Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear energy

  • What Obama Did and Did Not Say

    President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday was all about the economy. Even when he was talking about education, national security or energy, he was talking about the economy.

    There were two things that really struck me in his speech: one thing that he said, and one thing that he didn’t say.

    The president recognizes that we need to slash the bloated Pentagon budget, though whether he’ll adopt Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) plan to cut the Pentagon budget by 25% or more is unlikely. But, on Tuesday, Obama said, “We’ll…reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use.”

    This statement was sufficiently vague to keep all but the most rabid militarists from immediately criticizing his position. I think that some proof of what exactly Obama was referring to came today in the draft 2010 Department of Energy budget: ZERO dollars for new nuclear weapons (currently called the Reliable Replacement Warhead program).

    The other thing that really struck me in his speech was the very noticeable omission of nuclear power as a critical part of our energy future. Solar? Check. Wind? Check. Efficiency? Check. “Clean” coal? Um…check. Nuclear power? No thanks.

    Let’s ignore for a moment that “clean coal” is about as asinine as calling nuclear power “clean, safe and reliable.” Barack Obama comes from the state of Illinois, the state with the most nuclear power plants and arguably the strongest base of the nuclear power lobby. Obama accepted campaign money from nuclear power pushers. He campaigned on an energy platform that included nuclear power as part of the energy mix.

    What has he discovered in his first 40 days in office? Hopefully all of the following:

    • There is still no “permanent” solution to the nuclear waste problem, and there is no solution in sight;
    • The nuclear power industry cannot survive without massive government subsidies;
    • New nuclear power plants take so many years to approve and construct that they cannot help us to meet our immediate carbon reduction requirements;
    • Once you take into account the lifecycle carbon footprint of nuclear power (uranium mining, construction, operation, waste storage, decommissioning), it doesn’t look so carbon-free;
    • Investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency are more economically sensible and will eliminate CO2 emissions more effectively.

    With continued public pressure, it is possible for the evil twins of the 20th century, nuclear power and nuclear weapons, to be eliminated for good.

    This article was published on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s blog Waging Peace Today

    Rick Wayman is Director of Programs at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • The World Tipping Points

    Speech delivered to the Channel City Club of Santa Barbara on April 14, 2008

    We are at an unprecedented moment in human history. We stand on the precipice of not one or two global crises, but many.

    The world stands at the tipping point of human security, nuclear disaster as well as climate chaos. We are living at a dangerous period in world politics. We are witnessing unprecedented assaults on the rule of law, human rights and civil liberties, and our politicians are no longer being held accountable for their deceptions and failures.

    What happens next will be determined by our actions. These issues have a pressing urgency, an urgency that demands radical and complete reform of the way we see the world and the way we live our lives.

    The Iraq war

    In 2003, we were told that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction represented an immediate and serious danger to world security. But now we know there were no weapons of mass destruction.

    In 2003, we were told that Saddam Hussein was collaborating with al-Qaeda. We now know that this was a deception. Al-Qaeda was never in Iraq under Saddam Hussein – but it is now.

    In 2003, we were told that world security depended on the removal of the Iraqi government. But the world has now become a far more dangerous place, thanks to the invasion of Iraq. Its consequences can be seen in every corner of the globe: international terrorism has flourished in defiance of George W. Bush.

    Historian Marilyn Young noted in early April 2003, with the invasion of Iraq barely underway: “In less than two weeks, a 30 year old vocabulary is back: credibility gap, seek and destroy, hard to tell friend from foe, civilian interference in military affairs, the dominance of domestic politics, winning, or more often, losing hearts and minds.”

    I would like to briefly speak about the legacy of the Iraq War. Let us look at the balance sheet:

    • Based on the figures of the Lancet study, approximately a million Iraqi civilians have died – a figure that eclipses even the genocide in Rwanda.
    • Over 4,000 US soldiers have died.
    • Approximately 30,000 US soldiers have been seriously wounded.
    • Over four million refugees have been created: two million of them have fled the country, and approximately 2.5 million have been internally displaced
    • Based on estimates from the congressional budget office, the cost of the war to the U.S. is in the trillions
    • In 2008, U.S. Monthly Spending in Iraq is estimated at $12 billion
    • In February 2007, Congressional hearings placed the amount of money mismanaged and wasted in Iraq at $10 billion
    • The Pentagon have classified $1.4 billion of Halliburton’s charges as “unreasonable and unsupported”
    • Human rights abuses have been permitted and even perpetrated by the occupying nations. These include the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib.
    • The price of oil has quadrupled since 2002. Today it is $110 a barrel.

    What is so astonishing about these stories and statistics is that the politicians responsible for them have not been held accountable. Despite the fact that the war has been an unqualified disaster, they have not been called to account. If George W. Bush and Tony Blair had presided as CEOs over comparable deceptive and fraudulent practices in the city, they would have been immediately and unceremoniously sacked.

    We have entered a dangerous period in world politics – one where our politicians are no longer being held accountable for their mistakes, or for their deceptions. We have become complicit in a series of secret, underhand “dirty tactics” in the war on terror. This must stop.

    Iraq was, from the outset, an It was an illegal, immoral and unwinnable war.

    We have failed to provide security. We have failed to provide good governance. We have failed in our efforts at reconstruction.

    Iraq today is less secure and less stable than it was under Saddam Hussein – but although Saddam was a vile and brutal dictator, even under him, Iraq did not have 2 million people flee the country and 2.5 million people internally displaced.

    So where does this leave us? With a world that is uncertain and more dangerous.

    But Iraq is not the only thing making the world unsafe. We live in a world in which the deadly menace of nuclear weapons is rearing its ugly head as a very real threat to the continued existence of the human race.

    The nuclear threat

    In January 2007, an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal called “World Free of Nuclear Weapons” said: “Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage – to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.”
    Now who would have thought that I would be quoting Henry Kissinger, George P. Schultz, William J. Perry and Sam Nunn?
    But perhaps you should not be surprised. The nuclear issue is not a partisan political issue. It is reassuring to see some of the most conservative figures in both the UK and the USA supporting complete nuclear disarmament.
    Some of you may know that Ronald Reagan was strongly opposed to nuclear weapons. Reagan called for the abolition of “all nuclear weapons,” which he considered “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilisation.”
    The strategy of defending the manufacture and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, as an effective deterrent to others, is now recognised as a flawed argument. If they were once justified, as a means of American-Soviet deterrence, they are no longer. Nuclear weapons were considered essential to maintaining international security during the cold war, but that is no longer the case.
    Mohammed El-Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted as saying, “We need to treat nuclear weapons the way we treat slavery or genocide. There needs to be a taboo over possessing them.”
    But it is not only that our governments are violating international agreements that they themselves signed. They are also acting with arrogance and carelessness when it comes to handling the weapons they have already. Even the supposedly most advanced nations can be alarmingly lax when it comes to the security precautions in place for nuclear weapons.
    Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the unbelievable US Army security failure last August, in which six nuclear warheads were inadvertently removed from their bunkers and flown from North Dakota to Louisiana, “unprecedented”. Owing to “a lack of attention to detail and lack of adherence to well-established Air Force guidelines, technical orders and procedures”, for thirty-six hours, no-one knew where the warheads were, or even that they were missing.
    Each of the warheads contained ten times the yield of that dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. No breach of nuclear procedures of this magnitude had ever occurred before. Surely it is only a matter of time before an error like this becomes a disaster. Commentators have blamed this failure on the US Army’s reduced nuclear focus in recent years. Why, I would argue, not go the whole way? Why not do away with nuclear weapons altogether?
    The tolerance for error when it comes to nuclear weapons is very low – in fact, it is zero. But zero tolerance cannot realistically be achieved, which is another reason why immediate and worldwide disarmament is such an important, and a pressing, priority. Governor Schwarzenegger said, “Mistakes are made in every other human endeavour. Why should nuclear weapons be exempt?”
    My good friend David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, noted in an article earlier this year that “even Edward Teller, father of the H-Bomb, recognized, ‘Sooner or later a fool will prove greater than the proof, even in a foolproof system.’”
    We have come to the point where something has to give. South Africa is to be heartily applauded for its total disarmament, which was officially declared in 1994, following an inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In order to affect real change globally, we now need one of the major powers to follow suit.
    The question has now become: “Who’s going to give them up first?” When they consider their responses to our pleas, politicians would do well to keep in mind the words of two men.
    The first is Dwight D. Eisenhower, who pledged America’s determination “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.”
    The second is a man who knows as much about nuclear weapons as anyone, Mikhail Gorbachev. He said that “that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason.”
    But nuclear weapons are not the only thing making the world unsafe.

