A Musing Environment

Navajo miners 1952

The Los Angeles Times has a series, Blighted Homeland, on dangers left from uranium mining in the 1940s and 1950s. Several tens of people drinking water from pits that contained tailings, and eating animals that drank the same water, developed neurological problems. Several died.

While the article lists both radioactivity and heavy metals (uranium, vanadium, selenium and arsenic), the symptoms appear to overlap better with heavy metal poisoning than with radioactivity; at least, they appear similar to problems I have been reading about in Bangladesh. The kidneys and other parts of the body that try to rid the body of heavy metals are most susceptible. Arsenic is more of a problem than uranium; I don’t know how vanadium and selenium compare to either.

The articles gave instances of EPA neglect of the problems or/and native American distrust of the US government that led to EPA people prohibited from further testing. If either contributed or is likely to contribute to further health problems, it needs to be addressed.

Meanwhile, the mining companies claim they have a different way to mine (see graphic). Some Navajo want to take advantage of the multi-billion dollar supply of uranium, while others suspect that the new technology will also lead to problems.

Note: For the purposes of the people who became sick, some of whom died, the primary issue is that insufficient cleaning up of the mines led to big health problems for several families. But if the problem is heavy metals, looking for radioactivity will not help.

I am definitely not an expert. Some of this information comes from someone much more knowledgeable who is also clear that she is not an expert.

According to Abstract: Arsenic in ground water of the western United States, arsenic is naturally more common in certain geochemical environments:

1. basin-fill deposits of alluvial-lacustrine origin, particularly in semiarid areas,
4. uranium and gold-mining areas.

Columbia University looks at the biggest arsenic problem in the world, in Bangladesh. Symptoms there are similar to what the Navajo are seeing.

Arsenic is a big problem in AZ ground water.

I would appreciate comments from knowledgeable people.

Again, mine companies are culpable for health and environmental consequences of the mine. Heavy metal poisoning is a major health and environmental consequence of all mining, and mine owners should be responsible for cleanup. Bringing radioactivity into the discussion may be irrelevant (is it? again, would appreciate knowledgeable comments) and confusing.

We can confront climate change only if many of us change our behavior dramatically. This may mean driving and flying less, driving more fuel-efficient cars, driving at lower speeds, using efficient bulbs and appliances, insulating, and no longer heating, cooling, and lighting empty rooms. It may mean learning to communicate the science, impacts, solutions, and urgency, what comes up for us emotionally and spiritually when we consider what is happening, and when we consider change. It probably means choosing legislators on their climate change policy. It may mean examining our current understanding, to see if our assumptions make us part of the solution, or part of the problem. All of these are necessary; we need enough people to address all aspects of climate change solutions.

Residents of Manhattan use less energy than most Americans.

It will be difficult to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change mid-century to a relatively low level—many policy proposals including the Stern report and Al Gore’s solutions may have a high probability of reaching 2ºC. See, for example, Baer and Mastrandrea’s High Stakes: Designing emissions pathways to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change,

The 2°C target, long advocated by European governments, businesses and civil society groups alike, is far from perfect. Severe impacts and feedback mechanisms that amplify the problem are already occurring at relatively low temperature increases. Nevertheless, the importance of the 2°C objective cannot be overstated. Beyond that threshold, the extent and magnitude of impacts are likely to increase in a way that may widely be considered as being dangerous, and in some cases irreversible.

The likely impacts for a rise of between 2 and 3°C include an increase in the number of people affected by water scarcity to two billion; agricultural losses extending to the world’s largest exporters of food; the loss of the world’s most bio-diverse ecosystems including most of the coral reefs, and irreversible damage to the Amazon rainforest, which could result in its collapse. Particularly worrying is the likely transformation of the planet’s soils and forests into a net source of carbon, causing an additional 2 to 3°C rise in temperature, and an increase in the likelihood of other abrupt changes in climate, such as the slowing-down of the Gulf Stream and the loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, which together would raise sea levels by 12 metres (40 feet)…

However, the message should already be clear: while very rapid reductions can greatly reduce the level of risk, it nevertheless remains the case that, even with the strictest measures we model [peak greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, five per cent maximum annual rate of decline, 81 per cent reduction below 1990 levels by 2050], the risk of exceeding the 2ºC threshold is in the order of 10 to 25 per cent.

Steep and immediate decreases will require all possible solutions, including voluntary behavior change.

Some propose that we focus on part of the solutions today, and more of the solutions tomorrow. This doesn’t make sense for several reasons:

• The faster we reduce GHG emissions, the greater the chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.
• The faster we reduce GHG emissions, the fewer problems climate change will create.
• Hopes about how much cushion we have, how rapidly we will implement solutions, and the effectiveness of solutions may be too optimistic (or they may be too pessimistic, we can only hope that this is the case!)
• Investing in tomorrow’s solutions today will reduce costs and increase effectiveness tomorrow.
• Fossil fuels, the largest cause of climate change, kill hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year in direct pollution, and do commensurate damage to agriculture and other plants and animals (though switching from gasoline to ethanol with today’s technology, and building a coal power plant to do so, may not make sense): reducing fossil fuel use has collateral benefits.

Photovoltaic (Solar) System

The US can and should make good policy today, including carbon taxes or carbon cap and trade—people in business are complaining that business decisions are hard when everyone knows policies will change, but not how. The US can and should invest substantially more money and research in greater efficiency (doing the same with less), wind and solar power, and improving other (and finding new) technologies. But these will not solve our problems; they are necessary but not sufficient. Efficiency goals are to increase the current yearly improvement from 1% to 2%. Our population is growing by more than 1%/year, so a 2% improvement will reduce our energy needs, but not immediately. Solar power, if it continues to increase at the rate of 35% per year, will supply less than 0.5% of US electricity in 2015. The use of wind power is also growing rapidly (though not as much as in some countries), but integrating wind into the grid is not simple. Canada, for example, is reducing its plans for wind power: Alberta will add 900 MW rather than 3,000 MW in windmill capacity.

It is starting to look as though wind cannot meet more than a fraction of our energy demand even if other issues with the technology, like esthetics and wildlife impacts, are ignored. The problem, as engineers skeptical of wind power have been yelping for decades, is that power usage and production constantly have to be balanced in an electrical grid. Adding too much unstable, unpredictable power to the system creates a risk of failure and cascading blackouts. In fact, the EU is investigating the possible role of Germany’s heavy wind-dependence in causing a Nov. 6 blackout that hit 10 million Europeans.

Windmills in Southern Alberta

If we wait to build more nuclear power plants, we will necessarily build coal power plants. Coal power kills with direct pollution—many more die every year in the US from coal particulates alone than will eventually die from Chernobyl, not counting the health, agriculture, and environmental effects of heavy metals, ozone, and other pollutants. Many more Americans die from working in the coal industry every year than workers died from Chernobyl. Coal is the most intense greenhouse gas emitting fuel.

