The American Spectator : Proliferating Nonsense

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Proliferating Nonsense

By William Tucker on 2.3.09 @ 6:08AM

The problem with American environmentalism's obsession that abstaining from nuclear power will prevent nuclear proliferation.

It has often been said that declining aristocracies spend all their time reliving the glories of the past. I can think of no better example than American environmentalism's obsession that abstaining from nuclear power in this country will prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world.

Get into a debate with any anti-nuclear advocate (and I'm doing a lot of that these days) and they will soon lay down their trump card -- "nuclear proliferation." When I interviewed three executives of Greenpeace in Washington two years ago, I began with a deliberately naïve question -- "What's wrong with nuclear power?" They practically levitated out of their chairs in horror. "Do we have to explain it to you?" they bellowed. "Did you ever hear of nuclear weapons?"

Last December, Mark Jacobson, professor of environmental engineering at Stanford, produced yet another dreary study showing that wind and solar energy are the best way to power America. What made it interesting is that he criticized biofuels because they chew up huge quantities of land and would need half the lower 48 to replace our oil consumption.

So how about nuclear power, whose land requirements are about 1,000,000.000.000 times smaller than those of solar collectors? Jacobsen dismissed nuclear in one paragraph:

Wake up, Professor Jacobsen! You're living in the 21st century. Things have changed since 1976. America no longer decides these issues.

Berkeley has carried all this one step further by declaring itself "nuclear-free." Any company doing business with the city must sign a pledge to refrain from nuclear research. This became a crisis last month when the Peace and Justice Commission (yes, that's its name) refused to grant a waiver to 3M Corporation so it could service the self-checkout scanners in the public library. The machines were in need of repair, no other company services them, and patrons were tired of waiting in long lines. Still, the commission wouldn't relent. "We really mean it when we say we don't want to be part of the nuclear machinery," said commissioner George Lippman. "The act is meant to be a blow against nuclear war." (The Berkeley City Council finally relented and overruled them.)

All this heroic effort is built on the premise that it is still 1976 and the United States is the world's master of nuclear technology. Countries all over the world have gone ahead without us. Meanwhile, by hiding our heads in the sand, we have managed to cripple our energy sector, sacrifice our technological leadership and are on the verge of becoming an economic colony of the more advanced nations. Although it may come as a shock, we are no longer leading the parade.

THIS DECLINE FROM WORLD DOMINANCE began in 1973, when New Yorker journalist John McPhee became acquainted with Ted Taylor, a brilliant but eccentric nuclear engineer who had designed both the Army's biggest and the smallest bombs while working at Los Alamos. Taylor came from a line of missionaries, was a pacifist by nature and became obsessed with the idea that anyone else could build a bomb as well as he could. He was particularly concerned that we were about to begin nuclear reprocessing -- the recycling of spent reactor fuel. One of the recycled materials is plutonium, the only element besides enriched uranium that undergoes nuclear fission. Taylor was convinced that terrorists would steal our plutonium and use it to fashion bombs in their basement.

"I think we have to live with the expectation that once every four or five years a nuclear explosion will take place that will kill a lot of people," Taylor told McPhee in The Curve of Binding Energy, which became a best seller. "I can imagine -- in the worst situation -- hundreds of explosions a year.…What we are taking with the nuclear industry is a calculated risk."

Everyone else interviewed in the book told McPhee that Taylor was wildly exaggerating. Pilfering plutonium from processes involving highly radioactive material was unlikely at best. Putting a bomb together in a freelance terrorist operation would be next to impossible. There was, however, reason to fear state actors could do it. Canada had given India a research reactor in 1956 and the Indians extracted plutonium and exploded a nuclear weapon in 1974. This made it clear that the advanced countries would have to exercise extreme caution in passing on the technology. Enforcement of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty and the whole apparatus of the International Atomic Energy Agency were the result.

In this U.S., however, environmental organizations decided that giving up reprocessing in this country would be the best way to prevent nuclear proliferation. Shortly after taking office, President Jimmy Carter heeded their advice and canceled the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, which was scheduled to use recycled plutonium from the privately financed Barnwell Reprocessing Center in South Carolina. Barnwell's investors quickly pulled out and reprocessing was abandoned -- immediately creating the everlasting problem of "nuclear waste."