    Climate chaos

    Now, I would like to address the problem of climate change – or, as is more accurate, climate chaos. The problem of climate chaos touches every area of our lives: peace, security, human rights, poverty, hunger, health, mass migration, and economics. Climate change is not an isolated environmental issue any more.

    At the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change in Bali last December, I spoke of climate chaos in terms of global justice. That is how I see the issue: we need to fight climate change along with global inequality if we want to find lasting and sustainable solutions. To attempt to address the causes of climate change, we must not overlook the developing countries of the world.

    “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary,” George Orwell once said.

    Despite the clear and urgent alarms sounded by our most respected scientists, the developed world continues to feed its out-of-control oil addiction. We are locked into an inefficient, pollution-based economy, which is undermining public health and the environment, aggravating inequality and turning us into oil predators.

    Rather than face the pressing challenges of the 21st century, some world leaders continue to systematically eliminate vital environmental protection laws and regulations. In the U.S., for example, the Environmental Protection Agency has been gutted. And, as you know, the Bush administration refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, whilst focusing on oil and natural gas production. Representatives of the military-petroleum complex have been defining Washington’s economic policies. Their undeniable aim is to dominate the world’s energy resources; oil and natural gas.

    As consumers of oil, we must realise that oil consumption is effectively destroying the environment and communities, especially in places inhabited by indigenous populations and marginalised groups who have little or no economic and political power to defend themselves.

    I would like to quote a passage from “View of Dusk at the end of the Century, from Eduardo Galeano, 1998.

    Poisoned is the earth that inters or deters us. There is no air, only despair; no breeze, only sleaze. No rain, except acid rain. No parks, just parking lots. No partners only partnerships. Companies instead of nations. Consumers instead of citizens. Conglomerations instead of cities. No people only audiences. No relations, except public relations. No vision, just television. To praise a flower, say “It looks plastic…”

    There is no denying it: the rich world is causing climate change and the poor world is suffering. The industrial countries that have pioneered fossil fuel technology are primarily in the cold north, while the warmer countries of the south still use far less oil, gas and coal. As climate change kicks in, the tropical and subtropical countries of Africa, South Asia and Latin America will heat up more and more, with temperatures becoming increasingly intolerable. Droughts will affect large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Melting glaciers will flood river valleys and then, when they have disappeared, unprecedented droughts will occur. Poor, low-lying countries such as Bangladesh will find it much harder to cope with sea level rise than Holland or Florida.

    If current trends are allowed to continue, hundreds of millions of people in the poorer countries will lose their homes as well as the land on which they grow their crops. And then there is the threat of diseases: By the end of the century 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of diseases directly attributable to climate change, according to Christian Aid.

    We must therefore insist on a dramatic change in direction that goes way beyond the actions currently taken by governments.

    The rich countries need to dramatically reduce their use of fossil fuels. At the present time, we are burning a million years worth of fossil fuel deposits every year. This makes the unprecedented standards of living of a large portion of people in the rich countries possible. Meanwhile rapid economic growth is also disproportionately increasing the living standards of minorities in developing countries. But all this is possible only because we are running down the earth’s capital assets, and particularly its fossil fuel resources, at an unprecedented rate whilst damaging the earth’s atmosphere in the process.

    It is becoming clear that the rich countries need to take vigorous measures to rapidly reduce their dependence on fossil fuels, and to accelerate the development of renewable energy as the basis of a whole new energy system for the planet. “Climate justice” means giving the poorer countries privileged access to renewable energy technologies to help them with truly sustainable development. The Kyoto treaty’s ‘clean development mechanism’ is a useful start, but much more needs to be done. Only if we can show the plausibility of development without fossil fuels, can we encourage third world countries to initiate their own emissions reductions.

    Humanity needs to make every effort to protect the world’s ecosystems, such as forests and coral reefs, and to initiate large-scale projects to reforest denuded areas of land, above all else for the benefit of local populations. Economic and urban development in the last 200 years has largely been at the expense of the world’s ecosystems. Forest cover across the world has been reduced by about 50 per cent and the indigenous people, particularly in the tropics, have suffered terribly in the process. Ways have to be found to pay developing countries for the global ‘ecosystem services’ provided by their forest cover – and their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and to release moisture to distance places. Under the auspices of climate justice this is a historic responsibility, and it needs to benefit the poorer tropical and subtropical countries of the world and their people above all else.

    Affirming the principle of Ecological Debt, we need to acknowledge the entitlement of the victims of climate change to have their ecosystems restored, and to address the loss of land and livelihood they have suffered, and to establish legal precedents to that effect.

    Global Justice requires that we make personal and collective choices to use the Earth’s resources prudently, and particularly to minimise our use of fossil fuel energy. We are challenged to rebalance our lifestyles to assure that unborn generations have adequate natural resources, a stable climate and a healthy planet.

    I would like now to quote Al Gore, speaking after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans:

    Winston Churchill sounded warnings of what was at stake when the storm was gathering on Europe: “The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

    Given the scale of this impending disaster, we have no choice but to embark upon a global renewable energy revolution, by replacing our carbon-driven economy with a renewable energy economy. The challenge we are facing now is how to switch to a more secure, lower-carbon energy system that does not undermine economic and social development, and addresses the threats of climate change and global inequality.

    Renewable energy technologies are the only viable solution to the coming energy crisis, it is now a matter of how, not of why or when.

    Never before has humanity been so overwhelmed by such massive and urgent concerns. We are experiencing explosive population growth: the world’s population is forecast to reach 9.2 billion by 2050. Since 1992, there has been a 50% increase in world energy consumption. Another 50% rise is expected in the next fifteen years. We now know that if we remain locked into an inefficient, polluting, fossil-fuel based global economy, we will exhaust the Earth’s natural resources and we will accelerate climate change.

    So we have reached both an environmental and an economic tipping point. Which direction we choose to take will decide the fate of our planet. What is certain is that we must bring about fundamental change in our energy systems, with a renewed focus on energy security and lower, if not zero, carbon emissions.

    Whilst conventional fossil and atomic energies continue to endanger our health, the health of the planet, risk sparking conflict over declining resources, and require high water consumption and ever-increasing costs, renewable energy sources do not bring with them these negative effects. They are the only solution to the three key global energy challenges: energy security, cost efficiency and environmental protection. The task now is to create policies that make investment in renewable energies an attractive proposition at national and international levels.

    The arguments that renewable energy does not provide sufficient or affordable alternatives to traditional energy sources have been exposed as flawed and false. Furthermore, the cost of finite conventional energies will continue to rise as the sources dry up. Renewable energy costs will generally go down, as they consist almost exclusively of technology costs. Mass production and technological innovation will bring dramatic decreases in cost. So we should not see the promotion of renewables as a burden: we should see it as a unique economic opportunity – one that will reward those who get on board early.

    I recently spoke in Berlin at the German Government’s Preparatory Conference for the Establishment of an International Renewable Energy Agency, called IRENA. It is my belief that if we are to embark on a global renewable energy revolution, we cannot do it without IRENA. IRENA is both necessary and urgent if we are to avoid disaster.

    Before now, I was sceptical that the international community had the resolve to do what is necessary to prevent global climate disaster. However, the establishment of IRENA is more than the establishment of just another agency. Its visionary goals offer real hope that we can avoid catastrophe by prompting the rapid and worldwide uptake of renewable energy in place of fossil fuel energy sources.

    Conclusion

    But IRENA is just one aspect of the change in outlook we must effect.

    If we want to live in a world that is healthy, harmonious and content, we require a Copernican revolution in our outlook. Each and every one of us must be prepared to make fundamental, lasting and immediate change in the way we live. This cannot be about egos or agendas; it must be about a holistic change in the way we see the world and the way we see ourselves.

    Although some more pessimistic scientists warn that we have already passed the tipping point of climate chaos, and that human intervention is now futile, I like to think that is not yet the case. I am convinced that if we act now we can save our world and ourselves.