Several people told me that their main concerns about nuclear power were a range of issues from terrorism to proliferation. I’ve completed a series: introduction, making a bomb, making a bomb from nuclear waste, terrorist targets, international treaties, governments with the bomb, and nuclear power and the weapons threat. A previous post looked at the safety of current western nuclear power plants (newer plants are expected to be safer).

Since Three Mile Island, few coal power plants have been built, and many orders were canceled. The US had built too many power plants, assuming that the rate of increase in electricity use would remain several per cent/year. Additionally, as nuclear power plants were improved after TMI (there was significant room for improvement), the amount of unplanned maintenance decreased, and nuclear power’s contribution to electricity production increased.

But now almost all US coal power plants are many decades old, and the reserve capacity has been brought into use as both population and per capita consumption continue to rise.

The choice today for the bulk of new power plants is between nuclear and coal power. Mid-century, there will hopefully be more choices, but today nuclear and coal are the biggies. Several utilities are considering nuclear power plants, and Kansas and Texas utilities are planning coal power plants.

I began my own process believing that there were certain solutions that should be promoted first, that it was OK for me to change my behavior but that I shouldn’t ask it of others (I still pretty much don’t). But we as a society have been dawdling too long. We have fewer choices available today than we had last month, less time to make up our mind today than a week ago.

Also in this series
Part 1 Nuclear Bombs, Nuclear Energy, and Terrorism
Part 2 Today’s Bombs, Making a Bomb
Part 3 Making Bombs from Nuclear Waste
Part 4 Terrorist Targets
Part 5 Nuclear Proliferation—International Treaties
Part 6 The Bomb Spreads
Part 7 Nuclear Power and the Weapons Threat

The first crop of bananas in the Cambridge University Botanic Garden is due soon.

This was approved at November Business Meeting of Strawberry Creek Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), in Berkeley:

Strawberry Creek Monthly Meeting

Minute on Global Climate Change

Approved November 12, 2006

Background

In 1985, Marshall Massey challenged Pacific Yearly Meeting with his prophetic witness about the impending environmental crisis. Since then, PYM has sponsored retreats, interest groups, publications, and established a standing committee on earth care. Growing numbers of Friends now recognize that caring for the environment is a spiritual concern. In PYM’s most recent Faith and Practice, we are asked to “Live according to principles of right relationship and right action within the larger whole. Be aware of the influence humans have on the health and viability of life on earth. Call attention to what fosters or harms Earth’s exquisite beauty, balances and interdependencies. Guided by Spirit, work to translate this understanding into ways of living that reflect our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.”

We now face global climate change, a phenomenon no longer seriously in doubt within the scientific community. As a result of the choices we have made, the Earth grows ever hotter, exacerbating weather extremes, habitat destruction, species loss, crop damage, and the dislocation of human lives. Most of these changes, we cannot escape entirely; some of the damage may be avoided if we act responsibly soon.

In the midst of these awesome changes, we turn away from either apathy or despair toward a way opening in the Light. We embrace our sacred interconnection to life on this planet.

Minute

We recognize that our current human impact on the planet is environmentally damaging, and that conflicts over resources are aggravating the conditions for war. We also recognize that when resources are scarce, it is the most vulnerable people and ecosystems that are at risk. Spiritually, we are compelled to care for both.

We call for Friends to examine and shift our individual impacts to the extent that each is able, so that Earth’s resources are sustained or replenished. Such commitment will likely entail major adjustments in our purchases, our diets, transportation and livelihood.

While many individual Friends have progressed toward a sustainable lifestyle, we must now move to a corporate witness in our meeting, joining with and helping each other and also like-minded groups in supporting our common concerns.

We ask all to stay continually informed about this evolving planetary crisis and discern future actions that will become needed. We appeal to all Friends to make this a standing priority in our families, meetings, and communities. We recognize that the actions described below are only the first steps in what is needed; we will work towards a transformation at all levels of society to create a sustainable way of life.

Recommended Immediate Actions

* Reduce our meeting-wide greenhouse-gas emissions at least 10% in the coming year by personally decreasing driving, flying, and home energy use and by utilizing efficient alternatives (for those who are able to do so). Maintain a list of suggested specific actions.

* Labor with and learn from others to help us all examine and reduce our fossil fuel consumption.

Engage in collective discernment into how we might witness most powerfully for systemic impact. Regularly, worship together, study and discuss climate change and personal adjustments, allowing spirit to work amongst us.

* Network among meetings and other groups to share resources and expertise.

* Labor with those who shape public opinion and policy to promote Earth care and, if that fails, work to replace them. From local to state, national, and international levels, advocate for measures to protect Earth’s resources, promote environmental justice, and reduce the occasion for war.

* Work through personal participation and public policy to mitigate the impacts of resource wars and climate change on the most vulnerable people and ecosystems.

The end of summaries of chapters 17 and 18 in David Bodanskyls Nuclear Energy (second edition). See the beginning of The Bomb Spreads for more on research vs power reactors.

From the Eisenhower program, Atoms for Peace to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the premise was that military and civilian aspects of nuclear energy could be kept separate, and that aid with nuclear power and research reactors would help persuade governments to forego nuclear weapons.

One result of these policies has been the spread of research reactors throughout the world.

It can be debated whether this policy was wise or quixotic. However, the good or the harm has been done. [Positive aspects include the use of radionuclides in medical diagnosis and therapy and myriad industrial applications.] In examining the links between commercial nuclear power and nuclear weapons, it is necessary to keep this history in mind. A wide diffusion of nuclear knowledge and technology has already taken place extending to many countries that as yet have no nuclear power. Further, to the extent that peaceful nuclear energy has been involved in helping start weapons programs, research reactors, not power reactors, have, to date, been the apparent culprit.

Although there is little connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power to date, some fear that the spread of nuclear power will facilitate the future spread of nuclear weapons, to either terrorists or to countries now without nuclear weapons. For example, countries with nuclear power can assert their right to uranium enrichment facilities in order to produce slightly enriched uranium, as both Brazil and Iran have done, saying they want “energy independence”. Or build a reprocessing plant to allow it to recycle plutonium for use in nuclear power, as Iran has. Both types of facilities lower technical barriers to weapons production, and help scientists and engineers gain familiarity with nuclear technology. They also provide cover for importing or manufacturing equipment for weapons (eg, see Harold Feiveson).

Countries with Nuclear Weapons, Admitted or Suspected

The most obvious nuclear weapons threats come from countries that already possess weapons:

NWSs which have no plans to renounce them, India and Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Commercial nuclear power did not contribute to weapons buildup in these countries, though small research reactors were in some cases important. The five NWSs all made bombs before nuclear power, Israel and North Korea have no nuclear power, India’s link is with the research reactor, nor was Pakistan’s program connected to nuclear power. There is no known case of plutonium being diverted from a power reactor for weapons.

