Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Energy

  • Terrorism Has Altered The Nuclear Equation Forever

    LOS ANGELES: Fifty years ago this month President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his Atoms for Peace proposal at the United Nations. This seminal event laid the groundwork for much of the nuclear enterprise that we see around the world today. It also generated a nuclear Trojan horse.

    Countries around the world greeted the prospects of the atom with glee: nuclear power plants would be too cheap to meter and nuclear isotopes would generate a renaissance in science, medicine and industry. While the atom contributed to some of these laudable objectives, it unwittingly booby-trapped the landscape with nuclear mines that terrorists can now set off.

    The world is littered with possibilities. Dirty-bomb ingredients are ubiquitous. They are in hospitals and industry. They are transported through cities as nuclear waste to storage sites. They cannot just disappear. Nuclear power plants are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Nuclear weapons derived from the peaceful atom reside in such unstable countries as Pakistan and North Korea. In more stable regions, countries insist on recycling weapons useable plutonium which can be diverted.

    Booby-trapping the world certainly was not Eisenhower’s intention. Anguished by the accelerating nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, he sought a way out. His solution was to reduce the capacity of the superpowers to produce nuclear weapons by conveying their “normal uranium and fissionable materials” to an atomic energy agency. The new organization would house and distribute the stocks for peaceful purposes.

    While an international “bank of fissionable material” never came about, the Atoms for Peace address broke the American inhibition against spreading nuclear knowledge and technology to the rest of the world. In 1955, Washington initiated the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. Twenty-five thousand scientists descended on Geneva to take advantage of the declassification of documents that held many of the secrets of the nuclear age.

    Washington did not proceed down this road naïvely. It knew that Atoms for Peace was not risk-free. But it faced a conundrum: if the United States did not promote the atom, it could not control it either. Knowledge is universal; inevitably, the rest of the world would catch up. The challenge was to build dikes to curtail the negative implications of the spread of nuclear technology. In 1957, the International Atomic Energy Agency was created to promote and monitor global nuclear markets. The 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty sought to halt the ambitions of nations to get the bomb in return for the peaceful nuclear assistance. Domestic and international controls over nuclear and dual-use exports followed. Most recently, Washington gathered several nations together in a Proliferation Security Initiative to intercept nuclear contraband.

    The dikes were not enough to prevent seepage. Israel used the “peaceful” atom provided by a French research reactor to develop the bomb. India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iraq and South Africa followed. At the same time, the United States beat back the temptations of Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, West Germany and Taiwan. When regimes changed in Belarus, Ukraine, South Africa and now Iraq, nuclear weapons programs were abandoned.

    As the international community reinforced its dikes against proliferation, it continued to build its peaceful nuclear infrastructure oblivious to another risk: nuclear terrorism. During the early nuclear era, terrorism as we know it today had not raised its ugly head. When it did emerge in the 1970’s, terrorists seemed mindful about the political costs of taking too many innocent lives.

    Nonetheless, even from the beginning of the nuclear age, the creators speculated on the risks of nuclear terrorism. In 1944, scientists at University of Chicago working on the Manhattan Project conjectured that a political group could unleash a nuclear blitzkrieg by smuggling an atomic weapon into the United States on a commercial aircraft. The terrorism of the 1970’s prompted public policy groups, many driven by a phobia of all things nuclear, to demand that weapons-useable plutonium and highly enriched uranium no longer fuel nuclear power and research reactors. The Europeans, Russians and Japanese resisted. America wavered. Then, many of these same groups began asking questions about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to terrorist attack. American officials took umbrage.

    As the 20th century ended, the absence of any serious act of nuclear violence convinced officials that nuclear terror would remain to province of fiction writers. Then the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. President George W. Bush announced that in the caves of Afghanistan, U.S. forces had uncovered plots to attack nuclear power plants. But eliminating the risks in the short run was impossible. Enhancing protection, while imperfect, remained the only option.

    As we map our nuclear future we should be mindful of the closing remarks of Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace speech: “The United States pledges before you – and therefore before the world – its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma – to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.”

    In the post-Sept. 11 world, solving “the fearful atomic dilemma” requires not more but less Atoms for Peace. The risk of nuclear terrorism, coupled to the environmental and proliferation burdens the initiative gave rise to, now requires that we roll back Eisenhower’s vision and try to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle.

    *This article was originally published in Atoms for Peace’. The writer, who served in the State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs during the first Bush administration, is author of “Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy.”

  • Turning the Tide: The need for a Pacific Solution to Aid Conditionality

    Greenpeace Pacific, Suva, June 2002

    Excerpted from Teresia K. Teaiwa, Sandra Tarte, Nic Maclellan and Maureen Penjueli

    Chapter Two: THE NUCLEAR SUPERHIGHWAY
    Japanese aid and the transhipment of radioactive materials through the Pacific
    By Nic Maclellan

    Japan is a major donor of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to Pacific island nations, doubling its aid to the region between 1987 and 1995. By 1999, Japan was the largest bilateral aid donor to Tonga, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, and the second largest donor to Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Palau, Nauru and Tuvalu (1). Since 1991, Japan has participated in OECD donor coordination meetings with Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the European Union, the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, as OECD countries contributed over US$7.7 billion in aid to the region in 1995-9. In spite of this, only about two per cent of overall Japanese ODA – about $138 million a year – goes to the South Pacific, and there have been reports that aid to island countries will be reduced if current plans to slash the ODA budget are implemented (2).

    Since 1989, Japan has been a post-Forum dialogue partner with the Pacific Islands Forum (formerly the South Pacific Forum) – the sixteen-member body that links Australia, New Zealand and the independent island nations. For some years, Japan has been the third largest contributor to Forum Secretariat activities, after Australia and New Zealand. Between 1988 and 2000, Japan contributed US$6.7 million to the Secretariat, with the latest grant in 2001 amounting to US$401,000. Forum Secretary General Mr. Noel Levi CBE notes: “Japan’s financial support, through extra-budgetary funding, has been fundamental to the implementation of our key programs.”(3)

    Japan also contributes funds to other regional inter-governmental organisations, such as the South Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) and the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).

    Japan’s aid program and diplomatic efforts support broader national interests, as noted by Japan’s Fisheries Minister in July 2001: “Japan does not have a military power, unlike US and Australia … Japanese means is simply diplomatic communication and ODA. So, in order to get appreciation of Japan’s position, of course that is natural that we must do, result on those two major truths (sic) (4).” As mentioned in Chapter One, Japan is seeking the support of the growing islands’ bloc at the United Nations, in its efforts to secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Japan also seeks ongoing access to Pacific fisheries and forest resources. Japanese corporations are interested in rights to the island nations’ undersea mineral wealth in the 200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) – signing an agreement in February, 2000 for deep ocean mineral exploration in EEZs around the Cook Islands, Fiji and the Marshall Islands.

    Close diplomatic and development ties throughout the 1990s have not ended island concern over environmental and resource issues involving Japanese corporations, including whaling, tuna and the transhipment of plutonium, MOX fuel and high-level radioactive wastes through the Pacific. In 2000, Japan offered to establish a US$10 million “goodwill” trust fund for Forum Island countries to address concerns over a possible fire, sinking, collision or accident involving nuclear materials. The issue is subject to ongoing negotiations between the Pacific Islands Forum and the nuclear nations involved in reprocessing Japanese spent nuclear wastes.

    Japan and nuclear energy

    Japan has a large nuclear power industry, and arranges for its spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed at the British reprocessing plant at Sellafield and the French reprocessing plant at La Hague. (Reprocessing involves chemically separating uranium and plutonium from used nuclear fuel, in order to reuse the plutonium). The reprocessing companies – COGEMA in France and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) in Britain – are government owned and controlled, while ten Japanese energy corporations make up the Overseas Reprocessing Committee (ORC). These three companies own the British-based shipping firm, Pacific Nuclear Transport LTD (PNTL), which carries nuclear wastes by sea on vessels such as Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal.

    Japan started transhipment of nuclear wastes to Europe back in 1969, but the program escalated in the 1990s as it attempted to develop a plutonium-fuelled fast breeder reactor. In coming years, Japanese nuclear corporations plan to ship 600 tonnes of spent fuel to France. After reprocessing, the separated plutonium and high level radioactive wastes are scheduled to be shipped back to Japan, because supply nations vetoed the use of aircraft for safety reasons. Depending on the route, the ships pass through the EEZs of Pacific or Caribbean island nations.

    Japan maintains massive stockpiles of separated plutonium in Europe (20.6 tonnes in France and 6.9 tonnes in Britain, as of late 2000). Japanese corporations Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) hope to bring these stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium from Europe to Japan by the year 2010. Shipping radioactive wastes back and forth across the oceans allows Japan’s nuclear industry to avoid responsibility for the build-up of nuclear pollution in Japan, as there is no viable method for the long-term storage of high-level nuclear wastes.