Carter solemnly asked other countries to follow our lead but no one paid any attention. Britain, France, Canada, the Soviet Union and Japan all continued with reprocessing and now have full-scale operations. France, with the most mature technology, is now recycling surplus uranium left over from the Soviet weapons program and selling it to us. Half our reactor fuel comes from former Soviet weapons. Meanwhile, France stores all the high-level waste from thirty years of producing 75 percent of its electricity with nuclear beneath the floor of a single large room at Le Hague.

Now flash forward to 2009. Israel, South Africa, Pakistan and North Korea have all developed their own nuclear weapons. (South Africa destroyed its stockpile after Nelson Mandela took over.) Iraq and Syria were toying with the technology at various points and Iran is still trying. North Korea built a bomb with plutonium extracted from a reactor given to it by the Soviets. In 2004, shortly after we invaded Iraq, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father of Pakistan's nuclear weapon," confessed to running a clandestine international operation that provided centrifuges for uranium enrichment to North Korea, Libya, and Iran. Two of Khan's assistants also reportedly had discussions with Osama bin Laden. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, pardoned Kahn shortly after his confession and he is lionized as a hero throughout the Islamic world.

Now here's the point. None of this has ever had anything to do with our reprocessing nuclear fuel. It's a great big world out there. There are a lot of smart people and nuclear technology has never been that difficult to master. None of these countries have had to steal anything from us, nor do we act as gatekeepers as to who gets what. Instead, by abandoning reprocessing, we have put ourselves back in the middle of the pack.

Page: 1 2 >

topics:
Environmentalism, Nuclear Power

About the Author

William Tucker is the author of Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (29) | Leave a comment

Rocco| 2.3.09 @ 6:53AM

It never ceases to amaze me that these idiots still can influence the debate over nuclear power. But, it seems that they have accomplished one of their aims - we are clearly a declining power. We will eventually turn over to our (unfortunately ignorant - thanks to our so-called educational system) children a country which will be nothing more than a colony of some greater power and likely a source of mercenaries.

Pluto Boy| 2.3.09 @ 7:34AM

The GNEP reprocessing program would be extremely costly and be a net drain on our energy situation. The "fast" reactors to use don't exist and would costs tens of billions. The state-owned socialist company AREVA stands to make a lot of money off the taxpayers from this scheme. In France, reprocessing only survives via state support. If it's so great just where is the private financing? There isn't any. Once again, special interests are looking at the feral government for a handout. Time for fiscal conservatives to stop this costly program, which will only compound the nuclear waste problem by turning spent fuel into a liquid goo.

Jean Merchant| 2.3.09 @ 9:31AM

Why is it that people in America like to show the suffering and destruction of their nation in movies like nuclear disaster, comet hit or alien invasion? Self pity, is it or what?
Recent Day the Earth stood Still is the most recent example of many on the subject.
Nuclear energy is doing fine in France...

daddio| 2.3.09 @ 10:08AM

This is proof once again that the enviro movement has become one of ideology and not science. I hope that once the hippies die off that our children and grandchildren will show some common sense and reject this religion once and for all.

HONESTY| 2.3.09 @ 10:45AM

The people from NAZI Germany were the ones who invented the Nuclear Bomb. America took in these people because one they were NAZIS, and they had valuable information on technology.

They helped to promote the KKK, and are hell bent on reintroducing Nazism across Europe and America. Obama is apart of the experiment, see we gave them a chance, Obama has no chance of sorting out the American economic desaster. Poor Whites and Poor Blacks fighting amongst each other is a plot. To solve the American economic problem is not giving money to the rich it's about giving money to those who have none. If people with no money could but the things they wish they could afford, would keep every business, in business, and every person in America in a Job.