Aspiring Weapons States

Iraq never had nuclear power nor expressed interest in nuclear power. Iran, as described above, is a different matter.

Though many prefer it, there is no recognized international mechanism for implementing a policy of barring nuclear power selectively. In particular, there is no international body that is likely to have both the will and the means to prevent major powers, such as Russia, China, and the United States, from providing nuclear facilities to other nations if they wish to do so.

Countries with Nuclear Power but No Weapons

Canada, Germany, and Japan have strong nuclear power programs and could develop weapons easily, but have not expressed an interest in doing so. Sweden has a strong nuclear power program, and abandoned its weapons program early.

Argentina, changed policy, according to their Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, after it found itself blacklisted by the international community and cooperating with the “netherworld of third-world countries”. The carrot of help with nuclear technology, and the stick of technological denial, worked with Argentina. This method appears to have less success with countries that are less concerned than Argentineans with being part of the netherworld.

IAEA and Brazil agree to safeguards after two year standoff.

Countries with Neither Nuclear Power nor Nuclear Weapons

Any country that reaches the technological ability of 1940s US has the ability to make nuclear weapons. This is difficult for a subnational group without a “secure geographical base”.

Reducing Proliferation Dangers from Nuclear Power—Technological Measures

There is no infallible technological fix to the problem of nuclear proliferation. There are many routes to nuclear weapons for determined countries that possess even a modest industrial and scientific base. However, as we have seen the threshold is raised if there is no easy access to separated plutonium.

The Future of Nuclear Power (MIT), says,

The PUREX/MOX (Plutonium Recycle Mixed Oxide) fuel cycle produces separated plutonium and, given the absence of compelling reasons for its pursuit, should be strongly discouraged in the growth scenario on nonproliferation grounds. Advanced fuel cycles may achieve a reasonable degree of proliferation resistance, but their development needs constant and careful evaluation so as to minimize risk.

Several other countries, including France, Japan, and Russia, have been unwilling to agree. Worldwide and in the US, people disagree as to whether risks of reprocessing outweigh gains.

Technological means of reducing plutonium-related proliferation risks include the following:

• Once-through fuel cycle Don’t reprocess nuclear waste

• Colocation If reprocessing, in order to use fuel again or to simplify dealing with the waste, restrict the opportunity for diverting plutonium by putting reprocessing plants and reactors in one facility (Integral Fast Reactor, for example, or Generation IV program for new reactors).

• Thorium fuel cycle Plutonium is not separated out during the fuel cycle; however, there are no plans for this type of plant.

• Self-contained reactors Smaller countries could receive small self-contained units, these would be taken back at the end of the lifetime. [South Africa has expressed interest in exporting pebble bed reactors as self-contained units if tests are successful. See here and here for more information on these small (165 MW) reactors.]

Institutional Measures

Technology change is not sufficient to prevent weapons development, with or without nuclear power.

The most promising means of restraining nuclear proliferation is a combination of rigorous inspections, presumably by the IAEA, backed by economic pressures. Such mechanisms can be faulted for their initial failures in the detection and prevention for the Iraqi and North Korea nuclear programs—which, at times, proceeded vigorously despite the NPT and the IAEA inspections.

IAEA inspections did lead to the end of Iraq’s program. North Korea and Iran, on the other hand, test the effectiveness of the ability of the international community to inhibit weapons programs. Giving IAEA more power and resources would help.

The inhibiting power of inspections and economic coercion are not complete, but their effectiveness should not be underestimated. A number of countries have given up actual weapons. The unwillingness of India, Israel, and Pakistan to sign the NPT is testimony to its potential effectiveness.

Nuclear power and Moderation of Weapons Dangers

Nuclear power can decrease the need for oil, through the production of hydrogen for fuel cells [or much earlier through a shift to plug in hybrids]. If the demand for oil were not so tight, and prices so high, conflict over oil might decrease. [Many believe that the high prices of oil, and the amount of money going to governments such as Iran, increase dangers in the world. It would be ironic if Iran had less ability to issue threats about its presumed nuclear weapons program because nuclear power decreased the Westls appetite for oil.]

Nuclear power is being used to help rid the world of nuclear weapons material. As discussed in a previous blog, getting rid of weapons-grade uranium is easy—mix highly enriched uranium and natural or depleted uranium to make reactor-grade uranium. [Arms Control Association discusses the current state of this program. The US and Russia together still have 1,800 tonnes of highly enriched uranium, enough for perhaps 30,000 nuclear warheads.]

Weapons grade plutonium is much more of a problem. Russia and the US are expected to have 50 or more tonnes of plutonium when they reduce bomb inventory, enough for 20,000 bombs/country.

Options for keeping the plutonium out of circulation include the following:

• storage option in well-guarded facilities. This is the most immediate and cheapest solution. The following are considered viable long-term choices.

• spent fuel option Consume plutonium in power reactors, this would require redesign and be expensive

• vitrification option Mix plutonium and highly radioactive wastes, and store in glass, making plutonium difficult to reclaim for any purpose

• borehole option Place plutonium in deep boreholes, several km down. Recovery would be difficult to impossible.

The use of plutonium for power reactor fuel could supply almost one year of reactor fuel; more importantly, it gets rid of weapons material.

Policy Issues for the US

The coupling between nuclear power and nuclear weapons is weak. The issue is important and profound because the stakes are great. But in the end, nuclear power policies, and more particularly, U.S. nuclear power policies, are unlikely to have much impact—in either direction—on the nuclear-weapon policy of aspiring countries.

• However, weak is not zero. In a few cases (e.g., Iran), there may be a significant coupling and it would be useful from a weapons proliferation standpoint to discourage nuclear power in Iran and similar countries, or at least limit the type of facilities they have.

• The US (and other countries) could secure greater powers for the IAEA inspections work, provide intelligence data to the IAEA and United Nations, and support the UN being more determined to deal with nuclear threats. Support of international organizations will not prevent the US and allies from unilateral actions such as sanctions.

• Countries with an ability to enrich fuel could provide reactor fuel on advantageous terms to countries with small nuclear power programs, as a incentive forego their own enrichment plants.

• The political and moral position of the US and other weapon states would improve if nuclear disarmament were more rapid (article VI of NPT), and if the two holdouts among NWSs, the US and China, signed the CTBT.

• Abandoning nuclear power would accomplish little for nonproliferation. Japan, France, and other countries will not give up nuclear power.

Further, abandoning nuclear power without entirely giving up nuclear weapons might be seen as an empty gesture.

• The most effective tools to influence nuclear programs elsewhere might be economic pressures and incentives.