    A shipment of plutonium from Europe to Japan in 1992 aboard the Akatsuki Maru brought international condemnation, culminating when the United States government ordered Japan to send an armed escort vessel with the plutonium transport ship (5). The Akatsuki Maru, carrying a tonne of plutonium, passed between Australia and New Zealand, and then through the waters of Pacific island nations, including the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

    Because of concerns after the Akatsuki Maru shipment and public opposition to the use of plutonium in Japan, reprocessed materials are now transported as mixed plutonium/uranium oxide (MOX) fuel, to be burnt in light water nuclear reactors. Many Japanese citizens are opposed to Japan’s plutonium economy, because of concerns over nuclear proliferation, cost and pollution. There are many safety problems with Japan’s reprocessing and nuclear industry, exemplified by the December 1995 fire and accident at the Monju prototype fast breeder reactor, the March 1997 fire and explosion at Tokaimura reactor, or the April 1997 leak of heavy water coolant at the Fugen plutonium-fuelled reactor. Confidence was also shaken by the corporate and government failure to respond quickly to the September 1999 Tokaimura nuclear accident (Tokaimura hosts four nuclear power plants and was the site of Japan’s worst nuclear accident, which killed two people and exposed at least 439 others to radiation) (7).

    The demand for MOX shipments has faltered, in the face of Japanese citizen opposition. In February 2001, the Governor of Fukushima Province, Eisaku Sato, acknowledged the “impossibility of MOX use at present.” Governor Sato stated: “The JCO criticality accident [at Tokaimura in 1999] and the MOX fuel data falsification problem heightened prefectural citizens anxiety and distrust over government nuclear policy, and the acceptance of the MOX use program in the prefecture has yet to recover (8).” The same month, TEPCO announced that it had suspended construction of all new nuclear power plants.

    The data falsification Governor Sato referred to seriously undermined Japan’s MOX program. The first 1999 shipment from the UK’s British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) facility at Sellafield erupted in scandal when, while en-route, it was revealed that BNFL had deliberately falsified vital quality control data. For the next three months BNFL and Japanese authorities denied that quality control data for the MOX fuel had been falsified. However, after a legal challenge was mounted by Japanese NGO’s (supported by Greenpeace), BNFL finally admitted that falsification had taken place during the manufacture of the MOX fuel. The Japanese government and owners of the MOX fuel, Kansai Electric, rejected BNFL’s view that it remained safe to load the fuel into nuclear reactors and in early 2000 demanded it be returned to the UK. After negotiating for over six months, it was announced in July 2000 that the UK government had agreed to the return of the MOX fuel. BNFL agreed to a compensation package with Kansai Electric, whereby a total of 110 million UK sterling would be written off to fund direct compensation, new fuel, and the cost of a return transport. It was announced that the transport would take place within 2-3 years. This return shipment departed from Britain on April 26, 2002 – the sixteenth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

    The Japanese and British Governments recognise the sensitivity of this return shipment, conducted three years after the fact. The Agreement for the return, signed by both parties on July 11, 2000, stated that: “maximum consideration will be given to the relationship with coastal states.” However, as recently as January 30, 2002 the Japanese Foreign Ministry stated to a member of the Japanese Parliament that all three routes between Japan and the UK remained an option for this shipment and they will be used in a balanced way.

    At the time of writing, the Pacific Pintail and a second armed nuclear transport ship, the Pacific Teal, are loading the plutonium MOX in Japan. The ships’ route was still unknown, and countries along the three possible routes were on alert for incursions into their territorial waters and EEZs.

    Evidence that the consistent opposition of en-route states is having an impact on Japan’s plans for future shipments has emerged over recent years. In early 2001, it was revealed that the Japanese Government was considering the option of moving plutonium and vitrified high level waste from Europe via the Northern Sea Route, north of Russia. While Greenpeace is opposed to such plans, it is noteworthy that one of the motives for this is the view of the Japanese Foreign Ministry that opposition in the South Pacific, Caribbean and Latin America is growing. The Northern Sea Route would avoid these regions. Further evidence that opposition from coastal states is impacting the Japanese nuclear program also comes via the Japanese Foreign Ministry. It intervened directly during 2000 and 2001 to prevent the signing of new reprocessing contracts between utilities and the French company Cogema, citing growing opposition from en-route nations. If signed, such contracts would lead to tens of shipments of spent nuclear waste fuel from Japan to Europe.

    In spite of the vulnerable financial situation of Japan’s plutonium economy, island nations have not yet been able to halt the transhipment of nuclear wastes. At the 1992 South Pacific Forum, leaders expressed their concern over the shipment of plutonium through Pacific waters, an expression of concern that has been repeated in every Forum Communiqué over the last decade.

    There is widespread concern that an accident could threaten Pacific fisheries, tourism and other vital industries, especially as the nuclear industry in Japan and Britain has recently been rocked by a series of scandals over safety. In the Japanese Diet (Parliament) on July 2,1999, questions were raised about whether Japan, Britain and France made any arrangements before the shipments, as required under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitted: “No arrangements exist. This has never been discussed between the three countries.” Some larger countries, like New Zealand, have sought and received assurances that the shipments will not pass through their EEZs, but these guarantees have not been given to small island Pacific states, which straddle the route to Japan through the Tasman Sea and central Pacific (9).

    Under international law, ships have the (debatable) right of “innocent passage” through EEZs. Negotiations to revise the existing international liability regime, known as the Paris Convention, are underway, however there are a number of constraints:

    • Unlike France and Britain, Japan is not a party to the 1960 Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy or the 1963 Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage
    • Non-OECD members such as Forum members states can only accede to the Paris Convention with the unanimous consent of all state parties
    • The Paris Convention does not cover economic loss arising from the perception of risk after an incident or accident. This is a key concern for island nations, as discussed below.

    In the mid-1990s, some Pacific island governments considered unilateral initiatives to restrict nuclear transport ships from passing through their EEZs (10). For example, in September 1997 Solomon Islands Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulafa’alu stated that his government was considering legislation to charge fees for nuclear waste shipments passing through his country’s waters. Media reports quoting diplomatic sources stated that in retaliation, Japan was considering suspending a $14 million ODA grant to build a new terminal at Honiara’s

    Henderson International Airport. Although the Japanese embassy then officially denied the claim, Ulafa’alu’s legislation never got off the ground (11).

    Diplomatic pressure from the nuclear states on individual Pacific governments has led to a co-ordinated Forum initiative. Instead of trying to ban outright the nuclear shipments through the region, the Forum has asked for negotiations on prior notification, compensation and liability schemes in cases of accident.

    Australia – Fuelling the Controversy

    Throughout all of the diplomatic efforts in relation to the shipments, the concerns of the en route nations have been undermined by the very unhelpful role played by Australia. Indeed, successive Australian governments have condoned the passage of the nuclear transports. Australia sells uranium, the basic fuel for nuclear reactors, to electricity utilities in Japan. Official reports show that thousands of tonnes of Australian uranium and its by-products are held by Japan – in the form of natural uranium, enriched uranium, and depleted uranium, as well as irradiated and separated plutonium. Australian Obligated Nuclear Material (AONM) is traded under bilateral and international agreements which means that Japan needs permission from Australia before it can take part in nuclear material transfers. However, permission has been granted for both the transfer of the materials, and the shipments themselves, via a “generic consent” which covers this and every other plutonium shipment, without subjecting that particular shipment, or the Japanese plutonium program, to any scrutiny whatsoever.

    Forum Negotiations with Shipping States

    Even though concerns were raised formally after the Akatsuki Maru’s plutonium shipment in 1992, Japan, France and Britain dragged their feet over addressing Forum concerns. Formal consultations on the issue only commenced in 1999, involving Forum Secretariat officials and ambassadors, plus government officials of the three shipping nations (Britain, France and Japan), and nuclear industry representatives (12).

    After a mandate given by the 1998 Forum meeting, the first round of discussions on nuclear shipments was held in Suva, Fiji in August, 1999. Ironically, at the time, two shiploads of MOX fuel were passing through the region (13). In spite of agreement to continue dialogue, the second round of discussions in Auckland, New Zealand, was not held until September, 2000 – one year after the first meeting. At this consultation, in Auckland, New Zealand in September 2000, the three nuclear powers claimed that existing international maritime law on “innocent passage” allows nuclear transhipment through islands EEZs. They refused to acknowledge any liability for potential accidents beyond the existing international regime.

    In February 2001, at the time of another MOX shipment, the Forum publicly expressed its concern over the slow pace of negotiations:

    “At the Forum meetings in Kiribati and Palau, island leaders noted the continuation of discussions with France, Japan and the United Kingdom on the current liability regime for compensating the region for economic losses caused to tourism, fisheries and other affected industries as a result of an accident involving a shipment of radioactive materials, even if there is no actual environmental damage caused. The Forum has noted that amendments to existing international liability regimes were currently under negotiation and that, once concluded, would take some time to enter into force. It is therefore necessary that discussions focus on intermediate innovative arrangements or assurances to address the Forum’s concerns. The Forum has reaffirmed its desire to continue these discussions with France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Pacific Islands Forum Leaders have also called for a high-level commitment from the three shipping states to carry the process forward.(14)”

    A third meeting with the shipping states and nuclear industry representatives was held on 3-5 July 2001 in Nadi, Fiji. It was the first time that substantial discussion and negotiations occurred, and Forum concerns were addressed.

    A central issue from Forum member countries is not only the potential catastrophic environmental consequences of an accident involving a shipment of radioactive materials and MOX fuel, but also economic impacts arising from any incident where there is no release of radioactivity (“…even if there is no actual environmental damage caused.” ) (15). Cook Islands Prime Minister Dr. Terepai Maoate has noted that for his and similar countries, a nuclear waste shipment accident would “create immediate and widespread perception of danger and ruin a booming tourism industry” (16).