    But we are not just aiming for a set of goals. This is not a checklist by which our success can be measured. It’s no good to have four out of five, or even nine out of ten.

    We have to aim for a virtuous circle of morally sound principles and practices. We are reaching a threshold from which there will be no return. If we do not hold our politicians accountable for their decisions; if we do not fight for the abolition of the death penalty and for universal respect for human rights and dignity; if we do not disarm and destroy our nuclear weapons – if we are not prepared to do these things, we may not have a world left protecting before very long.

    There is no time for further excuses, postponement, or procrastination. This is a time for courage and leadership, and for positive and immediate action. I have always believed that every individual can make a difference. I urge each of you, in your personal and professional lives, to make serious and lasting choices that will address the challenges we are facing in the world today.

    Bianca Jagger is Chair of the World Future Council (www.worldfuturecouncil.org).

  • Money is the Real Green Power: The Hoax of Eco-Friendly Nuclear Energy

    Originally appeared in Extra!

    Nuclear advocates in government and the nuclear industry are engaged in a massive, heavily financed drive to revive atomic power in the United States-with most of the mainstream media either not questioning or actually assisting in the promotion.

    “With a very few notable exceptions, such as the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. media have turned the same sort of blind, uncritical eye on the nuclear industry’s claims that led an earlier generation of Americans to believe atomic energy would be too cheap to meter,”comments Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “The nuclear industry’s public relations effort has improved over the past 50 years, while the natural skepticism of reporters toward corporate claims seems to have disappeared.”

    The New York Times continues to be, as it was a half-century ago when nuclear technology was first advanced, a media leader in pushing the technology, which collapsed in the U.S. with the 1979 Three Mile Island and 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accidents. The Times has showered readers with a variety of pieces advocating a nuclear revival, all marbled with omissions and untruths. A lead editorial headlined “The Greening of Nuclear Power” (5/13/06) opened:

    Not so many years ago, nuclear energy was a hobgoblin to environmentalists, who feared the potential for catastrophic accidents and long-term radiation contamination. . . . But this is a new era, dominated by fears of tight energy supplies and global warming. Suddenly nuclear power is looking better.

    Nukes add to greenhouse

    Parroting a central atomic industry theme these days, the Times editors declared, “Nuclear energy can replace fossil-fuel power plants for generating electricity, reducing the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute heavily to global warming.” As a TV commercial frequently aired by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the nuclear industry trade group, states: “Nuclear power plants don’t emit greenhouses gases, so they protect our environment.”

    What is left unmentioned by the NEI, the Times and other mainstream media making this claim is that the overall “nuclear cycle”-which includes uranium mining and milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication and disposal of radioactive waste-has significant greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

    As Michel Lee, chair of the Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy, wrote in an (unpublished) letter to the Times, the

    dirty secret is that nuclear power makes a substantial contribution to global warming. Nuclear power is actually a chain of highly energy-intensive industrial processes. These include uranium mining, conversion, enrichment and fabrication of nuclear fuel; construction and deconstruction of the massive nuclear facility structures; and the disposition of high-level nuclear waste.

    She included information on “independent studies that document in detail the extent to which the entire nuclear cycle generates greenhouse emissions.”

    Separately, Lee wrote to a Times journalist stating that the “fiction” that nuclear power does not contribute to global warming “has been a prime feature of the nuclear industry’s and Bush administration’s PR campaign” that “unfortunately . . . has been swallowed by a number of New York Times reporters, op-ed columnists and editors.”

    Greens for hire

    In “The Greening of Nuclear Power,” the Times, like other mainstream media touting a nuclear restart, also spoke of environmentalists changing their stance on nuclear power. “Two new leaders” have emerged “to encourage the building of new nuclear reactors,” according to the editorial. They happen to be Christine Todd Whitman, George W. Bush’s first Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and Patrick Moore, “a co-founder of Greenpeace.” The Times heralded this as “the latest sign that nuclear power is getting a more welcome reception from some environmentalists.”

    However, “both Whitman and Moore . . . are being paid to do so by the Nuclear Energy Institute,” noted the Center for Media and Democracy’s Diane Farsetta (PRWatch.org, 3/14/07). In her piece “Moore Spin: Or, How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front Groups,” Farsetta also reported:

    A Nexis news database search on March 1, 2007 identified 302 news items about nuclear power that cite Moore since April 2006. Only 37 of those pieces-12 percent of the total-mention his financial relationship with NEI.

    Whitman and Moore were hired as part of NEI’s “Clean and Safe Energy Coalition” in 2006, which is “fully funded” by the institute, Farsetta noted. As for Moore and Greenpeace, his “association . . . ended in 1986,” and he “has now spent more time working as a PR consultant to the logging, mining, biotech, nuclear and other industries . . . than he did as an environmental activist.”

    According to Harvey Wasserman, senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and co-author of Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience With Atomic Radiation (Brattleboro Reformer, 2/24/07), “Moore sailed on the first Greenpeace campaign, but he did not actually found the organization.” Wasserman went on to cite an actual founder of the organization, Bob Hunter, describing Moore as “the Judas of the ecology movement.”

    Scarce high-grade fuel

    Insisting that “there is good reason to give nuclear power a fresh look,” “The Greening of Nuclear Power” further claimed, “It can diversify our sources of energy with a fuel-uranium-that is both abundant and inexpensive.”

    This, too, was bogus. The uranium from which fuel used in nuclear power plants is made-so-called “high-grade” ore containing substantial amounts of fissionable uranium-235-is, in fact, not “abundant.” As Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation told BBC News (11/29/05), another “dirty little secret” of nuclear power is that “startlingly, there’s only a few decades left of the proven high-grade uranium ore it needs for fuel.” This has been the projection for years.

    Indeed, this limit on “high-grade” uranium ore is why the industry projects that, in the long-term, nuclear power will need to be based on breeder reactors running on manmade plutonium. But use of plutonium-fueled reactors has been stymied because they can explode like atomic bombs-they contain tons of plutonium fuel, while the first bomb using plutonium, dropped on Nagasaki, contained 15 pounds. Because it takes only a few pounds of plutonium to make an atomic bomb, they also constitute an enormous proliferation risk.

    Blaming Jane Fonda

    “The Jane Fonda Effect” (9/16/07), a Times Magazine column by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, blamed nuclear power’s stall on the 1979 film The China Syndrome, starring Jane Fonda, which opened days before the Three Mile Island partial meltdown. “Stoked by The China Syndrome,” it caused “widespread panic,” wrote Dubner and Levitt, even though, they maintained, the accident did not “produce any deaths, injuries or significant damage.”

    In fact, the utility that owned Three Mile Island has for years been quietly paying people whose family members died, contracted cancer or were otherwise impacted by the accident. While settlements range up to $1 million, the utility company continues to insist this does not acknowledge fault. The toll of Three Mile Island is chronicled in my television documentary Three Mile Island Revisited (EnviroVideo, 1993) and Wasserman’s book Killing Our Own (which includes a devastating chapter, “People Died at Three Mile Island”), among other works.

    But Dubner and Levitt continue undeterred, declaring, “The big news is that nuclear power may be making a comeback in the United States.” They acknowledge the Chernobyl accident, stating that it “killed at least a few dozen people directly.” They admit that it “exposed millions more to radiation,” but keep silent about the consequences of this in terms of illness and death. This atomic version of Holocaust denial flies in the face of voluminous research on the disaster that puts the number of dead in the hundreds of thousands.

    “At least 500,000 people-perhaps more-have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine,” said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine (Guardian, 3/25/06). Dr. Alexey Yablokov, president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, calculates a death toll of 300,000. In the book Chernobyl: 20 Years On, which he co-edited, Yablokov writes, “In 20 years it has become clear that not tens, hundreds of thousands, but millions of people in the Northern Hemisphere have suffered and will suffer from the Chernobyl catastrophe.”

    The New York Times Magazine also published “Atomic Balm?” (7/16/06), by Jon Gertner; the subhead read, “For the first time in decades, increasing the role of nuclear power in the United States may be starting to make political, environmental and even economic sense.” Gertner used the term nuclear “renaissance,” and again forwarded the claim that “the supply [of uranium] is abundant.”