In the end, however, it should be recognized that success in preventing the use of nuclear weapons and in limiting nuclear proliferation depends on finding prudent and effective policies in areas that have little to do with nuclear power. Specific matters to address include achieving appropriate reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, encouraging responsible control over weapons and nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, developing a spectrum of incentives and disincentives to dissuade potential proliferating states and their suppliers, and determining the appropriate role if any, for nuclear deterrence.

Also in this series
Part 1 Nuclear Bombs, Nuclear Energy, and Terrorism
Part 2 Today’s Bombs, Making a Bomb
Part 3 Making Bombs from Nuclear Waste
Part 4 Terrorist Targets
Part 5 Nuclear Proliferation—International Treaties
Part 6 The Bomb Spreads
Part 8 Wrapup on Nuclear Power Series

Not only does a warming Earth threaten our future, it threatens our past.

From ancient ruins in Thailand to a 12th-century settlement off Africa’s eastern coast, prized sites around the world have withstood centuries of wars, looting and natural disasters. But experts say they might not survive a more recent menace: a swiftly warming planet.

“Our world is changing, there is no going back,” Tom Downing of the Stockholm Environment Institute said Tuesday at the U.N. climate conference, where he released a report on threats to archaeological sites, coastal areas and other treasures.

Sukhothai temple ruins

Recent floods attributed to climate change have damaged the 600-year-old ruins of Sukhothai in northern Thailand, the report said, while increasing temperatures are “bleaching” the Belize barrier reef and a rising sea level is sending damaging salt into the wetlands of Donana National Park in Spain.

Civilian reactors can be used for research, produce electricity (power reactors), or power submarines. Research reactors are used to test or analyze materials, produce radioisotopes for medical or industrial use (some decay so rapidly that they could not be transported long distances), or for education. Early research reactors used highly enriched uranium (20% or more U-235), some of it weapons grade (90% or more U-235). (Lightly enriched uranium is less than 20% U-235, reactor grade up to 4%+ U-235.)

Again, much thanks to David Bodansky’s Nuclear Energy (second edition).

India

• 1948 Begins rudimentary nuclear program
• 1956 Small research reactor using enriched uranium from Britain
• 1960 Obtains larger Canadian natural uranium research reactor from Canada and US (CIRUS)
• 1962 Uses its own uranium and makes its own heavy water for CIRUS. The importance of the heavy water (water made from hydrogen with a neutron, H-2) is that it could be used to make plutonium. Later, India builds a reprocessing facility to extract plutonium.
• 1974 Sets off nuclear device (too bulky to have been delivered in usable weapon)
• 1985 Constructs Dhvura research reactor to produce plutonium
• 1998 Conducts underground tests, declares its rights to weapons, deplores the need for weapons, criticizes preferences in NPT for NWS, and announces a voluntary moratorium.

The CIRUS and Dhruva reactors may produce 30 kg of weapons-grade plutonium per year. Additionally, India has developed some capability to enrich uranium.

India has been able to blur the distinction between peaceful uses of nuclear energy on the one hand and a weapons program on the other, having made use of research reactors and, conceivably, power-generating reactors to obtain fissile material. Perhaps this is the leading case where there might be a positive link between possession of civilian nuclear power and the development of nuclear weapons. The start appears to have come using a research reactor, rather than a power reactor, but an expanded weapons program could be partly hidden behind its power generation program, if India chooses to do so.

That is, India could extract plutonium from its nuclear power reactor for use in weapons.

Pakistan

• 1971 Loses to India in a mini-war
• 1972 Decides to develop its own nuclear weapons, using both uranium enrichment and plutonium extraction, primarily the former.
• 1998 Detonates six devices, from one in the 25-36 kt (thousand metric tonne) range, to three below 1 kt. Pakistan also announced the existence of a reactor which could be used for plutonium production.

Dr. Khan, who led the program, had worked in the Netherlands at a company associated with uranium enrichment, and is thought to have stolen designs in 1976. Specialized equipment was sent surreptitiously from China and from companies in Germany. Likely they received even more help from other sources. In turn, Pakistan sold technical information and equipment to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, and provided uranium to Libya. Approaches may have been made to Iraq and Syria. Khan may have had the support of the Pakistan government; his own motivations appear to be both ideological and financial.

Israel

In the 1960s, there are reports that Israel was developing nuclear weapons. France helps construct a research reactor which began operation in 1963. Israel also builds a plutonium reprocessing facility. Some believe that Israel has uranium enrichment capability. Their well-developed nuclear weapons program began with France’s help, but has continued with the acquiescence of the US.

North Korea

North Korea illustrates how a country with a relatively small technical base may be able to go it alone in weapons development, given sufficient determination and some small initial help.

• 1965 USSR provides research reactor
• 1975 USSR helps with small-scale reprocessing, a small amount of plutonium is extracted
• 1980s Serious weapons program begins with a new reactor, which goes into operation in 1986. It was similar to designs in 1940s Britain. Ratifies NPT 1985, but keeps reactor free of continuous International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. IAEA team in 1992 concludes plutonium has been separated from spent reactor fuel.
• 1994 Agreed framework offers fuel oil and nuclear power for foregoing nuclear weapons.
• 1996 Two larger reactors go into operation, though one may be primarily for electricity.
• 2002 Acknowledges a program to enrich uranium, affirms at least a potential nuclear weapons program, announces reactivation of reactor shut down since 1994. Withdraws from NPT in January 2003.
• [2006 October 9, bomb test.]

Iraq

• 1976 France sells research reactor which uses highly enriched uranium. Iraq wishes to replace this with natural or depleted uranium (more U-238) to make plutonium. Israel bombs and destroys 1981.
• 1980s Makes unsuccessful attempt to purchase plutonium from Italian arms smugglers, begins efforts to produce enriched uranium. By 1989, has centrifuge enrichment.
• 1991, After Iraq war, IAEA inspections reveal more technology and the successful separation of plutonium from a research reactor. They had received equipment and information (unwittingly?) from West Germany, Switzerland, and the US. UN inspectors destroy physical facilities for making nuclear weapons. Inspectors withdraw in 1998.

Iran

• 1960s Western countries cooperate with Shah’s ambitions, beginning with a research reactor
• 1970s Two large West German (power?) reactors begin in 1974, but ended because of both Irani and foreign opposition to continuing after 1979 fall of Shah. Damaged during Iran-Iraq war.
• 1995 Russia agrees to replace reactor. [It is due to be completed next year, Russia may be delaying completion, as completion date keeps being postponed.] A second reactor is listed as “under construction”, and reports exist about discussions between Russia and Iran about additional reactors.
• 2003 Confirmation that Iran is building a uranium-enrichment plant. IAEA investigates, and finds the following: a small pilot centrifuge of enrichment of uranium and a commercial plant under construction, a heavy water production plant under construction, another reactor with natural uranium fuel and heavy water moderator under construction.