But that is not in the plan, Obama was put in place by the media, by the news papers, hyped this guy up to the point that the opposition was shown as the bad guy, to sway the votes to Obama. Obama has no hope of fixing this economical problem, first of all you need an honest person who will tell the people the source of the problem, and someone honest enough to deal with it. Giving money to the source of the problem is stupid and irrisponsible, namely the Banks.

Isotope| 2.3.09 @ 11:34AM

Just a point of detail: It's true that Pu239 and U235 are the fissile isotopes that are most significant for bomb-making, but there are a few others that work too. Generally they're harder to produce and/or work with and so nobody bothers.

Nick| 2.3.09 @ 11:58AM

Could someone educate me, for I am truly ignorant on the subject? Mr. Tucker's essay wasn't clear enough for me. Is nuclear power economical?

This is my knowledge on the subject. The enviro-wackos lie about the dangers of waste storage and safety. Other countries subsidize their nuke power generation. The enviro-nuts argument lately has been nuclear power is not economical. Like ethanol is?

Part of me says if this was a source of cheap energy, with huge profits to be made, then K street would have made nuke power a reality. Another part of me says if nuclear is competitive with coal but it has to deal with expensive licenses and enviro regs, who would invest in it? But I don't know.The French company is making money, but do French taxpayers bear some of the burden?

Can nuclear compete without gov subsidies? Or is it a good investment?

CARBON TAX YOU'RE DEAD| 2.3.09 @ 12:37PM

The latest evil, to make money out of CARBON, all of life breath in Oxegen and breath out Carbon dioxide, can one imagine charging a TAX to live, that is the ultimate crime against Gods creation life. If people don't WAKE UP it will be too late for mankind.

A Carbon Tax, they would have to close down every factory, kill every one on the planet and all of life on the planet to cut back.

How do you cut back on Carbon, you close factories, you kill your citizens, and kill animal life. As long as you live you breath in Oxegen and breath out Carbon Dioxide. To create a charge, it's a Tax to live, it will become the new subprime.
Banks will not lend any body any money because to manke money in the future will depend on how many people you have in your country, those with too many people will get fined, America, China, and Africa has the most people in the world.

The Arab world they want to break them up hence the lies about Nuclear WMD, not true war to create divisions, each block with less people pay less Carbon Tax, its using peoples lives to play games with, like a game of CHESS.

All of these misguided people who are worried about Jewish or American or what ever, know one thing you are disposable, all war does is prove how disposable you are. These Carbon Tax don't affect the rich it's the game of the rich to play games with the poor. WHAT ELSE DO THEY HAVE TO DO.

L. Ross| 2.3.09 @ 12:43PM

Why is it that people get so upset about the theoretical risks of nuclear power generation in this country, but ignore the acutal risk of coal power. And I'm not talking about the risk of global warming in the future. I'm talking about the risk to the coal miners health from coal dust, and outright cave ins. Whenever there is a cave in, and a couple dozen miners die, we all act like it is such a tragedy, but no one ever says this wouldn't have happened if we had nuclear power instead of coal fired electric plants.

It's just sad.

Marc Jeric| 2.3.09 @ 2:56PM

When the stories of widespread poverty, terror, mass murders, and gigantic gulags in the various communist regimes became known, our "progressives" and "liberals" could not ride the communist credo of "social justice" any longer. So they joined the environmentalist movement. They destroyed nuclear electricity, hydropower, and are well on the way to destroy coal electricity under the banner of globaloney warming scam (this has been transformed, after 11 years of substatial cooling into "climate change" hoax). They have been trying to kill agriculture by banning pesticides; to kill off fishing industry by phony "endangered" species laws; to kill domestic oil exploration to "preserve" our beaches. etc. The present energy and economic crises are the result of their nepharious efforts of the past 50 years. Well, the communism cannot succeed otherwise but by riots, crises, civil war, poverty, nationalization of industries under the excuse of saving them. We are well underway to become the SSA, what with Abu Hussein, community organizer from Kenya by way of Chicago, in total power with socialist majorities in Congress.

Dwight Thorne| 2.3.09 @ 4:51PM

Marc,

Your suggestion that because Wall Street created this recent poverty, crisis that may lead to riots - you can call these guys communists, seems preposterous... You might as well refer that this is plot by confederate general Lee to preserve his cotton picking pork barrel.... get a grip, world moves on communists, confederates and Peter Stuyvesant are better in history books...