    Gertner told of how the “lifespan” for nuclear plants was set at 40 years because this was considered “how long a large nuclear plant could safely operate.” This has “proved a conservative estimate,” he states-without providing a factual basis. So the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been “granting 20-year extensions” to the 103 U.S. nuclear plants so they “can run for a total of 60 years.” (Consider the safety and reliability of 60-year-old cars speeding down highways.)

    “Even with such licensing renewals, though, it’s doubtful the current fleet of plants will run for, say, 80 years,” he continued, and “that means the industry, in a way, is in a race against time.” It needs to build new plants because the “absence” of nuclear power “would probably pose tremendous challenges for the United States.”

    The New York Times also allows its nuclear advocacy to slip into its news stories. In an article (11/27/07) about the French nuclear power company Areva signing a deal with a Chinese atomic corporation, Times reporter John Tagliabue wrote of Areva chief executive Anne Lauvergeon’s “long path from dirty hands to clean energy.” The “dirty hands” referred to a youthful interest in archaeology; that nuclear power is “clean energy” appears to require no explanation.

    Another story, datelined Fort Collins, Colorado (11/19/07), reported on two energy projects proposed for what the paper calls “a deeply green city.” Describing the plans as “exposing the hard place that communities like this across the country are likely to confront,” Times reporter Kirk Johnson wrote:

    Both projects would do exactly what the city proclaims it wants, helping to produce zero-carbon energy. But one involves crowd-pleasing, feel-good solar power, and the other is a uranium mine, which has a base of support here about as big as a pinkie. Environmentalism and local politics have collided with a broader ethical and moral debate about the good of the planet, and whether some places could or should be called upon to sacrifice for their high-minded goals.

    Other revivalists

    Other media promoting a nuclear revival-their words prominently featured on NEI’s website-include USA Today (3/5/06): “The facts are straightforward: Nuclear power . . . creates virtually none of the pollution that causes climate change and delivers electricity cheaper than other forms of generation do.” And the Augusta Chronicle (8/21/06): “Nuclear power-for decades perceived as an environmental scourge-is emerging as the cleanest and most cost-efficient source of energy available, a fact conceded even by environmentalists.” And Investor’s Business Daily (12/1/06): “We can worry about imaginary threats of nuclear energy or the real dangers of fossil fuel pollution.”

    Glenn Beck of CNN Headline News also joined the chorus of support (5/2/07): “Look, America should embrace nuclear power, even if it’s [just] to get off the foreign oil bandwagon.” This is also common nuclear disinformation, that nuclear power is needed to displace foreign oil. The only energy produced by nuclear power is electricity-and only 3 percent of electricity in the U.S. is generated with oil.

    There are a few exceptions in the mainstream media, notably the other Times, the Los Angeles Times. “The dream that nuclear power would turn atomic fission into a force for good rather than destruction unraveled with the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979 and the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986,” the paper stated (7/23/07) in an editorial headlined: “No to Nukes: It’s Tempting to Turn to Nuclear Plants to Combat Climate Change, but Alternatives Are Safer and Cheaper.” Those who claim nuclear power “must be part of any solution” to global warming or climate change “make a weak case,” said the L.A. Times, citing

    the enormous cost of building nuclear plants, the reluctance of investors to fund them, community opposition and an endless controversy over what to do with the waste. . . . What’s more, there are cleaner, cheaper, faster alternatives that come with none of the risks.

    Staggering numbers

    As to the risks, the mainstream media’s handling-or non-handling-of the U.S. government’s most comprehensive study on the consequences of a nuclear plant accident is instructive. Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences 2 (known as CRAC-2) was done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 1980s. Bill Smirnow, an anti-nuclear activist, has tried for years to interest media in reporting on it-sending out information about it continually.

    The study estimates the impacts from a meltdown at each nuclear plant in the U.S. in categories of “peak early fatalities,” “peak early injuries,” “peak cancer deaths” and “costs [in] billions.” (”Peak” refers to the highest calculated value-not a “worst case scenario,” as worse assumptions could have been chosen.) For the Indian Point 3 plant north of New York City, for example, the projection is that a meltdown would cause 50,000 “peak early fatalities,” 141,000 “peak early injuries,” 13,000 “peak cancer deaths,” and $314 billion in property damage-and that’s based on the dollar’s value in 1980, so the cost today would be nearly $1 trillion. For the Salem 2 nuclear plant in New Jersey, the study projects 100,000 “peak early fatalities,” 70,000 “peak early injuries,” 40,000 “peak cancer deaths,” and $155 billion in property damage. The study provides similarly staggering numbers across the country.

    “I’ve sent the CRAC-2 material out for years to media and have never heard a thing,” Smirnow told Extra!:

    Not anyone in the media ever even asked me a question. There’s no excuse for this media inattention to such an important subject, and it shows how they’re falling flat on their faces in not performing their purported mission of educating and informing the public. Whatever their reason or reasons for not informing their readers and listeners, the effect is one of helping the nuclear power industry and hurting the public. If the public was informed, this new big pro-nuke push would never happen.

    Also in the way of sins of omission is the media silence on “routine emissions”-the amount of radioactivity the U.S. government allows to be routinely released by nuclear plants. “It doesn’t take an accident for a nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water and soil,” says Kay Drey of Beyond Nuclear at the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. “All it takes is the plant’s everyday routine operation, and federal regulations permit these radioactive releases. Rarely, if ever, is this reported by media.” The radioactive substances regularly emitted include tritium, krypton and xenon. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sets a “permissible” level for these “routine emissions,” but, as Drey states, “permissible does not mean safe.”

    Hidden subsidies

    Another lonely voice amid the media nuclear cheerleaders is the Las Vegas Sun, which recently has been especially outraged by $50 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear industry to build new nuclear plants included in the 2007 Energy Bill. The Sun demanded (8/1/07): “Pull the Plug Already.”

    In reporting on the economics of nuclear power, mainstream media virtually never mention the many government subsidies for it, while continuing to claim that it’s “cost-effective” (Augusta Chronicle, 8/21/06). One such giveaway is the Price-Anderson Act, which shields the nuclear industry from liability for catastrophic accidents. Price-Anderson, supposed to be temporary when first enacted in 1957, has been extended repeatedly and now limits liability in the event of an accident to $10 billion, despite CRAC-2’s projections of consequences far worse than that.

    Writing on CommonDreams.org (9/11/07), Ralph Nader explored the economic issue. “Taxpayers alert!” he declared:

    The atomic power corporations are beating on the doors in Washington to make you guarantee their financing for more giant nuclear plants. They are pouring money and applying political muscle to Congress for up to $50 billion in loan guarantees to persuade an uninterested Wall Street that Uncle Sam will pay for any defaults on industry construction loans. . . . The atomic power industry does not give up. Not as long as Uncle Sam can be dragooned to be its subsidizing, immunizing partner. Ever since the first of 100 plants opened in 1957, corporate socialism has fed this insatiable atomic goliath with many types of subsidies.

    Ignored alternatives

    Yet another claim by mainstream media in pushing for a nuclear revival is the “success” of the French nuclear program. 60 Minutes (4/8/07) did it in a segment called “Vive Les Nukes.” (See FAIR Action Alert, 4/18/07.) Correspondent Steve Kroft started with the nuclear-power-doesn’t-contribute-to-global-warming myth:

    With power demands rising and concerns over global warming increasing, what the world needs now is an efficient means of producing carbon-free energy. And one of the few available options is nuclear, a technology whose time seemed to come and go, and may now be coming again. . . . With zero greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. government, public utilities and even some environmental groups are taking a second look at nuclear power, and one of the first places they’re looking to is France, where it’s been a resounding success.

    Though she was totally ignored, Linda Gunter of Beyond Nuclear told 60 Minutes of radioactive contamination in the marine life off Normandy where the French reprocessing center sits, leukemia clusters in people living along that coast, and massive demonstrations in French cities earlier in the year protesting construction of new nuclear power plants.

    The Union of Concerned Scientists was upset by 60 Minutes’ downplaying of alternative energy technologies such as wind and solar. UCS’s Alden Meyer wrote to 60 Minutes:

    In fact, wind power could supply more energy to the U.S. grid than nuclear does today, and when combined with a mix of energy efficiency and other renewable energy sources, could provide a continuous energy supply that would help us make dramatic reductions in global warming.