Iran is only capable of enriching uranium for a commercial power reactor but it is thought that they could develop a secret enrichment facility for weapons grade uranium. The enrichment capability was aided by several sources, including some from Germany, Switzerland, China, and Pakistan.

Iran is allowed both enrichment and heavy water facilities under the terms of its NPT agreements with the IAEA, though the IAEA likes to be kept better informed.

Future Iranian efforts to build weapons could be restrained by internal Iranian policy decisions, pressure from Russia, economic and political campaigns organized by the United States, or more stringent IAEA requirements.

Arms Control Association has more information on Iran to date.

Unsealing a nuclear threat: Iran threw down a gauntlet by breaking the IAEA seal on a uranium enrichment facility

Other countries

• South Korea abandons its weapons programs (from the 1960s and 1970s) under international pressure.
• Sweden (1950s) gives up its active program under domestic pressure.
• Taiwan (1980s) produces plutonium from a reactor obtained in 1969 from Canada. Under US pressure, it ships this to the US, shuts down the reactor, then ships the heavy water to the US as well. This may not have been a weapons program.
• Argentina obtains a small research reactor in 1958, a power reactor in 1974, and makes public moves toward a weapons program in 1978, announcing a planned plutonium reprocessing plant and uranium enrichment. These are originally intended as parts of a weapons program in competition with Brazil. In 1990, Argentina and Brazil renounce nuclear weapons, and in 1991, sign a joint agreement with IAEA for inspections. Argentina signs the NPT in 1995.
• Brazil, in response to Argentina’s program, starts a uranium-enrichment plant in 1970, putting it into operation in 1988. Brazil also had a small plutonium-reprocessing program. Brazil gives up its nuclear-weapons program along with Argentina, and signs the NPT in 1998. It opens a new uranium-enrichment plant in 2002.
• South Africa starts a uranium enrichment program, to make weapons grade uranium, with German help in the 1970s. In 1990, South Africa abandons its nuclear weapons program. It signs the NPT and enters into a safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1991.
• Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine, part of the former Soviet Union, transfer all of their nuclear weapons to Russia from 1991 – 1996. This compliance benefited from pressure from Russia and the US, and financial incentives from the US. The Ukraine required prolonged negotiation to reach agreement.
• Libya’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons becomes public in 2003, along with an agreement to abandon the program and submit to inspections. Libya received help from individual Pakistani scientists, possibly without knowledge of the Pakistani government, in uranium enrichment.

Also in this series
Part 1 Nuclear Bombs, Nuclear Energy, and Terrorism
Part 2 Today’s Bombs, Making a Bomb
Part 3 Making Bombs from Nuclear Waste
Part 4 Terrorist Targets
Part 5 Nuclear Proliferation – International Treaties
Part 7 Nuclear Power and the Weapons Threat
Part 8 Wrapup on Nuclear Power Series

Wind power is increasing rapidly worldwide, even more so in Germany. Their experience indicates expenses and problems accompany this increase. Their work will help other countries in a worldwide shift to increasing use of wind power.

Wind power in Schleswig-Holstein.

The German experience is that wind power is more challenging to integrate into the grid because it is intermittent, as the E.ON Netz Wind (Power in Germany) Report 2005 explains. (E.ON Netz controls transmission lines across much of Europe. Other branches of E.ON specialize in wind power, biopower — using plants matter to make electricity, and hydropower.)

Germany had more than 16,000 MW of wind capacity at the end of 2004, providing 26-billion kWh electricity, more than one third of the world’s wind capacity. The US had only 9,000 MW in 2005. Germany wind power operators receive 9 Euro cents/kWh. (Residential electricity price is 12 Euro cent/kWh in France, 18 cent/kWh in Germany.)

The source (pdf) I have been using on the cost of wind power gives today’s production price as 5 – 7 American cent/kWh, 3 – 6 cent/kWh in 2016. Wind Power Today gives price goals, depending on how windy the area is and whether onshore or offshore.*

First, an explanation of capacity. A 1,000 MW** power plant operating for one hour at full capacity makes one million kWh of electricity. However, power plants don’t operate at full capacity, as they must be repaired, or in the case of nuclear power plants, shut down for refueling. Coal and nuclear power plants (base load) run 24 hours/day, while natural gas (often peak load) run as needed, as they are much easier to turn on and off. The same is true of hydroelectric power.

In the US, nuclear power plants operate at 90% capacity, coal at 73% (more down time for maintenance and failures), natural gas plants (depending on type) from 16 – 38%, hydroelectric at 29%, wind at 27%, solar at 19%, and geothermal at 76%. Again, the lower capacity of natural gas and hydroelectric plants occurs because most are turned off at night and other times of low usage. The wind doesn’t blow all of the time, and speed varies. Since energy produced is proportional to speed cubed, when speed goes down by half, electricity production goes down by seven eighths. Solar panels are without light half the day (more in Berkeley), and not facing the sun directly much of it. Solar panels also degrade with time.

To calculate how much capacity must be built in order to produce 1,000 MW power, divide by the capacity factor: build a 1,100 MW nuclear power plant, 1,400 MW coal, 4,000 MW wind, 5,000 MW solar, etc.

Conclusions of the E.ON Netz report:

• Wind energy is only able to replace traditional power stations to a limited extent.

Especially cold or hot weather is usually accompanied by relatively windless days, limiting wind’s contribution when it is most needed (much of Europe uses electricity for heating because of the dangers of natural gas). During much of California’s heat wave in mid-July, capacity fell to 5% or less.

The average wind power in Germany is 1/5 of wind capacity (less wind?), but this is skewed by windy times. For the majority of the year, wind capacity is less than 14%.

Because guaranteed wind power is so low, backup power plants must be built – almost as many as if there were no wind power. (Hydroelectric and natural gas are good backups for wind, but not coal or nuclear power plants, which run all day.) Moreover, the need for backup plants increases as use of wind power increases.

By 2020, Germany is due to have 48,000 MW in windmills, equivalent to 9,600 MW in power plants on all the time. However, Germany will need 46,000 MW in backup to guarantee 48,000 MW in power – rarely, the majority of this will come from wind, but on the majority of days, almost all of this will come from the backup plants. Building windmills doesn’t mean building fewer other power plants, though it does reduce the amount of natural gas they use. Building so much extra infrastructure is expensive, and is not currently factored into the price of wind power.

• Wind power feed-in can only be forecast to a limited degree.

Grid failure occurs if electricity taken out of the grid does not exactly equal electricity added to the grid. Since weather forecasts are of limited accuracy, more complex methods to aid decision-making must be employed. This can be tricky.

Wind speeds can change rapidly. Over 10 hours one Christmas Eve, wind power decreased from 6,000 MW to 2,000 MW, requiring 4,000 MW of electricity to be added to the grid from other sources.