Thomas| 2.3.09 @ 5:09PM

Actually, nuclear power plants, when operated efficiently without being hamstrung by overly oppressive regulation, are quite profitable. There are attendant problems regarding plant security, operational environmental by-products [spent fuel storage and disposal] and operational health factors. But, these problems exist in every modern electrical generation operation at approximately the same levels as those that exist in nuclear power generation plants. In fact, the safety record in nuclear plants is actually better than that in non-nuclear plants.

When power generation costs get high enough, then nuclear won't look so bad. Unfortunately it takes nearly three years to build even a small nuclear power generation facility, so there would be a significant lag between recognized need and availability.

ccc| 2.3.09 @ 6:24PM

There is no energy shortage, as evidenced by the plentiful supply to anyone who can and wants to pay for it. Further, since most people are willingly profligate with their use they are clearly not paying too much as basic efficiency steps would enable them to pay significantly less. Therefore why is there such a panic about a supposed energy crisis?

Nick| 2.4.09 @ 1:01AM

Thomas,

So if you were king for a day, and could repeal all the ridiculous, enviro-wacko regs; cut through the plant license red tape, for nuke and coal power generation; the pros and cons of each type system would be a wash? Am I understanding correctly?

Or are you saying that coal is so plentiful and cheap; and nuclear has so many attendant costs, like proccessing the fuel, security, redundant safety controls, etc.; that coal wins at the moment?

I apologize for my lack of understanding.

Andre Peretti| 2.4.09 @ 8:35AM

Thanks to our electricity being 80% nuclear it is the cheapest in Europe but it won't last. The windfarm lobby, aided by the environmentalists, had a bill passed that obliges power providers to buy the electricity produced by windfarms and pay the cost of connecting them to the power grid, whatever the distance. The quantity of added power is negligible but the costs are enormous. Because of that, our electricity bills will be raised by 10% this year, and worse is expected later as more windfarms are built.

Brad Jensen| 2.4.09 @ 12:10PM

There is another simple way to use nuclear energy that no one seems to be thinking about.

We could build nuclear powerplants hundreds of miles from our population centers, and use the high temperature steam combined with carbon from coal or other sources, to create synthetic
hydrocarbon fuels (oil, diesel, natural gas) at a fraction of the price we pay for fossil fuels.

The synthesis process has been in use for 70 years, the only difference is using nuclear-generated heat to drive it.

Nuclear Synthetic Oil would reduce our dependence on foreign oil to zero and reduce energy prices while giving us a safer way to use nuclear energy.

Gary Baumgarten| 2.4.09 @ 3:28PM

Lt. General Robert Gard (Ret) will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com at 5 PM New York time Tuesday Feb 10 to discuss nuclear proliferation.

To talk to Gard please go to http://www.garybaumgarten.com and click on the link to the chat.

Thanks,

Gary

Thomas| 2.4.09 @ 5:42PM

Nick,

Sorry to take so long to get back to you.

Where to start? Lets start with licensing. It is virtually impossible to get a nuclear powerplant licensed in ths country, largely because of lawsuits filed by environmentalist groups. The efforts of these groups are not limited to nuclear facilities, however. Any proposed power generation facility that does not use wind or solar generation technology is routinely derailed by environmental lawsuits. The environmental regulations governing power generation facilities are extremely comprehensive and rigid. It is even more so with regard to nuclear power generation facilities. It makes it so expensive to even get a plant approved, that almost no one wants to invest in one.

Now on to operating costs. In every operation, the plant has to deal with plant security, especially in this age of terrorism. In the case of all power plants, the possibility that damage may be done, either by a disgruntled employee or some terrorist group, that may interrupt service to customers is a problem faced by all utilities. In the case of nuclear facilities, the security must be even more stringent, largely do to the complains of the possibility of nuclear material being stolen.