    There are precedents for such economic losses, as shown with the resumption of French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in 1995-6. International hostility to the testing and public perceptions of nuclear hazards caused a significant drop in tourism to many Pacific countries, even though they are some distance from the nuclear test sites. Tourism to French Polynesia dropped 20 per cent in the last quarter of 1995 in comparison to the previous year, but other Pacific countries were also affected: tourism for the period to the Cook Islands dropped 14.7 per cent, New Caledonia 6.9 per cent and Fiji 3.4 per cent. Japanese honeymooners and tour groups are an important source of tourism revenue, but Japanese tourism to the South Pacific dropped 36.9 per cent in the last quarter of 1995, in large part because of concern over nuclear hazards (17).

    While giving assurances on the prevention of incidents and response to an accident, the three shipping nations refuse to give commitments on compensation and liability, especially for economic losses caused by perceived dangers from a nuclear accident. Japan has maintained a rigid position that it will not provide compensation for economic loss; concerned that so-called “misreporting” of a nuclear accident may increase the economic losses. Such commitments from the shipping states will only come after sustained political pressure.

    Japan’s Trust Fund

    Japan has responded to ongoing pressure over the issue by offering to pay an initial grant of US$10 million into a “good will” trust (funded by Japanese nuclear corporations). The trust fund was announced publicly at the October 2000 Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Kiribati. Annual interest of some US$500,000 from this Pacific Islands Development Cooperation Fund could be used to finance projects for Forum Island Countries in the fields of environment, energy and tourism.

    A more controversial element of the fund was the announcement that “the principal of the trust fund would be available to cover the costs of the initial response to incidents during shipment of radioactive materials and MOX fuel through the region (18).” However, the UK and France are worried that the trust fund has been linked to the nuclear shipments, and Japan is seeking to revise its original advice that the fund has any connection to nuclear transport accidents, in order to avoid liability. The Japanese Government has not publicly clarified details of the Trust Fund and is still negotiating the details of the MOU and a Management Council to govern its operations.

    Even this gesture has not mollified critics of the nuclear shipments, who call for a complete cession of all transport of nuclear materials through Pacific waters. Motarilavoa Hilda Lini of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC) has noted: “We are concerned that our governments’ position could be compromised by accepting Japan’s offer to establish a US$10 million ‘goodwill’ trust fund to placate concerns about the plutonium shipments threat to Pacific fisheries, tourism and other vital industries. US$10 million is peanuts. It will not cover a fraction of the costs incurred by a nuclear accident at sea. (19) ”

    It is worth noting that the domestic liability agreements in Japan in relation to nuclear accidents are far more generous than what has been offered to en route states.

    Japanese Lobbying

    In an effort to prop up their troubled nuclear industry, Japanese government and industry lobbyists now argue that nuclear power is a solution to global warming and subsequent sea-level rise – key issues of concern for small atoll states in the Pacific. Nuclear corporations have hired public relations companies like Burson-Marsteller to soften public opinion, saying there are no hazards from the shipments. Delegations from COGEMA and BNFL have toured the South Pacific, and company officials have lobbied at Pacific Island Forum meetings. Australia and Britain also included nuclear experts in their delegations to the 1999 South Pacific Forum in Palau, to lobby against any restrictions on the transport of plutonium and nuclear wastes.

    A delegation of nuclear officials from Japan, France and Britain toured the Pacific between 7-19 August 1999, to lobby on the issue. The delegation, which travelled to the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau, included representatives from BNFL, the French nuclear company Transnucleaire, the British Embassy in Tokyo, the Japanese Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Industry, and the Overseas Reprocessing Committee, which links Japanese energy corporations. The “atomic energy counsellor” from the UK Embassy in Japan was part of this delegation, assuring Pacific officials of the safety of nuclear shipments – BNFL pays 500,000 pounds a year to the British government so that one of their former employees can work as a diplomat in the British Embassy in Tokyo, to promote the British nuclear industry.

    Public opposition to the shipments was apparent when community and environmental groups joined students from the University of the South Pacific (USP) in a rally at the Embassy of Japan in Suva on August 11. The USP students from Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu were gathered outside the meeting between Pacific island ambassadors and the French, British and Japanese nuclear officials. Churches and NGOs in Fiji also placed newspaper advertisements calling for an end to all shipments of plutonium and high level wastes through the region (20).

    Summit Diplomacy

    Japan has long had close historic and cultural ties with Micronesian countries such as Palau (21). But there have been increased diplomatic efforts with all Forum leaders since th- 1988 Japan-Pacific summit hosted by Japanese billionaire Ryoichi Sasakawa (who was jailed as a Class A war criminal between 1945-48) (22). Official Japan-South Pacific summits have been described as “an apparent fuseki attempt to obtain support from Forum members in a bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council” (23). (A fuseki move, in the Japanese game of go, involves placing stones in an area as wide as possible at the start of the game).

    On October 13-14, 1997 leaders from the member nations of the South Pacific Forum met in Tokyo with the Japanese government, at the inaugural Japan-South Pacific Forum Summit (24). Addressing the summit, then Chair of the South Pacific Forum Sir Geoffrey Henry, spoke of the islands “enduring concern” over both “adverse climate change and sea level rise”, and “the shipment of plutonium and radioactive wastes through the region.” The final Summit Communiqué “noted continuing concerns over shipment of plutonium and high level wastes” but diplomatically acknowledged “Japan’s sincere efforts in dealing with the Forum island countries concerns”! The Summit Communiqué listed a range of issues of concern and co-operation – economic and private sector development, public sector reform, fishing, climate change, youth exchanges and more – but contained no action agenda or plans for implementation.

    The next Japan-South Pacific Summit was held as the Pacific Area Leaders Meeting (PALM) in April 2000, in Miyazaki, Japan (25). Before travelling to Miyazaki, Pacific leaders attended a lunch in Tokyo hosted by Japanese corporations, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Japan Employers Federation Association, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives and the Japan Foreign Trade Council.

    The official summit issued the “Miyazaki PALM Declaration: Our Common Vision For The Future”, outlining joint co-operation in economic, trade and aid issues. Japan announced it would continue support for the Tokyo office of the Pacific Islands Centre, created in 1996 to encourage Japanese business investment and tourism in the Pacific. The Japanese government would send more than 3000 JOCV volunteers to the Pacific islands over the next five years. Japan also pledged a funding package worth US$4 million, including about $1 million for information technology training and support, $2 million for “human security” projects (AIDS, malaria and eradication of infectious diseases), and $1 million in support of a Partnership Program to fund student exchanges and training through the Forum Secretariat (Japan has since offered to pay for a staff position at the Secretariat to administer this program) (26).

    The summit issued a special statement on environmental co-operation, pledging Japan-Pacific co-operation on climate change, biodiversity and environmental education. However, a notable silence in the summit communiqué was nuclear issues (unlike the 1997 summit communiqué, which officially detailed South Pacific concerns over the transhipment of plutonium and high level wastes through the South Pacific and Japan’s commitment to act on these concerns).

    At PALM 2000, Japanese officials lobbied hard on nuclear issues, arguing that nuclear energy is a valuable tool in reducing the use of fossil fuels and the generation of greenhouse gases that cause warming of the earth and sea level rise. On April 24, 2000 Pacific leaders and officials met in Tokyo with Japan’s Federation of Electric Power Companies to discuss energy and environment issues. Challenged about Japan’s carbon dioxide emissions, Japanese officials advanced spurious arguments that nuclear power was cheaper than solar and wind power, that the MOX fuel system contributed to nuclear disarmament and that nuclear power provided a key solution to dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels! (27)

    The next day, Pacific journalists, Forum officials and two Pacific Island leaders (Cook Islands’ Prime Minister Dr. Terepai Maoate and Niue Premier Sani Lakatani) travelled by bullet train to the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station, about 140 miles west of Tokyo. After a tour of the nuclear power plant, Maoate stated: “I have learned a lot of things that I didn’t know about nuclear power stations. I am convinced of the safety measures that have been shown to us, of the plant itself. (28)” Opposition politicians in the Cook Islands questioned Dr Maoate’s request that the Japanese nuclear industry looks into whether small and safe nuclear power plants might be used in the Pacific (29).

    Following the PALM 2000 Summit, Japan sent three missions to the region to investigate potential economic, political and cultural exchanges. The missions visited Palau and the Marshall Islands (November 2000), Fiji, Tonga and Samoa (March 2001) and Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu (May 2001). Diplomatic exchanges are being extended – each year, the Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum is invited to Japan by the Japanese government, for high-level discussions with Japanese leaders.

    In February 2001, the President of Kiribati, Teburoro Tito, visited Japan over six days in his capacity as Forum Chair. In meetings with then Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, President Tito agreed on the “need to bridge their differences over Tokyo’s whaling and nuclear fuel shipments” (30). Tito also expressed support for Japan’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. During the visit, Japan’s Foreign Minister told Tito that Japan would send a mission to Kiribati to survey whether Japanese ODA could be used to improve the country’s electricity supply. Japan and Kiribati have close ties, with Kiritimati (Christmas) island hosting a Japanese tracking station to monitor rockets launched from Tanegashima Space Centre in Kagoshima Prefecture. The two countries are extending their co-operation over Japan’s space program, with the planned construction of a rocket landing area in Kiribati.