    Dismissal of renewable energy forms is another major facet of mainstream media’s drive for a nuclear power revival. As the St. Petersburg Times put it (12/08/06), “While renewable sources of energy such as solar power are still in the developmental stage, nuclear is the new green.” Renewables Are Ready was the title of a 1999 book written by two UCS staffers. Today, they are more than ready. “Wind is the cheapest form of new generation now being built,” wrote Greenpeace advisor Wasserman (Free Press, 4/10/07). He pointed to an “array of wind, solar, bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal and increased conservation and efficiency.”

    Wasserman has also written about another element ignored by most mainstream media (Free Press, 7/9/07): “The switch to renewables defunds global terrorism. Atomic reactors are pre-deployed weapons of radioactive mass destruction. Shutting them down ends the fear of apocalyptic disaster by both terror and error.” He stressed, again, that safe, clean energy is here and “we could replace everything with available technology that could easily supply all our needs while allowing a sustainable planet to survive and thrive.”

    The one green thing

    What are the causes of the media nuclear dysfunction? The obvious problem is media ownership. General Electric, for one, is both a leading nuclear plant manufacturer and a media mogul, owning NBC and other outlets. (For years, CBS was owned by Westinghouse; Westinghouse and GE are the Coke and Pepsi of nuclear power.) There have been board and financial interlocks between the media and nuclear industries. There is the long-held pro-nuclear faith at media such as the New York Times. (See sidebar.)

    There is also the giant public relations operation-both corporate, led by the NEI, and government, involving the Department of Energy and its national nuclear laboratories. “You have the NEI and the nuclear industry propagandizing on nuclear power, and journalists taking down what the industry is saying and not looking at the veracity of their claims,” Greenpeace USA nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio told Extra!.

    And then there’s lots of money. FAIR recently exposed (Action Alert, 8/22/07) how National Public Radio, which broadcasts many pro-nuclear pieces, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from “nuclear operator Sempra Energy” and Constellation Energy, “which belongs to Nustart Energy, a 10-company consortium pushing for new nuclear power plant construction.”

    The only thing green about nuclear power is the nuclear establishment’s dollars.

    Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury. Books he has written about nuclear technology include Cover Up: What You ARE NOT Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He has hosted many television programs on nuclear technology on EnviroVideo.com.

  • Why Nuclear is Nonsense

    Ever heard the story of Chicken Licken? One day, whilst walking in the woods, an acorn fell on Chicken Licken’s head. ‘Oh no!’ Cried Chicken Licken ‘the sky is falling in. We’re all doomed.’ In a state of panic, Chicken-Licken ran off to warn his friends.Duck Luck, Turkey Lurkey, Hen Len and Goose Loose were all told the terrible news and joined in the state of panic.

    As the animals ran round in an increasing state of agitation salvation suddenly seemed to appear in the form of Fox Lox. ‘Don’t worry’ said the fox ‘I will provide you shelter. Come with me and we will all be safe’. So the animals duly followed Fox Lox to his home and made their way underground into the shelter of his lair. This came as great news to Fox Lox’s family, who couldn’t believe that lunch had walked into their home on its own two feet.

    A great feast was had, but the sky had never been falling in. The lesson we offer to our children from this fable is that if you allow yourself to be thrown into a panic by stupid, irrational ideas you bring about your own, self-inflicted, disasters. So it is with the Prime Minister’s claims that nuclear power is back with a vengeance and that it is our only hope of addressing both energy security and the challenge of Climate Change.

    Let us be clear about where we are now. If you, me or Chicken Licken wanted to we could go out and build a nuclear power station today. Nothing in existing energy market rules prevents this. It is simply that the economics of nuclear power do not stack up and never have done. The generation that believed that nuclear would provide ‘atoms for free’, ‘energy too cheap to meter’ soon discovered that nuclear power has never broken even let alone reduced energy costs. The scale of its costs was only ever masked by subsidies from the defence budget for nuclear weapons grade material. It was the nuclear arms race that kept the show on the road.

    Today, we know that the clean-up costs for the last generation of nuclear waste will be between £56 – £80 billion until the year 2080. We are yet to have estimates of the cost beyond that date. The nuclear lobby has only been rejuvenated by the Government’s decision that the taxpayer should meet these costs rather than the industry itself. So much for competitive markets.

    Blair’s announcement that nuclear is back with a vengeance needs therefore to be read in the coded terms that his pronouncements usually require. What it means is that the taxpayer will be asked to fork out huge subsidies for the changes that appear to make nuclear economically viable. In Finland, it meant the Government agreeing that the industry would only be liable for its waste for the first 30 years. The tax payer will take responsibility for the 1000 that follow.

    The danger is not just in the inherent stupidity of Blair’s claims, but in the knowledge that the nuclear industry will run off with the cash for all other energy options. So, before going down this path, just look at the economics of other choices. MPs have recently had a briefing about the construction, within the North Sea, of an offshore super-grid of wind generators. It would cost less than £2 million to construct, but with larger costs of around £1.5 billion for the construction of an internal grid. In total it would deliver 10 GW of energy – the equivalent of four nuclear power stations. It could supply carbon-free energy for Britain, Germany and the Netherlands (the three countries they are seeking to involve in the project).

    Even if you do a value for money comparison of existing energy choices, the nuclear option comes out as a very poor choice. For every pound you put into nuclear the energy output from other sources is streets ahead.

    Wind power gives you up to 1.7 times more kilowatt hours per pound and so does gas fired industrial co- generation. Combined Heat and Power systems in people’s homes gives up to 6.5 times as many kilowatt hours and the ‘heat from waste’ systems give up to 9 times as much energy. Most profitable of all are the savings that come from simply reducing the amount of energy we currently throw away. Here – in the area people call ‘negawatts’ – you can get 10 times more for your money than in any pursuit of the nuclear folly.

    Britain currently throws away twice as much energy as the country uses. We do so in a hopelessly inefficient generating system and National Grid. Already, other parts of continental Europe have moved into decentralised energy systems that are infinitely more efficient. Denmark has 50% of its national energy needs met from decentralised energy and the Netherlands has over 60%. By far the most adventurous country in the EU is Germany. It is creating new markets in renewable energy systems that are likely to steal a march on almost everyone else.

    Some 80% of the new buildings going up in Berlin generate their own energy. This isn’t because German citizens have suddenly become ethically enlightened in a way that rest of us haven’t. It follows directly from the Renewable Energies Act passed in Germany in 2004. What the Germans did was to change the market rules. People now get paid four times as much for energy that they supply into the energy system (from renewable resources) as for the energy they take out. Suddenly it becomes profitable for developers to include energy generation in every building they put up. Little surprise then that Germany should have 88% of the current EU market for installed photovoltaic energy systems.

    A sad reality, discovered by almost all of those who seek to incorporate renewable energy systems into their own homes in the UK, is that virtually all of the technology and know-how has to be imported. Germany has created a market, for both its manufacturing and for the skill training of its young people, that Britain barely seems to comprehend. Blair’s obsession with light touch regulation and non intervention in markets basically throws manufacturing to the wolves and skill training out of the window. It is the refusal to lead into genuinely sustainable alternatives that allows Bair to run with ‘the sky is falling in’ declaration that nuclear is the answer.

    Many in the country (and the Party) believe that Blair had sold his soul to the nuclear lobby some time ago.It was just a question of softening up the public into acceptance and getting rid of ministers who might put up a coherent case against him. It is, however, an option locked into the follies of the past rather than visions of the future; the delusions of someone who clearly needs to get out more.

    Despite Blair’s promise that he would learn to listen more, following Labour’s losses in the local government elections and our collapse of support in the opinion polls, it is clear that he continues to listen only to the corporate lobbyists who have led Labour into much of the mess we now face. The Prime Minister has clearly entered the David Icke phase of his political career, believing in his own ability to walk on waffle. Perhaps it is the time for Blair to get out too.

    In Parliament, Alan is a leading campaigner on wide ranging issues about the environment and the economy. The New Statesman dubbed him, “The man most likely to come up with the ideas”. He has consistently put the multinational GM food companies on the defensive and fought for a safer, healthier environment. Alan is also involved in anti-poverty campaigns and ones supporting industrial democracy and common ownership. He is Chair of the All Party Warm Homes Group, and Treasurer of the Socialist Campaign Group.