Waste is also a problem. In petroleum and coal powered plants, the chemical byproducts of these plants require expensive technology to clean and dispose of. This includes chemical scrubbers for smoke as well as the removal and disposal of ash, in the case of coal fired plants, and nuclear waste in nuclear plants. Interestingly, there is no current plan for processing spent nuclear fuel. It is stored onsite because there is no other place to put it and the regulations for moving the waste makes it very difficult, even if there was somewhere to take it.

The final problem, faced by powerplant operators is the fact that rates must be approved by state governments. Therefor, their income is limited.

Now I apologize for this above explanation. The point is that, between governmental environmental regulations and environmentalist lawsuits, virtually no new powerplants have been built in the last thirty years. This is even though we have had significant regional power shortages in such places as California.

Nick| 2.4.09 @ 6:41PM

Thomas,

No problem. Thanks for the clarification. I suspected this was the case, but never heard a proper rebuttal to the noneconomical charge.

Again my thanks!

Matt Morehouse| 2.4.09 @ 7:39PM

104 Nuclear power plants now supply 20% 0f our electrical power.
There have been no plants built in the past 30 years. There have been no accidents since Three Mile Island. At three Mile the containment vessel functioned as designed and no one was killed and no one has suffered ill effects (other than economic) from that incident. Over the past 50 years the US Navy has operated nuclear submarines, carriers, and other capital ships without incident.
All that being said and with the obvious benefits of clean, safe reliable energy, why is it that the nuclear industry has not mounted a public relations campaign to sell it to the public? I observe the massive efforts to flack wind and solar in amazement.
How many of you have read Mr. Tuckers book; Terrestrial Energy? It is well worth the effort.

targeted4extinction| 2.4.09 @ 9:37PM

So I really could end up freezing to death in a mud hut. I mean the majority rules, right ?

Roy| 2.4.09 @ 11:23PM

re:Nick/Thomas : You two are having the discussion I'm interested in. The author has produced article after article darkly warning that we are "falling behind" in nuclear technology; well, unless it's economical, I care no more about that fact than I do about the fact that other countries are producing better buggy whips. And he really never addresses that question, and I don't see it addressed in any of the posts here either.

If envirodoom preachers could be stopped from interfering with nuclear, then they could be stopped from interfering with coal. In that case which would be better?

Axil| 3.8.09 @ 8:51PM

I like the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). Dr. Edward Teller the father of Fusion, after a lifetime of work on every aspect of nuclear technology had at the end of his life come to a final conclusion: the LFTR is the best of all possible reactor types.

The LFTR is a very simple, efficient, and elegant type of reactor. It can use any kind of nuclear fuel, bomb material, or nuclear waste product to produce very high temperature heat and at the same time breed more fuel in the bargain. This thrifty approach to nuclear energy greatly appeals to me, but I became even more interested in the LFTR when the details of a new patent were revealed by Dr LeBlanc (see below @ minute 53). It opens up the possibility of building a very compact but powerful reactor that can run for 30 years without refueling in an unattended mode sited underground while it breeds new fuel within the thorium structure of the reactor itself.

In order to get to this U233 that has been produced inside the very walls of this 200 ton reactor containment vessel, a proliferator must destroy and disassemble the reactor, lift its heavy reactor core out of a 100 meter deep reinforced aircraft crash proof hole in the ground, then cut the thorium up into small pieces while enduring heavy gamma radiation exposure, next reprocess these reactor pieces using isotopic separation since the U233 is denatured with enough U238 to make chemical separation of bomb grade U233 impossible, and do all this without being detected. Now, this is a tall order for any proliferator and may just be an impossible assignment.

At the end of the service life of the Lftr, the reactor vessel is sent back to the factory where it is reduced to liquid fluoride salts that become the feedstock of a next new Lftr. This feedstock can only be used by the new Lftr and not for bombs. The waste products are held at the factory for a few hundred years to cool down before they are mined for the many precious elements contained within like platinum and iridium. Now that’s what I call a safe, efficient and thrifty mode of operation!

For more information see the following:

What Fusion Wanted To Be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8

Liquid Fluoride Reactors: A New Beginning for an Old Idea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So

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