    The visit erupted in controversy on Tito’s return to Fiji, after a newspaper quoted him as saying that the Forum should “revise” its policy towards nuclear energy, that nuclear power helps reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses and that nuclear power generation “is a matter of survival” for Japan (31). The Forum and the Kiribati government quickly issued statements that the President had been misquoted and reaffirmed the Forum and Kiribati’s opposition to nuclear power (32). However, the incident highlights public concern that Japanese ODA is being used to woo Pacific leaders to soften their opposition to the plutonium economy.

    With the issues of global warming and sea-level rise high on the agenda for Forum island countries, the island nations have resisted the integration of nuclear power into the climate change negotiating process. The official intergovernmental Pacific Islands Regional Submission to the 9th Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) session in 2000 stressed: “Nuclear energy sources are neither appropriate nor acceptable for use in the region, or for designation as a Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol.(33)”

    Concluding Remarks

    Of the four cargoes of plutonium, either in the plutonium dioxide or MOX form, transported to Japan during the last ten years, not one gram of plutonium has yet been used. In total the British-flagged transport vessels have travelled a total of over 120,000 kilometers to deliver their cargoes of weapons usable plutonium to Japan. Although each of these transports have been justified by Japan, as well as the British transporters, as essential for Japan’s energy program, not one gram of plutonium fuel has been loaded into in a nuclear reactor. Not one kilowatt of electricity has been generated. Increasingly in Japan, the nuclear electrical utilities are signaling that this program makes no economic sense. So, as with the deliberate deception by BNFL of their Japanese clients, the Japanese government and utilities are deceiving en-route governments and their citizens by continually claiming these shipments are required for energy purposes.

    The international nuclear industry is in trouble. The number of nuclear power plants under construction is dropping and nuclear power generation is being phased out in many industrialised countries, such as Germany. The nuclear industry has not found a solution for the long-term storage of plutonium and high level radioactive waste, which lasts for thousands of years (though many nuclear corporations are still pushing to use the vast “empty” spaces of the Pacific as a dumping ground for nuclear wastes). Few people today believe the myth that nuclear power is a cheap, safe energy source. Pacific islands are already living with the radioactive legacies of fifty years of nuclear testing by France, Britain and the United States, and are calling for compensation and clean-up. Meanwhile the nuclear industry is desperately trying to avoid any liability for the hazardous business of shipping nuclear wastes back and forward across Pacific fishing grounds.
    (1) Sandra Tarte: Japan’s aid diplomacy and the Pacific Islands (NCDS, Canberra, 1998).
    (2) In November 2000, a senior LDP policy maker, Shizuka Kamei, called for a 30 per cent reduction in ODA, and in December a study group of LDP, New Komeito and New Conservative party politicians has recommended “a qualitative cut in the overall size of the ODA budget” in the 2001 fiscal year; and “Study group considers reduction in Japanese development assistance”, Japan Times, December 9, 2000; “Japanese government opts for selective aid policy” IPS/PINA Nius, December 16, 2000.
    (3) “Japan funds for Secretariat”, Forum Secretariat Press release 3001, April 3, 2001.
    (4) Japanese Fisheries Minister Masayuki Komatsu, head of Japan’s whaling delegation at the International Whaling Commission, explaining Japan’s use of ODA as leverage in negotiations over the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary, quoted on ABC radio, July 18, 2001.
    (5) “Japan’s plan to ship plutonium has big and little lands roaring”, New York Times, October 5, 1992.
    (6) Frank von Hippel and Suzanne Jones: “The slow death of the breeder reactor”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.53, No.5, September/October 1997.
    (7) Dr. Jinzaburo Takagi: Criticality Accident at Tokaimura (CNIC, Tokyo, 2000). See also: “Tokaimura accident, Japan – third party liability and compensation aspects”, Nuclear Law Bulletin No.66, December 2000 (OECD Nuclear Energy Agency).
    (8) “Outlook for MOX use now completely unclear”, Asahi Shimbun February 26, 2001; “MOX use this year now hopeless for Kashiwazaki Kariwa”, Denki website (electricity utility daily newspaper), February 26, 2001.
    (9) In a statement by Foreign Minister Phil Goff opposing a shipment of MOX fuel to Japan, it was noted that ‘the shipment is unlikely to go through New Zealand’s EEZ as assurances that this would not occur have been sought and given in the past’. See “New Zealand condemns nuclear shipment to leave France”, Pacnews, Thursday, January 18, 2001.
    (10) Jon Van Dyke: “The legitimacy of unilateral actions to protest the ocean shipment of ultrahazardous radioactive materials”, mimeo, December 1996.
    (11) “Solomon Islands may charge for Pacific nuclear waste shipments”, Radio Australia, September 19, 1997;
    “Japan may suspend support for Honiara airport terminal”, SIBC and Radio Australia, November 10, 1997;
    “Japan denies reports its is reconsidering grant to Solomon Islands”, Pacnews, November 11, 1997.
    (12) The Forum has established a “Forum Working Group on Liability and Compensation for the Shipment of Radioactive Materials through the Region”, to represent Forum member countries at negotiations.
    (13) “Pacific protests plutonium MOX shipments”, Pacific News Bulletin, August 1999, p 1.
    (14) Forum Secretariat Press release, February 23, 2001.
    (15) Forum Communiqué, 30th Pacific Islands Forum, Koror, Palau, 1999 (emphasis added).
    (16) “PM insists Japan’s US$10 million trust fund separate from liability regime”, Pacnews, December 1, 2000.
    (17) Robert Keith Reid: “After the Bomb” in “Selling the Islands – What’s Hot for Tourism?”, Islands Business, June 1996, p29.
    (18) “Trust Fund for the purposes of cooperation between Japan and Pacific Island Countries”, Section 32-33, Forum Communiqué, 31st Pacific Islands Forum, Tarawa, Kiribati, October 2000.
    (19) “Stop plutonium shipments – strengthen the conventions” PCRC Media release, January 20, 2001.
    (20) Fiji Times, August 11, 1999.
    (21) For an overview, see His Excellency Kuniwo Nakamura (former President of Palau), “How best to cultivate solidarity between Japan and Pacific Island countries”, speech to Pacific Islands seminar, Tokyo, February 9, 2001. See also “Japan, Palau ties praised in Tokyo meeting”, PINA Nius Online, August 9, 2001.
    (22) “Sasakawa’s interest adds up to dollars”, Islands Business, February 1990. Today, the Sasakawa Pacific Islands Nations Fund (SPINF) contributes to development programs, especially in Hawai’i and Micronesia.
    (23) Yomiuri Shimbun, March 3, 1997.
    (24) Nic Maclellan: “Japan’s aid diplomacy” Pacific News Bulletin, November 1997.
    (25) Nic Maclellan “PALM 2000: Japan-South Pacific summit” Pacific News Bulletin, May 2000.
    (26) “Japan funds for Secretariat”, Forum Secretariat Press release 3001, April 3, 2001.
    (27) “Island leaders impressed with nuclear power”, Islands Business, June 2000, p43.
    (28) Ibid.
    (29) “Cook Islands investigates nuclear power as energy source”, Radio Australia, June 22, 2000. By January 2001, Dr Maoate was calling for more action to establish a liability and compensation regime in case of accident in Pacific waters: “PM calls for a nuclear spillage compensation regime”, Pacnews, January 24, 2001.
    (30) BBC Monitoring Asia-Pacific, February 20, 2001.
    (31) “Tito calls on Pacific to revise nuclear stand”, Fiji Daily Post, February 26, 2001.
    (32) A Forum Secretariat letter to the media and environmental NGOs on February 28, 2001 states: “President Tito did note that the Forum had taken no stand on the question of nuclear energy, apart from the Forum’s continuing concern with the shipment of nuclear materials through the region. He also made it clear that the region opposed nuclear materials that would be harmful to our people”. See also “Kiribati position on nuclear energy”, Pacific News Bulletin, May 2001, p12.
    (33) CROP: Pacific Islands Regional Submission to the 9th Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), 2000.

  • Time to Shut Down the Nation’s Nuclear Plants

    In the aftermath of the horrific September 11 attack on the World Trade Center there has been considerable discussion in the US media about the threat of a future chemical or biological attack. Meanwhile, the much greater threat posed by a successful terrorist attack on a US nuclear reactor has passed almost without notice. Currently there are about 110 operational nuclear reactors in the United States. And virtually every one of these electrical generating facilities is vulnerable to terrorism. Indeed, from the standpoint of the terrorist it would be hard to imagine a more ideal target than a nuclear reactor. These plants are uniquely vulnerable by virtue of their design. A successful assault on even one nuclear reactor could produce a catastrophe that would make the recent tragedy in New York seem puny by comparison.

    Such terrorism would be much easier to mount than the attack on the World Trade Center. No need to hijack a commercial jet liner. A small plane would suffice, and could be legally rented at any of a hundred airports in the US. The plane could be flown to a remote air strip located, say, on a rented farm, there loaded with explosives or even gasoline, before being pointed in kamikaze fashion at a nuclear plant.