  • Nuclear Power: No Solution for Global Warming

    There is simply no way global warming can be stopped without significant reductions in the current energy consumption levels of developed countries. Whatever else one could say about nuclear power in the old days, it was certainly not considered environment-friendly. Over the past few years, however, a number of so-called environmentalists, generally Western, have come out in support of nuclear power as an essential component of any practical solution to global warming. Predictably, flailing nuclear establishments everywhere have grabbed this second opportunity to make a claim for massive state investments and resurrect an industry that has collapsed in country after country due to its inability to provide clean, safe, or cheap electricity. But just as the old mantra”too cheap to meter” proved ridiculously wrong, the claims that nuclear energy can contribute significantly to mitigating climate change do not bear scrutiny.

    Most prominent of these so-called environmentalists turned pro-nuclear advocates is James Lovelock, who propounded the Gaia hypothesis of the Earth as a self-regulating organism. Last year he entreated his”friends in the [Green] movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.” Lovelock’s article had several factual errors. For example,”nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources” One wonders which of the many renewable energy sources promoted by the Green movement – photovoltaics, wind energy, and so on – has had an accident that even remotely compares with Chernobyl.

    Even more inexplicable is the assertion: “We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen.” Despite such nonsense, Lovelock’s article was circulated widely, both by the nuclear lobby and by other environmentalists who were either confused or felt that this sort of argument had to be refuted strongly.

    Lovelock’s bloomers aside, the fact that some environmentalists have endorsed nuclear power as a solution to global warming deserves serious consideration and response. The enormity of the potential impact of climate change adds to this imperative.

    Two implicit but flawed assumptions underlie most claims about the significance of nuclear energy for the climate-change issue. The first is that climate change can be tackled without confronting and changing Western, especially American, patterns of energy consumption – the primary causes and continuing drivers for unsustainable increases in carbon emissions and global warming. This is plain impossible; there is simply no way global warming can be stopped without significant reductions in the current energy consumption levels of Western/developed countries. Efforts by various developing countries to match these consumption levels only intensify the problem.

    The second flawed assumption is that the adoption of nuclear power will lower aggregate carbon emissions. In a strictly technical sense, each unit of electricity produced by a nuclear plant would cause the emission of fewer grams of carbon than a unit of electricity generated by thermal plants. (A false myth often propagated by the nuclear lobby is that nuclear energy is carbon free. In reality, several steps in the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining to enrichment to reprocessing, emit copious amounts of greenhouse gases.) And so, the assumption goes, installing a large number of nuclear power stations will lower carbon emission rates.

    The problem is that the assumption holds true only if all else remains constant, in particular consumption levels. But that is never the case. In fact, there is no empirical evidence that increased use of nuclear power has contributed to actually reducing a country’s carbon dioxide emissions. The best case study is Japan, a strongly pro-nuclear energy country. As Japanese nuclear chemist and winner of the 1997 Right Livelihood Award, Jinzaburo Takagi pointed out, from 1965 to 1995 Japan’s nuclear plant capacity went from zero to over 40,000 MW. During the same period, carbon dioxide emissions went up from about 400 million tonnes to about 1200 million tonnes.

    There are two reasons why increased use of nuclear power does not necessarily lower carbon emissions. First, nuclear energy is best suited only to produce baseload electricity. That only constitutes a fraction of all sources of carbon emissions. Other sectors of the economy where carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are emitted, such as transportation, cannot be operated using electricity from nuclear reactors. This situation is unlikely to change anytime in the near future.

    A second and more fundamental reason is provided by John Byrnes of the University of Delaware’s Centre for Energy and Environmental Policy, who observed that nuclear technology is an expensive source of energy service and can only be economically viable in a society that relies on increasing levels of energy use. Nuclear power tends to require and promote a supply-oriented energy policy and an energy-intensive pattern of development.

    The high cost of nuclear power also means that any potential decreases in carbon emissions due to its adoption are expensive, certainly higher than energy efficiency improvements as well as other means to lower emissions from thermal power plants.

    One other argument advanced by some of these so-called environmentalists is that nuclear power is just an interim solution while better solutions are worked out. The idea is wholly at odds with the history of nuclear establishments around the world and completely underestimates the remarkable capabilities of powerful institutions to find resources for continuing existence and growth. Once such institutions are established, they will find ways to ensure that they are not disempowered.

    For nuclear power to make a significant dent in global warming, nuclear capacity must grow manifold (ten-plus). The notion that nuclear power can increase manifold from current levels and then be phased out is wishful thinking, to say the least. Such a projection also completely ignores existing realities – uncompetitive costs, safety concerns, the unresolved problem of radioactive waste, and the link to the bomb – that come in the way of any significant expansion of nuclear power.

    Global warming is a serious issue. Providing ill-thought out answers is no way to address such a grave problem.

    Originally published by The Friday Times.

  • Nuclear Power is the Problem, Not a Solution

    There is a huge propaganda push by the nuclear industry to justify nuclear power as a panacea for the reduction of global-warming gases.

    At present there are 442 nuclear reactors in operation around the world. If, as the nuclear industry suggests, nuclear power were to replace fossil fuels on a large scale, it would be necessary to build 2000 large, 1000-megawatt reactors. Considering that no new nuclear plant has been ordered in the US since 1978, this proposal is less than practical. Furthermore, even if we decided today to replace all fossil-fuel-generated electricity with nuclear power, there would only be enough economically viable uranium to fuel the reactors for three to four years.

    The true economies of the nuclear industry are never fully accounted for. The cost of uranium enrichment is subsidised by the US government. The true cost of the industry’s liability in the case of an accident in the US is estimated to be $US560billion ($726billion), but the industry pays only $ US9.1billion – 98per cent of the insurance liability is covered by the US federal government. The cost of decommissioning all the existing US nuclear reactor s is estimated to be $US33billion. These costs – plus the enormous expense involved in the storage of radioactive waste for a quarter of a million years – are not now included in the economic assessments of nuclear electricity.

    It is said that nuclear power is emission-free. The truth is very different.

    In the US, where much of the world’s uranium is enriched, including Australia’s, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for 50per cent of global warming.

    Also, this enrichment facility and another at Portsmouth, Ohio, release from leaky pipes 93per cent of the chlorofluorocarbon gas emitted yearly in the US. The production and release of CFC gas is now banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol because it is the main culprit responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion. But CFC is also a global warmer, 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

    In fact, the nuclear fuel cycle utilises large quantities of fossil fuel at all of its stages – the mining and milling of uranium, the construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling towers, robotic decommissioning of the intensely radioactive reactor at the end of its 20 to 40-year operating lifetime, and transportation and long-term storage of massive quantities of radioactive waste. .

    Contrary to the nuclear industry’s propaganda, nuclear power is therefore not green and it is certainly not clean. Nuclear reactors consistently release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the air and water each year. These releases are unregulated because the nuclear industry considers these particular radioactive elements to be biologically inconsequential. This is not so.

    These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton, xenon and argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the eggs and sperm and cause genetic disease.

    Tritium, another biologically significant gas, which is also routinely emitted from nuclear reactors is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen composed of two neutrons and one proton with an atomic weight of 3. The chemical symbol for tritium is H3. When one or both of the hydrogen atoms in water is displaced by tritium the water molecule is then called tritiated water. Tritium is a soft energy beta emitter, more mutagenic than gamma radiation, that incorporates directly into the DNA molecule of the gene. Its half life is 12.3 years, giving it a biologically active life of 246 years. It passes readily through the skin, lungs and digestive system and is distributed throughout the body.

    The dire subject of massive quantities of radioactive waste accruing at the 442 nuclear reactors across the world is also rarely, if ever, addressed by the nuclear industry. Each typical 1000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 33tonnes of thermally hot, intensely radioactive waste per year.

    Already more than 80,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste sits in cooling pools next to the 103 US nuclear power plants, awaiting transportation to a storage facility yet to be found. This dangerous material will be an attractive target for terrorist sabotage as it travels through 39 states on roads and railway lines for the next 25 years.