• Wind power needs a grid infrastructure.

Germany currently has a distributed electricity supply, that is, most electricity is made close to where it is used, and many power lines operate in only one direction. Integrating more wind power into the grid will require significant transfer between regions, and 1,700 more miles of high voltage power lines by 2020. There are technical challenges as well: distinguishing between a drop in wind power and a fault in the electric grid.

Wind power from Germany is affecting neighboring grid operators, particularly in the Netherlands, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

Wind farms disconnect from the grid in event of grid failure. A problem that would have lasted a few tenths of a second has lead to the removal of thousands of MW from the grid. This could lead to a blackout. (This should be less of a problem in areas starting their wind farms now.)

Thanks to E.ON Netz for translating the report into English. California built a large number of early windmills, expensive for California but a source of good information for the world. Germany’s rapid upgrade in wind power will be similarly helpful.

E.ON Netz focuses on grid problems, as that is their challenge. Other problems, such as bird kills, have been dealt with by changing designs – large bird kills in the Altamont Pass in California were caused by a few of the early windmills. Bat kills are still a puzzle, but solutions are expected.

Wind power has another problem I haven’t seen addressed in policy decisions: by taking kinetic energy and water out of the atmosphere, wind power can cause regional climate change, so may be unattractive in some areas. See David Keith’s short overview on Wind Power and Climate Change, or download the longer National Academy of Science study. Currently, this concern is in the “more work is needed” stage, which doesn’t mean that it isn’t serious.

* National Wind Technology Center gives different values.

Wind resource classes are defined by average wind power density normalized to a standard height of 33 feet (10 meters) above ground. Class 3 wind resources, with average annual wind speed of 12 miles per hour, are assumed to be marginal for utility-scale wind development and beyond the reach of current technology. Class 4 resources, with 13 miles per hour average wind speed, are considered good and are targeted by the DOE’s (US Department of Energy) Low Wind Speed Technology Project with a goal of having commercial wind technology capable of generating power at 3 cents per kWh by 2012. Class 4 resources are available in 36 of the 48 continental states. Class 5 resources have an annual average wind speed of 14 miles per hour and are considered excellent wind resources. Class 6 and higher wind resources, with an annual average wind speed of 15 miles per hour or greater, are considered outstanding.

Wind Power Today lists the following US goals:
• By 2007, reduce cost of electricity in Class 3 systems to 10 – 15 cent/kWh.
• By 2010, facilitate 100 MW of wind power in 30 states.
• By 2012, reduce cost in class 4 onshore systems to 3.6 cent/kWh.
• By 2014, reduce cost from class 6 systems in shallow water up to 100 feet) offshore to 5 cent/kWh, from 9.5 cent in 2005
• By 2016, reduce cost in class 6 systems to 5 cent/kWh for transitional (up to 200 ft depths) offshore systems.

** M = million, k = 1,000

Offshore wind power in Denmark.

WeSupportLee provides an excellent look at a variety of energy topics.

One of these, new coal plants, generates disproportionate yawns in the public . Yes, there are protests, but these protests are not proportionate to the harm done by coal. (Part of the reason I think so is because we in California build our coal plants to the east, so they pollute others. Hence, little local discussion. Here CA lists much of its coal power under Energy Imports: Pacific Southwest; here that figure is included, check out the coal use in your state.)

Fortunately, new California regulations and legislation are discouraging the addition of coal power. California Public Utility Commission requires a “Carbon Adder” for planning future power plants; utilities must assume that carbon cap and trade or carbon taxes are being applied and will be increased. Utilities assume a price of $8/ton C in 2005, and increase the assumed price 5%/year. Otherwise, utilities might be making business plans based on an unlikely scenario, that greenhouse gases will not be regulated, and that coal power will continue to be cheap. AB 32 requires California greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 to decrease to 1990 levels.

WeSupportLee looks at less positive decisions: coal plans for Kansas (2,100 MW, eek, approval likely) and for Texas (and includes links to other discussions on TX plans).

The recent Stern report says,

The effects of our actions now on future changes in the climate have long lead times.What we do now can have only a limited effect on the climate over the next 40 or 50 years. On the other hand what we do in the next 10 or 20 years can have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century and in the next.

Countries with huge coal supplies will insist on using them. However we must require no new coal plants without carbon capture and storage technologies. Basically, instead of using air, a coal power plant uses a different (and much less polluting) design, and oxygen instead of air, producing only 1/5 as much waste gas. The waste gas is then injected into permanent storage, in a coal mine or oil well.

The less polluting part is important: coal particulates alone kill 30,000 Americans each year from heart and respiratory disease. Pennsylvania has the largest number of coal deaths per year (2,250), and Kentucky (1,000) the largest per capita coal deaths. See the effect of coal power on your state in the appendix. It is not good of us to ignore this kind of pollution: excepting second hand smoke, fossil fuel particulates kill more Americans each year than all other pollutants combined.

There is an additional benefit of increasing the price of electricity, a lot. This encourages much more rapid increases in energy efficiency, doing the same with less energy.

The current path is immoral, and not economically prudent, and decisions being made in Texas and Kansas to increase coal use will have enormous negative implications for the rest of the United States and the rest of the world.

Object. Let your legislators know that you would like to see greenhouse gas cap and trade policies enacted immediately. These should be significant enough to make current designs for coal power plant unfeasible. Additionally, pilot tests must be done to give more information and to minimize problems. The current Department of Energy policies lack a sense of urgency.

Object. Currently few Americans list the environment as an important reason for our vote, and our legislators are acting accordingly.

More from David Bodansky’s Nuclear Energy (second edition), again, read it yourself for more details. Recommended readings include Richard Garwin and Georges Charpak’s Megawatts and Megatons, and Robert Mozley’s The Politics and Technology of Nuclear Proliferation.

Eisenhower began the Atoms for Peace program in 1953. The first successful international agreement led to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1957. The IAEA reports to the United Nations but is not part of the UN. All countries with nuclear activities, excepting North Korea, which withdrew in 1994, are among the 136 members.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was next, going into force in 1970. Its motivating purposes were to

• Prevent the wider dissemination of nuclear weapons,
• Make peaceful applications of nuclear technology widely available.
• Achieve cessation of the nuclear arms race and move toward nuclear disarmament.
• Seek to achieve discontinuance of test explosions of test explosions of nuclear weapons.

There has always been an asymmetry between nuclear-weapon states (NWS, those with nuclear weapons before 1967: China, France, the USSR, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and non-nuclear-weapon states. A NWS is obligated not to aid weapons development in a non-NWS. Each non-NWS is committed to not receive or build nuclear weapons, and to accept safeguards against the diversion of nuclear activities from peaceful to weapons purposes. A conference was to be held in 1995, to determine whether to continue the treaty indefinitely, or to extend it for additional purposes.