    Such an attack, planned by someone with the necessary expertise, and staged by a handful of determined men, would be extremely difficult to stop. Current operational safeguards at US nuclear plants are designed to protect against truck bombs. But apparently no thought has been given to the sort of aerial assault that toppled the World Trade Center.

    The objective of such terrorism would be to disable the nuclear plant’s safety (cooling) systems, triggering a worst-case scenario: a nuclear melt-down.

    A partial melt-down of uranium fuel did occur at Three Mile Island in 1979, and, again, at Chernobyl in 1986. However, serious as these accidents were, especially Chernobyl, the long-term consequences of a full-scale melt-down would be immeasurably worse, worse even than the detonation of a nuclear weapon. Why? Because the core of a nuclear reactor contains many times as much uranium fuel as the largest nuclear bomb. Hence the potential for the release of far more radiation.

    Try and imagine, if you can, the hellish scenario that would result from such an attack. A full scale melt-down is a runaway nuclear reaction in the core of a nuclear reactor. It leads to a “China Syndrome,” where the “hot” uranium fuel literally melts its way through the floor of the reactor’s containment vessel, then sinks into the earth until it reaches ground water; whereupon a gigantic plume of intensely radioactive material rises like death into the air and begins to spread with the winds over a vast area.

    Let us assume such an attack near a large US city — a fair assumption given that many nuclear plants are located near metropolitan areas. With the prevailing winds, a melt-down at a plant in Pennsylvania, say, or in Virginia, would contaminate a large portion of the eastern seaboard with lethal radiation, killing untold numbers of people, and necessitating the evacuation of tens of millions of others. Large areas would be rendered uninhabitable for centuries. Entire cities, including New York and even the nation’s capital, might have to be permanently vacated. The human cost in lives, not to mention the vast disruptions to American society, would be on a scale that is impossible to comprehend.

    Yet the danger is all too real. Although the inherent vulnerability of nuclear reactors to terrorism has been understood for many years, the threat has not been taken seriously — until now — for reasons of hubris and greed.

    From the day of their election President Bush and Vice President Cheney have touted a new generation of “clean” and “safe” nuclear power reactors that, we are told, will solve the nation’s latest energy crisis. The two most powerful men in the land have, in short, been doing everything in their power to magnify the problem, and have played straight into the hands of Osama bin Ladin.

    No doubt, Bush and Cheney’s support for nuclear has been driven by politics. They have sought to reward those in industry who supported their candidacy. Make no mistake, the only reason nuclear power has survived is because of federal subsidies. Corporate welfare has been its life-blood. In a truly free marketplace nuclear energy would long ago have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

    In the wake of the disaster in New York the nation must finally come to terms with the true risks of nuclear energy. We must face the reality that there is no way to adequately safeguard these plants. When terrorists are willing to die they are very difficult to stop. The only solution is prevention: phase out nuclear power as soon as possible in an orderly transition to wind and solar energy; which are immune to terrorism, in addition to being cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

    *Mark Gaffney is the author of a pioneering study of the Israeli nuclear weapons program. Mark is currently preparing a briefing paper “Will the Next Mid-East War Go Nuclear?” for the Washington-based Middle East Policy Council. He can be reached at: PO Box 100 Chiloquin, OR 97624 541-783-2309

  • America’s Terrorist Nuclear Threat to Itself

    No sane nation hands to a wartime enemy atomic weapons set to go off within its own homeland, and then lights the fuse.

    Yet as the bombs and missiles drop on Afghanistan, the certainty of terror retaliation inside America has turned our 103 nuclear power plants into weapons of apocalyptic destruction, just waiting to be used against us.

    One or both planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, could have easily obliterated the two atomic reactors now operating at Indian Point, about 40 miles up the Hudson.

    The catastrophic devastation would have been unfathomable. But those and a hundred other American reactors are still running. Security has been heightened. But all are vulnerable to another sophisticated terror attack aimed at perpetrating the unthinkable.

    Indian Point Unit One was shut long ago by public outcry. But Units 2 & 3 have operated since the 1970s. Back then there was talk of requiring reactor containment domes to be strong enough to withstand a jetliner crash. But the biggest jets were far smaller than the ones that fly today. Nor did those early calculations account for the jet fuel whose hellish fire melted the critical steel supports that ultimately brought down the Trade Center.

    Had one or both those jets hit one or both the operating reactors at Indian Point, the ensuing cloud of radiation would have dwarfed the ones at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

    The intense radioactive heat within today’s operating reactors is the hottest anywhere on the planet. So are the hellish levels of radioactivity.

    Because Indian Point has operated so long, its accumulated radioactive burden far exceeds that of Chernobyl, which ran only four years before it exploded.

    Some believe the WTC jets could have collapsed or breached either of the Indian Point containment domes. But at very least the massive impact and intense jet fuel fire would destroy the human ability to control the plants’ functions. Vital cooling systems, backup power generators and communications networks would crumble.

    Indeed, Indian Point Unit One was shut because activists warned that its lack of an emergency core cooling system made it an unacceptable risk. The government ultimately agreed.

    But today terrorist attacks could destroy those same critical cooling and control systems that are vital to not only the Unit Two and Three reactor cores, but to the spent fuel pools that sit on site.

    The assault would not require a large jet. The safety systems are extremely complex and virtually indefensible. One or more could be wiped out with a wide range of easily deployed small aircraft, ground-based weapons, truck bombs or even chemical/biological assaults aimed at the operating work force. Dozens of US reactors have repeatedly failed even modest security tests over the years. Even heightened wartime standards cannot guarantee protection of the vast, supremely sensitive controls required for reactor safety.

    Without continous monitoring and guaranteed water flow, the thousands of tons of radioactive rods in the cores and the thousands more stored in those fragile pools would rapidly melt into super-hot radioactive balls of lava that would burn into the ground and the water table and, ultimately, the Hudson.

    Indeed, a jetcrash like the one on 9/11 or other forms of terrorist assault at Indian Point could yield three infernal fireballs of molten radioactive lava burning through the earth and into the aquifer and the river. Striking water they would blast gigantic billows of horribly radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Prevailing winds from the north and west might initially drive these clouds of mass death downriver into New York City and east into Westchester and Long Island.

    But at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, winds ultimately shifted around the compass to irradiate all surrounding areas with the devastating poisons released by the on-going fiery torrent. At Indian Point, thousands of square miles would have been saturated with the most lethal clouds ever created or imagined, depositing relentless genetic poisons that would kill forever.

    In nearby communities like Buchanan, Nyack, Monsey and scores more, infants and small children would quickly die en masse. Virtually all pregnant women would spontaneously abort, or ultimately give birth to horribly deformed offspring. Ghastly sores, rashes, ulcerations and burns would afflict the skin of millions. Emphysema, heart attacks, stroke, multiple organ failure, hair loss, nausea, inability to eat or drink or swallow, diarrhea and incontinance, sterility and impotence, asthma, blindness, and more would kill thousands on the spot, and doom hundreds of thousands if not millions. A terrible metallic taste would afflict virtually everyone downwind in New York, New Jersey and New England, a ghoulish curse similar to that endured by the fliers who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaskai, by those living downwind from nuclear bomb tests in the south seas and Nevada, and by victims caught in the downdrafts from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

    Then comes the abominable wave of cancers, leukemias, lymphomas, tumors and hellish diseases for which new names will have to be invented, and new dimensions of agony will beg description.

    Indeed, those who survived the initial wave of radiation would envy those who did not.

    Evacuation would be impossible, but thousands would die trying. Bridges and highways would become killing fields for those attempting to escape to destinations that would soon enough become equally deadly as the winds shifted.

    Attempts to quench the fires would be futile. At Chernobyl, pilots flying helicopters that dropped boron on the fiery core died in droves. At Indian Point, such missions would be a sure ticket to death. Their utility would be doubtful as the molten cores rage uncontrolled for days, weeks and years, spewing ever more devastation into the eco-sphere. More than 800,000 Soviet draftees were forced through Chernobyl’s seething remains in a futile attempt to clean it up. They are dying in droves. Who would now volunteer for such an American task force?

    The radioactive cloud from Chernobyl blanketed the vast Ukraine and Belarus landscape, then carried over Europe and into the jetstream, surging through the west coast of the United States within ten days, carrying across our northern tier, circling the globe, then coming back again.

    The radioactive clouds from Indian Point would enshroud New York, New Jersey, New England, and carry deep into the Atlantic and up into Canada and across to Europe and around the globe again and again.

    The immediate damage would render thousands of the world’s most populous and expensive square miles permanently uninhabitable. All five boroughs of New York City would be an apocalyptic wasteland. The World Trade Center would be rendered as unusable and even more lethal by a jet crash at Indian Point than it was by the direct hits of 9/11. All real estate and economic value would be poisonously radioactive throughout the entire region. Irreplaceable trillions in human capital would be forever lost.

    As at Three Mile Island, where thousands of farm and wild animals died in heaps, and as at Chernobyl, where soil, water and plant life have been hopelessly irradiated, natural eco-systems on which human and all other life depends would be permanently and irrevocably destroyed,

    Spiritually, psychologically, financially, ecologically, our nation would never recover.

    This is what we missed by a mere forty miles near New York City on September 11. Now that we are at war, this is what could be happening as you read this.