    But the long-term storage of radioactive waste continues to pose a problem. The US Congress in 1987 chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada, 150km northwest of Las Vegas, as a repository for America’s high-level waste. But Yucca Mountain has subsequently been found to be unsuitable for the long-term storage of high-level waste because it is a volcanic mountain made of permeable pumice stone and it is transected by 32 earthquake faults. Last week a congressional committee discovered fabricated data about water infiltration and cask corrosion in Yucca Mountain that had been produced by personnel in the US Geological Survey. These startling revelations, according to most experts, have almost disqualified Yucca Mountain as a waste repository, meaning that the US now has nowhere to deposit its expanding nuclear waste inventory.

    To make matters worse, a study released last week by the National Academy of Sciences shows that the cooling pools at nuclear reactors, which store 10 to 30 times more radioactive material than that contained in the reactor core, are subject to catastrophic attacks by terrorists, which could unleash an inferno and release massive quantities of deadly radiation — significantly worse than the radiation released by Chernobyl, according to some scientists.

    This vulnerable high-level nuclear waste contained in the cooling pools at 103 nuclear power plants in the US includes hundreds of radioactive elements that have different biological impacts in the human body, the most important being cancer and genetic diseases.

    The incubation time for cancer is five to 50 years following exposure to radiation. It is important to note that children, old people and immuno-compromised individuals are many times more sensitive to the malignant effects of radiation than other people.

    I will describe four of the most dangerous elements made in nuclear power plants.

    Iodine 131, which was released at the nuclear accidents at Sellafield in Britain, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the US, is radioactive for only six weeks and it bio-concentrates in leafy vegetables and milk. When it enters the human body via the gut and the lung, it migrates to the thyroid gland in the neck, where it can later induce thyroid cancer. In Belarus more than 2000 children have had their thyroids removed for thyroid cancer, a situation never before recorded in pediatric literature.

    Strontium 90 lasts for 600 years. As a calcium analogue, it concentrates in cow and goat milk. It accumulates in the human breast during lactation, and in bone, where it can later induce breast cancer, bone cancer and leukemia.

    Cesium 137, which also lasts for 600 years, concentrates in the food chain, particularly meat. On entering the human body, it locates in muscle, where it can induce a malignant muscle cancer called a sarcoma.

    Plutonium 239, one of the most dangerous elements known to humans, is so toxic that one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic. More than 200kg is made annually in each 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant. Plutonium is handled like iron in the body, and is therefore stored in the liver, where it causes liver cancer, and in the bone, where it can induce bone cancer and blood malignancies. On inhalation it causes lung cancer. It also crosses the placenta, where, like the drug thalidomide, it can cause severe congenital deformities. Plutonium has a predisposition for the testicle, where it can cause testicular cancer and induce genetic diseases in future generations. Plutonium lasts for 500,000 years, living on to induce cancer and genetic diseases in future generations of plants, animals and humans.

    Plutonium is also the fuel for nuclear weapons — only 5kg is necessary to make a bomb and each reactor makes more than 200kg per year. Therefore any country with a nuclear power plant can theoretically manufacture 40 bombs a year.

    Nuclear power therefore leaves a toxic legacy to all future generations, because it produces global warming gases, because it is far more expensive than any other form of electricity generation, and because it can trigger proliferation of nuclear weapons.

    Helen Caldicott is an anti-nuclear campaigner and founder and president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, which warns of the danger of nuclear energy.

    Originally published by the Australian.

  • An Orwellian View of Nuclear Energy: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Nuclear Energy is Green

    In George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, the government uses the slogans war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. Now, Nicholas Kristof (New York Times, April 9, 2005) would have us believe that nuclear energy is green.

    Kristof’s argument that “nukes are green” is out of touch with reality. Kristof would have us believe that the truly green energy sources – solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal – are no match compared to the benefits of nuclear power. He argues that nuclear power produces no greenhouse gases. Presumably, in Kristof’s logic, the gigantic steam towers, reactor buildings and nuclear fuel spring from the earth as naturally as the sun shines and the wind blows.

    Kristof offers an extremely narrow examination of the issue. He fails to consider that the construction of a nuclear plant, as well as fueling, decommissioning and storage of spent fuel, relies heavily upon fossil fuels, which generate vast quantities of greenhouse gases. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Energy Information Administration says the global strategy to mitigate carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, besides conservation programs, should include retiring coal-fired plants in favor of natural gas and renewables and not to construct new nuclear plants.

    Kristof also fails to accurately analyze the economics of the nuclear industry. Monstrous government subsidies have kept the industry afloat. Without massive subsidization, the nuclear industry’s insurance liabilities would have driven the industry into the ground years ago. The IAEA Energy Information Administration reports that “new nuclear power plants presently cost more to build than do fossil fuel plants. This includes fossil fuel plants such as those fired by natural gas, a fuel that carries lower environmental costs…”

    Combined costs of new nuclear plants with the unknown yet enormous costs to store the more than 45,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste produced to date, promises to handicap future generations with a gargantuan debt. If nuclear energy is accepted as green and reactors multiply across the world, future generations can expect not only an economic nightmare, but also the potential for accidents such as Chernobyl, calamitous terrorist attacks and an environment strewn with radioactivity.

    Kristof is dead wrong in suggesting that burdening future generations with nuclear wastes buried underground is more reasonable than burdening them with a warmer world in which Manhattan is submerged under 20 feet of water. Endorsing nuclear energy as green and calling for an expanded national presence for nuclear energy will not solve the global warming crisis, it will only exacerbate it. Accepting nuclear energy as green will increase the number of targets terrorists might strike; increase the amount of viciously radioactive waste in need of heavily protected long-term storage; and increase the amount of ozone depleting gases emitted into the atmosphere.

    Replacing fossil fuels with truly renewable energy sources could be accomplished with government subsidization for a fraction of what the US is currently spending to subsidize the nuclear power industry and to secure our access to Middle East oil through military intervention and foreign aid.

    Unless war is peace and freedom is slavery, then nuclear energy is not green. Policy makers must realize they need not choose between two poisons: burdening future generations with nuclear wastes buried underground or burdening the future with a warmer world submerged under water. Kristof glosses over the true viability of clean, renewable energy sources. With sufficient funding, research, and legislative support, future generations won’t have to face the bleak Orwellian future that Kristof implies is inevitable.

    Luke Brothers is the Communications and Outreach Associate at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

  • International Ju-Jitsu: Using United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 to Advance Nuclear Disarmament

    Introduction: Ju-Jitsu and Resolution 1540

    In the 16th Century Shirobei Akiyama, a Japanese man studying medicine in China, noticed that in a heavy blizzard branches of most strong trees broke while the elastic branches of the willow tree bent and efficiently freed themselves from the snow. He thus developed a martial art called Ju-Jitsu , which aims not to neutralize power with power but rationally absorb an attack and convert that energy to the opponent’s own detriment.

    On April 28, 2004, the United Nations Security Council adopted  Resolution 1540 requiring all States to take measures to prevent non-State actors from acquiring or developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in general.

    Critics of the resolution fear that it provides a mandate for the powerful countries that already possess nuclear weapons, particularly the permanent members of the Security Council (P5), to impose pressure or even use force to prevent other States and non-State actors to acquire such weapons themselves (see United Nations Security Council Unanimously Passes WMD Resolution, The Sunflower, May 2004 ).

    While there are definitely problems with the resolution, peace activists would be well advised to adopt the Ju-Jitsu approach and utilize the political momentum for action required by the UN resolution to move their governments to strengthen the norms and controls not only against the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, but also against those possessed and deployed by the P5.

    Thankfully, last minute changes in the resolution, made at the insistence of non-P5 Security Council members, provide political opportunities to do just this.

    Disarmament obligations in Resolution 1540

    The resolution notes that proliferation means ‘proliferation in all its aspects of all weapons of mass destruction,’ 1 and that action to prevent proliferation includes the implementation of ‘multi-lateral treaties whose aim is to eliminate or prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons,’ 2 and the need for ‘all member States to implement fully the disarmament treaties and agreements to which they are party.’ 3

    The resolution can thus be read to refer to efforts to prevent both horizontal proliferation (spread of weapons and related materials to those who do not yet have them) and vertical proliferation (continued possession, deployment and development of weapons by those already in possession of them). Such a reading is consistent with the disarmament obligations in the key multilateral treaties which aim to prevent proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons – referred to in the UN Security Council resolution – including Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the prohibition of chemical and biological weapons in the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention.