Inducements for the non-NWS include the commitment by NWS to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”. The parties also agree to share fully the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The most important holdouts are India, Israel, and Pakistan. North Korea withdrew in 2003.

The NPT was extended indefinitely in 1995, though many of the non-NWSs felt that nuclear disarmament should be more rapid, and Arab states objected to Israel’s absence. Among 20 principles and objectives adopted were these:

• A call for a comprehensive test ban treaty by 1996 and a universal ban on production of fissile materials for weapons. NWSs were called to make “systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally” with an eventual goal of eliminating them.
• A call to encourage “the development of nuclear-weapon-free zones, especially in regions of tension, such as in the Middle East”.
• An affirmation that the peaceful use of nuclear energy is an “inalienable right of all parties to the treaty”.

An every 5-year review to monitor progress in 2000 showed continuing tensions between NWSs and non-NWSs, but also pointed a finger at countries which had not adhered to the treaty: Cuba, India, Israel, and Pakistan for not signing, and India and Pakistan for weapons test. The NWSs agreed to an “unequivocal undertaking” toward “total elimination of their nuclear arsenals”, but without a deadline or timetable.

Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

The CTBT, adopted by the UN in 1996, commits the parties to not carry out nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosion. By the end of 2003, it was signed by all the NWSs and 170 out of 193 states, and ratified by 108. It will only go into effect if all 44 states with nuclear power or research reactors (Annex 2 states) sign and ratify the treaty. India, North Korea, and Pakistan have not signed. Another nine of these 44 states have not ratified it, including the US.

While it would be more effective if it had been ratified by all Annex 2 states, it may serve to inhibit some countries, including the US. The CTBT led to a large network of seismic observation points; these detected the 1998 nuclear weapons tests in India and Pakistan.

The NPT and CTBT do not command the universal adherence that a fully effective nonproliferation regime should have. Nonetheless, they are taken seriously.

One problem can be lack of a strong response due to sympathy for the country arming, such as India threatened by China and Pakistan or Pakistan threatened by India or Israel threatened by the Arab world. Some countries are unwilling to condemn, or may even help, allies: the USSR provided political and technical help to India, and the US has tolerated Pakistani and Israeli nuclear weapons programs.

There have been NPT failures with signatories as well: Iraq in 1991, though it had a full safeguards agreement with the IAEA. However, NPT provided the legal basis after the first Iraq war for weapons inspections.

Forms of Proliferation

Proliferation includes increases in the number of nuclear weapons, or the means of making them, whether the country already has weapons or not.

These range from obtaining technical advice to obtaining weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. The barrier against proliferation is substantially lowered if a country possesses facilities for enriching uranium or reprocessing spent fuel to extract plutonium, and the development of such facilities is taken as a danger signal, however much the country involved professes a peaceful intent.

Proliferation includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Increases in the number of effectiveness of weapons in a state with nuclear weapons.
• Public transfer of weapons to another state, though the example transfer of weapons from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan reduced proliferation dangers.
• A state with advanced nuclear capabilities openly working on obtaining a nuclear weapons program, perhaps Japan reacting to North Korea.
• Utilizing equipment for ostensibly peaceful purposes to facilitate weapons development (India, Israel, and North Korea)
• Transferring weapons material from states with weapons to states without, with the aid of a government or dissident officials, or by theft. The former Soviet Union and Pakistan have been thought to be particularly vulnerable as sources for such transfers.
• Transfer of technology, including designs and specialized equipment, by states, private companies, or individuals. Pakistan shared designs and equipment for centrifuges with Iran, Libya, and North Korea. China may have forwarded instructions on bomb construction through Pakistan.
• Purchase of theft of a weapon or fissile material by subnational groups or individual terrorists.

The original nuclear weapons concern was use of nuclear weapons by one of the original NWSs. Now concern has shifted to the spread of nuclear weapons to other states and terrorists. Moreover, numerous reports of small-scale nuclear materials thefts may indicate other, undiscovered thefts.

It is unlikely that any attempt to classify and rank the specific threats can be fully satisfactory. Detailed information on nuclear technology is now held by many countries, commercial enterprises, and individual scientists, and the industrial capability to manufacture specialized components is widespread. The prospect remains that additional countries or subnational groups may seek to obtain weapons. Given the variety of avenues for obtaining fissile uranium or plutonium, the many sources of technical knowledge and equipment, and the potentially large array of aspirants, nuclear weapons proliferation may appear in unexpected places and forms.

How many nuclear weapons exist? As of 2002 the US had 10,600 warheads, down from 31,700 in 1966. Russia had 8,600, down from 40,700 in 1986. China had 400, down from 435 in 1991. France had 350, down from 540 in 1991. The UK had 200, down from 350 in 1975. Among non-signatories of the NPT, in 1999, India was thought to have 30 weapons, Israel 100, Pakistan 40, and North Korea 1 – 2.

Each of the NWSs achieved nuclear power after nuclear weapons. The United States produced nuclear power in 1957 (weapon 1945), the former USSR in 1958 (weapon 1949), the UK in 1956 (weapon 1952), France in 1964 (weapon in 1960), and China in 1992 (weapon in 1964).

The next post will look in some detail at the history of weapons programs in other countries.

Also in this series
Part 1 Nuclear Bombs, Nuclear Energy, and Terrorism
Part 2 Today’s Bombs, Making a Bomb
Part 3 Making Bombs from Nuclear Waste
Part 4 Terrorist Targets
Part 6 The Bomb Spreads
Part 7 Nuclear Power and the Weapons Threat
Part 8 Wrapup on Nuclear Power Series

Proposition 1A, another constitutional amendment, would require that sales tax on gasoline and other fuels go to transportation needs. Proposition 1B is another bond issue—“improvements in every corner of the state without raising taxes.” Italics in the ballot measure summary. Typical bond measure in California, projects are chosen partly for geography and we are told that we can get bonds today without taxes tomorrow. This one advocates spending $39 million over 30 years, $19 billion interest on a principal of $20 billion.

According to the Official Voter Information Guide, the state 18 cent/gallon tax on gasoline and diesel generates $3.4 billion annually, and sales tax on fuels brings in another $2 billion per year. There are also weight fees on commercial vehicles. Since 1990, $5 billion in general obligation bonds have helped fund transportation.

There is another path. Not only could drivers fund all transportation costs without resorting to state bonds, but higher fuel taxes could displace inevitable increases in general taxes. Some believe all sales tax should go the general fund – what makes sales tax on fuels so special that it should be spent in just one way?

Am I wrong? Do you have another take?

More from David Bodansky’s Nuclear Energy (second edition), again, check out this readable book for more information.