    There are 103 of these potential Bombs of the Apocalypse now operating in the United States. They generate just 18% of America’s electricity, just 8% of our total energy. As with reactors elsewhere, the two at Indian Point have both been off-line for long periods of time with no appreciable impact on life in New York. Already an extremely expensive source of electricity, the cost of attempting to defend these reactors will put nuclear energy even further off the competitive scale.

    Since its deregulation crisis, California—already the nation’s second-most efficient state—cut further into its electric consumption by some 15%. Within a year the US could cheaply replace virtually with increased efficiency all the reactors now so much more expensive to operate and protect.

    Yet, as the bombs fall and the terror escalates, Congress is fast-tracking a form of legal immunity to protect the operators of reactors like Indian Point from liability in case of a meltdown or terrorist attack.

    Why is our nation handing its proclaimed enemies the weapons of our own mass destruction, and then shielding from liability the companies that insist on continuing to operate them?

    Do we take this war seriously? Are we committed to the survival of our nation?

    If so, the ticking reactor bombs that could obliterate the very core of our life and of all future generations must be shut down.

    * Harvey Wasserman is author of The Last Energy War and co-author of Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation.

  • Nuclear Power

    It is my belief, based on a professional lifetime of study, that further development of nuclear power presents an unacceptable radioactive curse on all future generations. Aside from the risks of accidents worse than we have so far seen, there is no suitable place in our environment to dispose of either present or future nuclear waste. Now massive public-relations efforts are being launched to retrain the public to trust the “experts.” Damaged gene pools and cancers, and a ruined environment, will be our legacy to future generations if we continue to build nuclear reactors and nuclear armaments. How many of our grandchildren are we willing to sacrifice for the continuation of nuclear electric power and nuclear war?

    Nuclear Electric Utilites
    The “peacetime” nuclear business in the United States is in bad shape. The hard fact is that nuclear power is the most subsidized of all industries, kept alive by taxpayer, rate-payer, and bondholder financed welfare, and by world wide military support. Abandoned reactors include Rancho Seco in California, Trojan in Oregon, Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Shoreham on Long Island. All new reactors ordered since 1973 have been can-celed. Estimates of the cost of disposal rise fantastically above $500 million per reactor, and no one knows what to do with the radioactive stuff stored within and around them. The United States Department of Energy has expressed a desire for tritium to replenish the dwindling supply in its thermonuclear bomb stockpile. In order to survive, some electric utilities have expressed willingness to produce wartime tritium as a government-subsidized by-product of their nuclear electrical power.

    Nuclear Construction Companies
    Nuclear construction companies would like to build nuclear power plants, but it is unlikely that any unsubsidized nuclear power plant will be ordered by a US utility. The United States has proposed to provide reactors to North Korea to replace their “unsafe” nuclear plants. American, French, and Canadian nuclear companies are considering joint ventures to build power reactors in Indonesia and elsewhere, I presume with financial aid from US taxpayers. Now it is proposed that US nuclear corporations sell $60 billion of nuclear products to China, trusting that they will not use their ability to produce plutonium for bombs.

    Nuclear War with Depleted Uranium
    The US Atomic Energy Commission used its enormous diffusion plants to separate uranium-235 from natural uranium for the purpose of making nuclear bombs, like the one dropped on Hiroshima. The tons of depleted uranium (mostly uranium-238) left over from the diffusion process were to be a valuable material for conversion to plutonium fuel for breeder reactors. Because our breeder program has lost its support, depleted uranium is now a “waste” material in need of “recycling.” Its value for “peace” has been replaced by its value for waging nuclear war. In the Persian Gulf the US military recycled hundreds of tons of depleted uranium into armor piercing shells and protective armor for tanks. After piercing a tank wall the depleted uranium burned, forming a radioactive and chemically lethal aerosol, incinerating everyone inside the tank, then spreading unseen over Iraq. Sickness and death for all future time were spread indiscriminately among Iraqi soldiers and civilians (including children). American soldiers and their children became victims as part of the Gulf War Syndrome. Now US military suppliers plan to sell this “free” government bonanza on the profitable world military market.

    Radioactive Pollution on a Worldwide Scale
    The public has been conditioned by both corporate and government proponents of nuclear power to believe in the necessity for their inherently “safe” nuclear reactors to avert a coming energy crisis. The nuclear establishment advertises itself as the producer of “green” energy, completely ignoring the non-green effects of the manufacture and eventual disposal of reactors, their fuels, and their radioactive products. They claim that they are now ready to produce “safe” reactors. Extension of the analyses by which the experts support their claim of safety shows, I believe, that there is no possibility of a guaranteed safe reactor. There is certainly no way safely to dispose of nuclear waste into the environment. Reactors are bound occasionally to fail. They are complicated mechanical devices designed, built, and operated by fallible human beings, some of whom may be vindictive. Our reactors may be “weapons in the hands of our enemies,” susceptible to sabotage. Despite attempts at secrecy, the list of reactor accidents fills whole books. In 1986 the Chernobyl reactor exploded, blowing off its two-thousand-ton lid, polluting the northern hemisphere with radioactivity, casting radiation sickness and death into the far future, leaving a million acres of land ruined “forever” by radioactive contamination. Radioactive reindeer meat was discarded in Lapland, and milk in Italy. It is reported that half of the 10 million people in Belorussia live in contaminated areas. Some estimates of adults and children doomed to be killed and maimed by cancer and mutations run in the millions. If nuclear power continues, there will be other “Chernobyls” scattered around the world, perhaps more devastating. The Chernobyl accident demonstrates the devastation which could happen with a nuclear accident near a large city. The nuclear business, here and abroad, has a record of willful and careless radiation exposure and killing of unaware people since the beginning: its miners from radon gas, its Hanford “down-winders”, victims of Chernobyl in the Ukraine, the SL-1 reactor in Idaho. Even “successful” reactors are intolerable. Reactors produce radioactive pollution. They use uranium and make plutonium. Both are radioactive, chemically poisonous heavy metals. Plutonium, a nuclear bomb material, is also the world’s most radioactively lethal material. A power reactor at the end of its life has manufactured lethal radioactive products equivalent to those from several thousand nuclear bombs. We as a society cannot afford, even if we knew how, the cleanup of these radioactive messes. Nuclear power, with its lethal radioactive poisons, pollutes “forever”, in new, more insidious, more intransigent ways than any other form of energy.

     

  • Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons

    Introduction

    The two nuclear fission bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki each released nearly 4,000 times as much explosive energy as chemical high explosive bombs of the same weight. Together they killed more than 200,000 people. The energy released by the splitting of the atomic nuclei in the cores of these bombs was more than 10 million times the energy released by rearrangements of the outer electrons of atoms, which are responsible for chemical changes. For an instant after detonation of the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki, an amount of explosive energy equivalent to a pile of dynamite as big as the White House was contained in a sphere of plutonium no bigger than a baseball.

    This is why, a short time later, Albert Einstein said: “The splitting of the atom has changed everything, save our mode of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Suddenly the destructive capacity accessible to humans went clear off the human scale of things.

    About 10 years later this destructive capacity jumped dramatically again when the United States and the Soviet Union developed hydrogen bombs. By the 1970s, there were five announced members of the nuclear club, and the total number of nuclear warheads in the world had increased to some 60,000.

    Since 1964, when China tested its first nuclear explosive, further horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons has been secret or ambiguous or both. India tested a nuclear explosive in 1974, but claimed that is was strictly for peaceful purposes, and has consistently denied that it has any nuclear weapons. Although its government has never admitted that it has nuclear weapons, there is little doubt that Israel has been accumulating a growing stockpile since the 1960s. South Africa announced that it had made a half-dozen or so nuclear weapons, starting in the 1970s, but that it now has eliminated them. Other countries strongly suspected of having at least one nuclear weapon, and the capacity to make more, include Pakistan, North Korea, and Iraq. Commitments have been made by Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to turn over to Russia all nuclear weapons on their territories for dismantling. Ukraine completed this transfer on June 1, 1996.

    The immense potential destructive capacity of uranium and plutonium can also be released slowly as energy that can serve the peaceful needs of humans. It took about 10 years after the first nuclear bombs were exploded for nuclear energy for peaceful purposes to begin to be practical. Nuclear power has expanded considerably in the last 30 years or so. The two technologies-for destructive uses and for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy-are closely connected. I’ll discuss these connections in some detail in this paper.

    Facing the realities of the Nuclear Age as they have become evident these past 50 years has been a difficult and painful process for me, involving many changes of heart in my feelings about nuclear weapons and nuclear power since I first heard of nuclear fission on August 6, 1945. I started with a sense of revulsion towards nuclear weapons and skepticism about nuclear power for nearly five years. Then I worked on and strongly promoted nuclear weapons for some 15 years. In 1966, in the midst of a job in the Pentagon, I did an about-face in my perception of nuclear weaponry, and have pressed for nuclear disarmament ever since. My rejection of nuclear power, because of its connection with nuclear weapons, took longer, and was not complete until about 1980.

    Since that time I have been persistent in calling for the prompt global abolition of all nuclear weapons and the key nuclear materials needed for their production. Since all of the more than 400 nuclear power plants now operating in 32 countries produce large quantities of plutonium that, when chemically separated from spent fuel, can be used to make reliable, efficient nuclear weapons of all types, I have also found it necessary to call for phasing out all nuclear power worldwide. To accomplish this while being responsive to the environmental disruption caused by continued large-scale use of fossil fuels, I also find it necessary to call for intense, global response to opportunities for saving energy and producing what is needed from renewable sources directly or indirectly derived from solar radiation. I shall try in the rest of this paper to explain briefly the convictions that have led me to join others in making these calls with great urgency.

