like Henry Kissinger and George
Schultz put themselves resolutely behind the goal of a nuclear weapon
free world, we can no longer avoid this debate in our own societies.
Following similar initiatives in the US, the UK, Germany, Netherlands,
Italy, Poland and Norway – we also want to make a plea for a world
without nuclear weapons. Not as a naïve dream, but as an ambitious and
realistic political goal. No fundamental argument exists why this option
is not feasible within a foreseeable timeframe.This problem, just like global warming, needs urgent action
which cannot be delayed. In the short term it demands a new commitment
of all nuclear weapon states – and not just the US and the UK – to
achieve ‘global zero’. The NPT Review Conference in May 2010 provides a
unique opportunity. At the same time concrete steps have to be made
leading to this renewed goal: a drastic reduction of all deployed and
non-deployed tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, the ratification of
the CTBT, the negotiation of a Fissile Materials Cut Off-Treaty, a no
first use declaration, or even better, declaring the use of these
weapons of mass destruction illegal. Beyond this, there is a need to
begin multilateral negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. This
treaty has to prohibit nuclear weapons, just as chemical and biological
weapons are prohibited, and this within a fixed timeframe.What role can Belgium play?
The American tactical nuclear weapons in Europe no longer have
any military use. Their residual political benefit – as a symbol of the
transatlantic link – is in no way sufficient to justify their continued
presence, since through that presence we signal to the rest of the
world that nuclear weapons are “essential”. This policy indirectly
promotes proliferation and undermines the security of our country, the
opposite of what we want to achieve. Moreover, in Belgium today strong
support exists for the withdrawal of these nuclear weapons. 348 towns
and cities in our country have joined the Mayors for Peace network. We
call on our government to take active steps within NATO for the rapid
removal of these nuclear weapons, as the German government has done. If
swift progress were made, it would send an excellent signal to the
non-nuclear weapon states during the upcoming NPT Review Conference, and
the review of the NATO Strategic Concept offers the appropriate
framework to review the entire nuclear policy of the alliance. Ideally
this would take place in negotiation with Russia, to achieve a
proportional reduction of Russian nuclear weapons. But sometimes we must
dare to set an example and hope that it will be an inspiration to
others.We find ourselves at a crucial moment. Until recently the
withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe was diplomatically
dead on arrival. The commitments of the Obama administration make change
possible. We call on our successors to make the most of this
opportunity, it is now or never.This withdrawal should not be linked to the missile defense
debate. What is at stake is the elimination of the threat from weapons
of mass destruction, and solid disarmament steps will be more effective
then making ourselves dependent on a questionable technology, which
furthermore is seen as destabilizing by the great powers who do not
possess this technology. A new arms race has at all costs to be
prevented. This is our obligation to future generations.