    Reporting

    Under the resolution, the Security Council established a Committee of the Security Council, consisting of all members of the Council, and called on all States to present a first report to the Committee within six months on steps they have taken or intend to take to implement the resolution.

    The reporting process provides an opportunity for all States to report on steps taken and steps planned to address both the vertical and horizontal proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

    In addition to the pre-ambular language calling for ‘all member States to implement fully the disarmament treaties and agreements to which they are party,’ 4 UNSC Resolution 1540 specifically ‘calls upon all States to promote the universal adoption and full implementation, and where necessary, strengthening of multilateral treaties to which they are parties, whose aim is to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.’ 5

    Thus States should report not only on steps taken domestically to implement their own disarmament and non-proliferation obligations, but also on steps taken to promote the regional and international implementation of disarmament and non-proliferation obligations, including encouragement given to the Nuclear Weapon States to achieve complete nuclear disarmament.

    Peaceful resolution of related conflicts

    UNSC Resolution also calls on ‘all Member States to resolve peacefully in accordance with the Charter any problems in that context (i.e. relating to proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction) threatening or disrupting the maintenance of regional and global stability.’ 6 This provides an opportunity for States to highlight peaceful methods for resolving such problems and to report on methods they have used or promoted. This could include:

    • Recourse to the International Court of Justice to solve the dispute of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons (ICJ Advisory Opinion of 1996)
    • Support for United Nations Security Council action to respond to the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes of Iraq , and opposition to the use of force by countries acting outside the United Nations (US and UK use of fo rc e against Iraq )
    • Opposition to the doctrine of the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons to respond to the threat of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons (US National Security Strategy)

    Criminal law

    UNSC Resolution 1540 requires all States to adopt and enfo rc e laws which prohibit any non-State actor to manufacture, acquire, possess, develop, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery.7 States in implementing this obligation should extend such laws to include any person, regardless of whether they are a non-State actor or official of a State. This would be consistent with the objectives of the resolution, as outlined in the pre-amble which does not distinguish between State and non-State actors in determining proliferation risks.

    Many countries have already adopted criminal laws relating to both State and non-State actors with respect to chemical weapons as part of their actions to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention. Some countries, e.g. New Zealand , have adopted such laws with respect to nuclear weapons (much to the displeasure of some of the Nuclear Weapon States). States should affirm that a discriminatory approach, i.e. prohibiting acts only if undertaken by non-State actors, would fail the legal principle of universality (the law must apply to all) and would encourage proliferation under the cover of agents of the State. The recent revelations of proliferation organized through the Khan network involving both non-State and State actors, indicates the necessity for responsibility to extend to State actors as well as non-State actors.

    Adopting criminal laws which apply to both State and non-State actors would strengthen the global norm of illegality of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

    Assistance to other States

    UNSC Resolution 1540 invites States to offer assistance to other ‘States lacking the legal and regulatory infrastructure, implementation experience and/or resources’8 to fulfill the provisions of the resolution. Some observers fear that this section was inserted at the wishes of the United States in order to provide legitimacy for them to dictate to other States how they should deal with the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. If such assistance is only left to the USA and other Nuclear Weapon States , countries will no doubt be encouraged to implement only the counter-proliferation and horizontal non-proliferation aspects of the resolution and ignore the disarmament provisions. However, the provision does provide the possibility for States with strong non-discriminatory laws against nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, to assist other States to develop similar laws.

    Disarmament Education

    UNSC Resolution 1540 calls upon all States to ‘develop appropriate ways to work with and inform industry and the public regarding their obligations under such laws [arising from multilateral treaties to which they are parties].’ 9

    This provides an opportunity for States to report on actions undertaken to inform and educate industry and public on non-proliferation issues including work done to implement the recommendations of the United Nations Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education.

    Transit through territorial waters

    The first paragraph of UNSC Resolution 1540 affirms ‘that proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as their means of delivery, constitutes a threat to international peace and security.’ As such, activities on the high seas, involving the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons could be considered as inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which reserves the seas for peaceful purposes consistent with ‘the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.’ 10

    Coastal States have authority in their territorial waters to prevent passage which is not innocent, 11 including passage which is ‘prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State,’ 12 or passage which is ‘in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.’ 13

    States could therefore respond to the resolution by prohibiting the passage of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery through their territorial waters.

    Regional and international collaboration

    UNSC Resolution 1540 ‘Calls upon all States to promote dialogue and cooperation on non-proliferation.’ 14 Some States have joined the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which aims to develop cooperation between States to address proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery.

    However, there is a risk that unilateral and coalition actions like PSI could undermine the work of multilateral approaches and mechanisms to address non-proliferation if such actions do not adhere to non-discriminatory norms and principles of international law.

    States participating in PSI should report on such participation to the Committee of the Security Council, and ensure that such actions are consistent with the following principles 15:

    1. Strive for universality, transparency in decision making with proper regard for legitimate comme rc ial and security interests, verifiability, and equity in application.
    2. Ensure strict compliance with existing international law relating to transit, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
    3. Reinforce the verification regimes of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and assist in the creation of strengthened verification methods for the Biological Weapons Convention.
    4. Strengthen mechanisms within the existing regimes to more clearly determine prohibited and permitted activities relating to transport of identified materials, components, and technologies.
    5. Apply constraints and principles in a universal and equitable manner.
    6. Apply restrictions in such a manner as to reinfo rc e the existing arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament commitments and norms contained in treaty regimes.
    7. Assist in establishing objective positive standards by which countries are determined to be in good standing with the existing relevant treaty regimes.
    8. Ensure all measures reinforce the United Nations system and the rule of law.

    Nuclear Energy

    While the NPT affirms the right of States to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, nuclear reactors create a very real proliferation risk with all known cases of nuclear proliferation arising from the diversion of fissile materials from nuclear reactors or from the diversion of uranium supposedly enriched for nuclear reactors. Countries which have foresworn the development of nuclear reactors could report on their capabilities to produce sufficient energy in alternative ways in order to encourage other States to phase out or forgo nuclear energy.

    International steps

    In order to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to States and non-State actors, a vital immediate step would be to achieve an international agreement to prohibit the production of fissile materials and place all existing stocks under international control. Such a measure would curtail the ability of States and non-State actors to acquire fissile material and use it to produce nuclear weapons. Concurrent steps which would curtail the ability of States and non-State actors to acquire nuclear weapons would be to disarm and disable all existing nuclear weapons pending the completion of negotiations on their elimination. The only guarantee against the proliferation of nuclear weapons to States and non-State actors is to eliminate the existing nuclear weapons and the means to produce them. This message should be made to the Committee of the Security Council by as many States as possible, along with other plans, proposals and actions leading to complete nuclear disarmament.

    Conclusion

    UN Security Council Resolution 1540 provides opportunities for significant disarmament steps by States, including opportunities to put pressure on nuclear weapon States to implement their disarmament obligations. The degree to which States act on these opportunities will depend mostly on how much encouragement and support they receive from disarmament advocates globally. So in short, it is up to us to make this happen and turn Resolution 1540 into a positive tool for disarmament.

    * Alyn Ware is a consultant for the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.
    Contact: P.O.Box 23 – 257, Cable Car Lane , Wellington , Aotearoa-New Zealand
    Phone (64) 4 385-8192. Fax 385-8193 
    alynw@attglobal.net 
    www.ialana.org

    1.  Pre-ambular paragraph 2
    2. Pre-ambular paragraph 5
    3. Pre-ambular paragraph 13
    4. Pre-ambular paragraph 13
    5. Operative paragraph 8 (a)
    6. Pre-ambular paragraph 3
    7. Operative paragraph 2
    8. Operative paragraph 7
    9. Operative paragraph 8 (d)
    10. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 301
    11. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 25
    12. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 19 (1)
    13. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 19 (2) (a)
    14. Operative paragraph 9
    15. Presented by the Global Security Institute to the Seminar on Weapons of Mass Destruction and the United Nations , New York , Mar 5, 2004 . Convened by the government of New Zealand and the International Peace Academy.

  • 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