    Latent Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

    There are many possible degrees of drift or concerted national actions that are short of the actual possession of nuclear weapons, but that can account for much of what has to be done technically to acquire them. Harold Feiveson has called such activity “latent proliferation” of nuclear weapons.1 A national government that sponsors acquisition of nuclear power plants may have no intention to acquire nuclear weapons; but that government may be replaced by one that does, or may change its collective mind. A country that is actively pursuing nuclear power for peaceful purposes may also secretly develop nuclear explosives to the point where the last stages of assembly and military deployment could be carried out very quickly. The time and resources needed to make the transition from latent to active proliferation can range from very large to very small. Inadequately controlled plutonium or highly enriched uranium, combined with secret design and testing of non-nuclear components of nuclear warheads, can allow a nation or terrorist group to have deliverable nuclear weapons within days, or even hours, after acquiring a few kilograms or more of the key nuclear weapon materials.

    Contrary to widespread belief among nuclear engineers who have never worked on nuclear weapons, plutonium made in nuclear power plant fuel can be used to make all types of nuclear weapons. This “reactor grade” plutonium has relatively high concentrations of the isotope Pu-240, which spontaneously releases many more neutrons than Pu-239, the principal plutonium isotope in “weapon-grade” plutonium. In early nuclear weapons, such as the plutonium bomb tested in New Mexico in 1945, and then used in the bombing of Nagasaki, use of reactor grade plutonium would have tended to cause the chain reaction to start prematurely. This would lower the most likely explosive yield, but not below about 1 kiloton, compared with the 20 kiloton yield from these two bombs. Since that time, however, there have been major developments of nuclear weapons technology that make it possible to design all types of nuclear weapons to use reactor grade plutonium without major degradation of the weapons’ performance and reliability, compared with those that use weapon grade plutonium.2 These techniques have been well understood by nuclear weapon designers in the United States since the early 1950s, and probably also for decades in the other four declared nuclear weapon states.

    Reactor grade plutonium can also be used for making relatively crude nuclear explosives, such as might be made by terrorists. Although the explosive yields of such bombs would tend to be unpredictable, varying from case to case for the same bomb design, their minimum explosive yields could credibly be the equivalent of several hundred tons or more of high explosive.3 Such bombs, transportable by automobile, would certainly qualify as weapons of mass destruction, killing many tens of thousands or more people in some locations.

    All nuclear weapons require plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Some use both. The required amounts vary considerably, depending on the desired characteristics and on the technical resources and knowhow available to those who design and build the weapons. Estimates of the maximum total number of U. S. nuclear warheads and of the total amount of plutonium produced for those warheads correspond to an average of about 3 kilograms of plutonium per warhead.4 The minimum amount of plutonium in a nuclear explosive that contains no highly enriched uranium can be significantly smaller than 3 kilograms.

    Nuclear power plants typically produce a net of about 200 kilograms of plutonium per year for each 1,000 megawatts of electric power generating capacity. Some 430 nuclear power plants, with combined electrical generating capacity of nearly 340,000 megawatts, are now operating in 32 countries. The plants account for about 7% of total primary energy consumption worldwide, or about 17% of the world’s electrical energy. Total net annual production of plutonium by these plants is nearly 70,000 kilograms, enough for making more than 10,000 nuclear warheads per year. 5

    So far about four times as much plutonium has been produced in power reactors than has been used for making nuclear weapons-about 1 million kilograms, most of which is in spent nuclear fuel in storage, compared with about 250,000 kilograms for weapons.6

    Nearly 200,000 kilograms of plutonium have been chemically separated from spent power reactor fuel in chemical reprocessing facilities in at least 8 countries (Belgium, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States).7 This is typically stored as plutonium oxide that can relatively easily be converted to plutonium metal for use in nuclear explosives.

    Research and test reactors can also produce significant amounts of plutonium that, after chemical separation, can be used for making nuclear weapons. This has apparently been the route to nuclear weapons followed by Israel and started by North Korea.

    Although use of highly enriched uranium in nuclear power plants has been sporadic and rare, substantial quantities have been used for R&D purposes-as fuel for research and test reactors, and in connection with development of breeder reactors. Principal suppliers have been and now are the five declared nuclear weapon states. It has been estimated that the world inventory of highly enriched uranium for civil purposes is about 20,000 kilograms.8

    Although this is dramatically smaller than the more than 1 million kilograms of highly enriched uranium associated with nuclear weapons, it may be extremely important to some countries that are secretly developing the technology for making nuclear weapons.

    Facilities for enriching uranium in its concentration of the isotope U-235 to the levels of a few percent needed for light water power reactor fuel can be used for further enrichment to high concentrations used for making nuclear explosives. The technology for doing this is proliferating, both in terms of the numbers of countries that have such facilities, and in the variety of different ways to carry out the enrichment.

    The continuing international spread of knowledge of nuclear technology related to nuclear power development is an important contributor to latent nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the people who have become experts in nuclear technology, whether for military or civil purposes, could be of great help in setting up and carrying out clandestine nuclear weapon design and construction operations that make use of nuclear materials stolen from military supplies or diverted from civil supplies, perhaps having entered a black market.

    An example of highly advanced latent nuclear weapon proliferation is the nuclear weapons development program that started in Sweden in the late 1940s. It remained secret until the mid-1980s, when much detail about the project started becoming publicly available. It included hydronuclear tests of implosion systems containing enough fissile material to go critical but not enough to make a damaging nuclear explosion. The objective of the Swedish nuclear bomb program was to determine, in great detail, what Sweden would need to do if the government ever decided to produce and stockpile nuclear weapons.9 I have no reason to believe that Sweden has ever made that decision. I would not be surprised, however, if many other countries with nuclear reactors or uranium enrichment facilities that could be used to supply needed key nuclear materials have secretly carried out similar programs of lesser or perhaps even greater technical sophistication than Sweden’s.

    Bombardment of Nuclear Facilities

    Another type of latent proliferation that I find especially worrisome is the possible bombardment of nuclear facilities that thereby would be converted, in effect, into nuclear weapons. Military bombardment or sabotage of nuclear facilities, ranging from operating nuclear power plants and their spent fuel storage pools to large accumulations of high level radioactive wastes in temporary or long term storage, could release large quantities of radioactive materials that could seriously endanger huge land areas downwind. Electric power plants and stored petroleum have often been prime targets for tactical and strategic bombing, and sometimes for sabotage. In the case of operating nuclear power plants, core meltdowns and physical rupture of containment structures could be caused by aerial or artillery bombardment, truck bombings, internal sabotage with explosives, or by control manipulations following capture of the facility by terrorists. For orientation to the scale of potential radioactive contamination, consider strontium-90 and cesium-137, two especially troublesome fission products with half-lives of about 30 years. The inventories of these radionuclides in the core of a typical nuclear power plant (1,000 electrical megawatts) are greater than the amounts released by a 20 megaton H-bomb explosion, assuming half the explosion energy is accounted for by fission.

    Inventories of dangerous radioactive materials can be considerably greater in a waste or spent fuel storage facility that has served the needs of many nuclear power plants for many years. In some cases it may not be credible that chemical explosives could release large fractions of such materials and cause them to be airborne long enough to contaminate very large areas. In such situations, however, the explosion of a relatively small nuclear explosive in the midst of the storage area could spread the radioactive materials over huge areas.

    Perhaps the greatest extent of latent proliferation of nuclear weapons is represented by nuclear power fuel cycle facilities that can become enormously destructive nuclear weapons by being bombed by military forces or terrorists.

    Can the Nuclear Power-Nuclear Weapon Connections Be Broken?

    Given the rapidly increasing rate of worldwide latent proliferation of nuclear weapons, what can be done to assure that it does not lead to considerable surges in active proliferation of nuclear weapons?

    Shifts from latent to active nuclear weapon proliferation may be detected or discouraged by application of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) nuclear diversion safeguards. IAEA safeguards are applied to parties of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that are not nuclear weapons states. But the IAEA has authority only to inspect designated (or in some cases suspected) nuclear facilities, not to interfere physically to prevent a government from breaking its agreements under the treaty if it so chooses. Furthermore, a major function of the IAEA is also to provide assistance to countries that wish to develop nuclear power and use it. Thus the IAEA simultaneously plays two possibly conflicting roles-one of encouraging latent proliferation and the other of discouraging active proliferation.

    As we have seen, a nation’s possession of plutonium, whether in spent fuel or chemically separated, or its possession of highly enriched uranium or of facilities capable of producing it, need not depend on a government’s decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Such a decision might be made secretly or openly at any time government leaders conclude that threats to their security or ambitions of conquest warrant breaking safeguard agreements; at that point they can quickly extract the key nuclear materials needed for a few or for large numbers of nuclear weapons.

    Various proposals have been made for developing nuclear power in forms that are less prone to diversion of nuclear materials for weapons than present nuclear power systems. None of these proposals avoid the production of substantial quantities of neutrons that could be used for making key nuclear materials for nuclear weapons, however. And none avoid the production of high level radioactive wastes, the permanent disposal of which is still awaiting both technical and political resolution. Furthermore, such concepts, once fully developed, would require decades for substitution for the present types of nuclear power systems.

    Increasing alarm about global climatic instabilities caused by continued release of “greenhouse gases,” particularly carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels, has stimulated many advocates of nuclear energy to propose widescale displacement of fossil fuels by nuclear power. Such proposals would require building thousands of new nuclear power plants to achieve substantial global reduction in combustion of fossil fuels. This would greatly compound the dangers of destructive abuse of nuclear energy.

    In short, the connections between nuclear technology for constructive use and for destructive use are so closely tied together that the benefits of the one are not accessible without greatly increasing the hazards of the other.

    This leaves us with a key question: If nuclear power technology is too dangerous – by being so closely related to nuclear weapon technology – and fossil fuel combustion must be reduced sharply to avoid global climatic instabilities, what can humans do to meet their demands for energy worldwide?

    Efficient Use of Renewable Energy

    The economically attractive opportunities for using energy much more efficiently for all end uses in any of the wide variety of human settings are now so widely set forth that they need no further elaboration here. Although such opportunities generally exist for use of all kinds of energy sources, their detailed nature can depend on the specific type of energy provided for end use.10

    Among the many possibilities for economical renewable energy is hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water, using solar electric cells to provide the needed low voltage, direct current electrical energy. Recent advances in lowering the production costs and increasing the efficiency of photovoltaic cells make it likely that vigorous international pursuit of this option could allow production and distribution of hydrogen for use as a general purpose fuel, at costs competitive with the cost of natural gas.11

    Solar electric cells can also supply local or regional electric power for general use, using generators or fuel cells fueled with stored hydrogen, or pumped hydrolelectic storage, or windpower to meet electrical demands at night, on cloudy days, or in winter. Using such energy storage or windpower makes it possible to provide and use hydrogen to meet all local demands for energy in any climate.

    A common criticism of direct use of solar energy for meeting most human demands for energy results from a belief that the areas required are so large as to be impractical. This criticism is generally not valid. An overall efficiency of 15%, in terms of the chemical energy stored in hydrogen divided by the total solar radiation incident on the ground area used by solar cell arrays, is likely to be routinely achievable with flat, horizontal arrays. At a world annual average insolation rate of 200 watts per square meter, the total area required to meet the entire present world demand for primary energy of all types (equivalent to an annual average of about 10 trillion watts) would be about 0.4 million square kilometers. This is less than 0.4% of the world’s land area-much less than the annual fluctuations in the area devoted to agriculture, and comparable to the area used for roads. Even in Belgium, with perhaps the world’s highest national energy consumption rates per unit land area and lowest solar radiation availability, present demands could be met by solar hydrogen systems covering less than 5% of the country’s land area. Vigorous response to cost-effective opportunities for saving energy could lower considerably the land area requirements for solar energy anywhere.

    A Global Shift From Fossil and Nuclear Fuels to Renewable Energy

    Consider the benefits of a rapid worldwide shift from dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power to vigorous pursuit of opportunities for using energy much more efficiently and providing that energy from renewable sources.

    If nuclear power is phased out completely, it will become possible to outlaw internationally the possession of any key nuclear weapon materials, such as plutonium or highly enriched uranium that can sustain a fast neutron chain reaction, along with any facilities that could be used for producing them. This would not require a global ban on basic research in nuclear physics nor the use of selected, internationally controlled accelerators for production of radionuclides for medical and industrial applications.

    A global ban on materials capable of sustaining nuclear explosive chain reactions would make it unnecessary to distinguish between alleged peaceful uses of these materials and uses that could be threatening. It would greatly increase the likelihood that violations of a ban on all nuclear weapons would be detected technically and by people who can report violations of the ban, without having to determine the intended uses of the materials and production facilities.

    A complete phaseout of nuclear power would help focus the world’s attention on safeguarding nuclear materials and safe, permanent disposal of all the nuclear wastes and spent nuclear fuel, separated plutonium, or other stockpiles of nuclear weapon materials that had been produced before nuclear power is completely phased out. All such materials could be internationally secured in a relatively small number of facilities while awaiting ultimate safe disposal. Although the quantities of these materials are already very large, applying the needed safeguards to them would be much easier than in a world in which nuclear power continues to flourish worldwide. The job would be finite, rather than open-ended. The costs of safe, environmentally acceptable, permanent disposal of nuclear weapon materials and nuclear wastes-costs that are now unknown, but are very large-would be bounded.

    Concerns about safety and vulnerability of nuclear power plants and their supporting facilities to military action or acts of terrorism would disappear.

    In anticipation of a phaseout of nuclear power and sharp curtailment of combustion of fossil fuels, research, development, and commercialization of renewable energy sources could be greatly accelerated by a shift of national and international resources toward them and away from dependence on nuclear power and fossil fuel systems that are inherent threats to human security and our global habitat.

    Global Nuclear Abolition

    It troubles me more deeply than I can express that my country continues to be prepared, under certain conditions, to launch nuclear weapons that would kill millions of innocent bystanders. To me, this is preparation for mass murder that cannot be justified under any conditions. It must therefore be considered as human action that is out-and-out evil. The threat of nuclear retaliation also is a completely ineffectual deterrent to nuclear attack by terrorists or leaders of governments that need not identify themselves or that are physically located in the midst of populations that have no part in the initial attack or threat of attack. In short, we humans must find alternatives to retaliation in kind to acts of massive and indiscriminate violence.

    These alternatives must focus on ways to deter use of weapons of mass destruction by determining who is responsible for such attacks or threats of attack, and bringing them to justice.

    One hangup that many people have with global nuclear weapon abolition anytime soon is that nuclear technology is already too widely dispersed to allow accurate and complete technical verification of compliance, using currently available verification methods. Another widespread hangup is that malevolent national leaders might threaten to use secretly withheld or produced nuclear weapons to force intolerable demands on other countries if they did not face certain devastating nuclear retaliation to carrying out such threats.

    I agree that no conceivable global verification system or international security force for identifying and arresting violators of an internationally negotiated and codified legal framework for globally banning nuclear weapons and nuclear power can be guaranteed to deter violation of the the ban. But this is a property of any law governing human beings. The question is not about achieving perfect global security against nuclear violence. The question is: Which would be preferred by most human beings-a world in which possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons is allowed for some but forbidden for others, or one in which they are completely outlawed, with no exceptions?

    I believe the time has come to establish a global popular taboo against nuclear weapons and devices or processes that might be used to make them. The taboo should be directed specifically at any action – by governments, non-government enterprises, or individuals – that is in violation of international laws specifically related to nuclear technology.

    I also propose that as the taboo is formulated and articulated vigorously worldwide, both informal and formal negotiations of an international nuclear abolition treaty start immediately in the relevant United Nations organizations. Why not adopt a formal goal of completing the negotiations and the codification of the associated laws and regulations before the start of the next millennium? I would also join others now pressing for actions that would complete the process of actual global nuclear abolition no later than 2010.

    As is the case for many examples of bringing violators of popularly supported laws to justice, there should be frequent official and popular encouragement, including various kinds of major rewards, of “whistleblowers” who become aware of violations and report them to a well-known international authority. Such whistleblowers should also be well protected against reprisals by the violators, including even authorities of their own country’s government. Such actions may be even more important in filling verification gaps than technical verification procedures implemented by an international authority.

    In conclusion, I now have new and strong feelings of hope about the future of humankind. We are collectively facing new choices. We can continue to apply those cosmic forces -which we discovered how to manipulate 50 years ago-to feed the destructive competitive power struggles among humans. Or we can join together to reject those immensely powerful forces-that are much easier to use to destroy than to build-and reach out together to embrace the energy from our sun, which has for a very long time sustained all life on Earth.

    REFERENCES

    1. Harold A. Feiveson and Theodore B. Taylor, “Alternative Strategies for International Control of Nuclear Power,” in Nuclear Proliferation-Motivations, Capabilities, and Strategies for Control, Ted Greenwood, H. A. Feiveson, and T. B. Taylor, New York: McGraw Hill, 1977, pp. 125-190. 
    2. J. Carson Mark, “Explosive Properties of Reactor Grade Plutonium,” Science and Global Security, 1993, Volume 4, pp.111-128. 
    3. J. Carson Mark, Theodore B. Taylor, Eugene Eyster, William Merriman, and Jacob Wechsler, “By What Means Could Terrorists Go Nuclear?” in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism, Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, eds. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington
    Books, 1987, pp. 55-65. 
    4. See, for example, David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1992, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 25-35. 
    5. Ibid, pp. 71-83. 
    6. Ibid, pp. 196-209. 
    7. Ibid, p. 90. 
    8. Ibid, p. 148. 
    9. Lars Wallin, chapter in Security With Nuclear Weapons? Regina Cowen Karp, Ed., Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, London: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 360-381.
    10. See, for example, Thomas Johansson, Henry Kelly, Amulya K. N. Reddy, and Robert Williams, eds. Renewable Energy, Washington: Island Press, 1993.
    11. See, for example, J. M. Ogden and R. H. Williams, Solar Hydrogen: Moving Beyond Fossil Fuels, Washington: World Resources Institute, 1989.