There are any number of targets and tools terrorists, people targeting civilians, might consider. A partial list:

• places where people assemble, such as theaters, sports stadia, and cruise ships.
• choke points in transportation routes, such as bridges and tunnels.
• symbolic targets, such as the Statue of Liberty.
• national energy carriers: electric transmission lines, gas pipelines, and oil tankers [and refineries].
• food and water supplies: introducing poisons into food and water supplies on a large scale or in a seemingly random local manner.
• weapons of mass destruction: introducing biological, chemical, or nuclear materials into the environment quietly or using violent explosions. [This includes direct attacks on chemical plants.] The casualties might range from tens to tens of thousands, and conceivably much more.

Given the options, it is not clear how high a place nuclear terrorism occupies in planning by terrorist groups.

The following will consider threats involving nuclear weapons and materials, not because these are the most likely or most dangerous terrorist targets, but because they are important, and because there is widespread interest.

In the US, the threats will be of three kinds:

• nuclear bombs,
• radiological dispersion devices or dirty bombs, radioactive material spread into the environment by a conventional bomb, and
• attacks on nuclear power plants, either the reactors or the spent fuel.

A bomb could be stolen or built abroad, and delivered intact or in pieces, or could be constructed where it will be used. Drug smuggling gives an indication as to how easy getting uranium or plutonium (neither of which is very radioactive) into the country. According to a report issued jointly by the Project on Managing the Atom (Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government) and by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a 10-kt bomb would

create a circle of near-total destruction perhaps 2 miles in diameter. Even a [one thousand ton] “fizzle”from a badly executed terrorist bomb would have a diameter of destruction nearly half as big. If parked at the site of the World Trade Center, such a truck-bomb would level every building in the Wall Street financial area and destroy much of lower Manhattan.

Terrorists could steal or receive as a gift a government-built bomb. There is not much worry about bombs in the US, Britain, China, France, and Israel because these weapons are well protected, and except for the US, inventories are small. The level of threat is “medium” for Pakistan and India, with their unstable political situation, and for Russia, with its large inventory and poor inventory controls. See Making the Nation Safer for more on this subject.

A moderately large and technically capable group that can’t get a bomb could make one if they could obtain enough fissionable material by theft or gift.

The Center for International Security and Cooperation compiles information on illicit traffic in nuclear materials. There are worries that undetected thefts have occurred, because so many incidents are known about: 3 kg of weapons grade uranium offered for sale in St. Petersburg in 1994, 2 kg disappearing in the Republic of Georgia, a fuel rod containing 0.19 kg enriched to 19.9% which the Italian mafia intended for an undisclosed buyer in the Middle East. The detected traffic in material from the former Soviet Union began westward into Europe, then switched to southward (Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan) during 1999 – 2000.

To reduce the availability of nuclear weapons material:

• Ensure that weapons and weapons-grade material are protected in all countries with them, particularly the countries with the most, the US and Russia.
• Secure stocks of plutonium removed from dismantled weapons (intended for Yucca Mountain in the US and commercial reactors in Russia).
• dilute stocks of highly enriched uranium by diluting with natural or depleted uranium, and then using in nuclear power plants. [See WeSupportLee for more on this.]
• Improve security or remove plutonium and enriched uranium from vulnerable facilities.

Bomb delivery

For the immediate future, it seems unlikely that any terrorist group will have the missile capabilities to deliver a bomb to the United States. Further, if the missile were sent from a land base, its point of origin would likely become known, giving the potential host country a powerful incentive to prevent the activity.

[On the other hand, Castro was said not to worry about this problem during the Cuban missile crisis.]

Smuggling the bomb in should not be too hard, because bombs emit little radiation that would trigger a detection device. Methods to detect devices include the following:
• direct detection of radiation, primarily gamma rays or neutrons,
• radiography, passing the container or vehicle through a machine which makes elements with high atomic numbers (uranium or plutonium) stand out,
• induced fission, irradiating the bomb with neutrons and examining what is emitted, and
• muon radiography, now considered speculative, monitoring the path of cosmic rays through the vehicle to detect dense atoms, even in the presence of lead shielding. [See Los Alamos thinking on this possibility.]

The first method is simplest, but is probably not adequate, especially for the more likely uranium bombs. This is because the half-life of U-235 is 704 million years, so there isn’t much radioactivity to detect. Plutonium has a much shorter half-life, and would be easier to detect.

Radiological Dispersion Devices (RDD), or “Dirty Bombs”

Dirty bombs could be built easily by anyone with access to radioactive materials. Radionuclides from industry or medicine, such as radioactive cesium, cobalt, or strontium, could be dispersed by a conventional explosive.

What kind of government reaction is appropriate? How will the public respond to actions by the government? From Making the Nation Safer:

[T]he likely aim of an RDD attack would be to spread fear and panic and cause disruption. Recovery would therefore depend on how such an attack is handled by first responders, political leaders, the media, and general members of the public.

In general, public fear of radiation and radioactive materials appears to be disproportionate to the actual hazards. Although hazardous at high doses, ionizing radiation is a weak carcinogen, and its effects on biological systems are better known than those of most, if not all, toxic chemicals. Federal standards that limit human exposure to environmental ionizing radiation, which are based on the linear, nonthreshold dose-response relationship, are conservative and protective, and the government continues to fund R&D to improve scientific understanding of radiation effects on biological materials.

Attacks on Nuclear Power Plants

Nuclear power plants were designed to withstand the impact of a small plane [I’m sure that design requirements will change for new plants]. Even so, it is a difficult target for a 9/11-type attack because of the low height and small target. Alternatively, armed intruders could attempt to disable the normal and emergency cooling systems (presumably, the plant can be shut down at first sign of attack with no option for restarting), but the chance of success is poor.

Another target is the spent fuel in the cooling pool, but it is thought to be easy to restore cooling, and difficult to create an explosion that would cause a wide dispersal of the uranium pellets. If the fuel is densely packed, the fuel could melt and release Cs-137. The policy suggestion is to transfer 5-year old waste to dry storage. According to Making the Nation Safer,

these are very robust and would probably stand up to aircraft attacks as well.

Of course, nuclear power plants are not unique as targets. Again, from Making the Nation Safer,

The potential vulnerabilities of [nuclear power plants] to terrorist attack seem to have captured the imagination of the public and the media, perhaps because of a perception that a successful attack could harm large populations and have severe economic and environmental consequences. There are, however, many other types of large industrial facilities that are potentially vulnerable to attack, for example, petroleum refineries, chemical plants, and oil and liquefied natural gas supertankers. Their facilities do not have the robust construction and security features characteristic of [nuclear power plants], and many are located near highly populated urban areas. The committee has not performed a detailed examination of the vulnerabilities of these other types of industrial facilities and does not know how they compare to the vulnerabilities of [nuclear power plants]. It is not clear whether the vulnerabilities of [nuclear power plants] constitute a higher risk to society than the vulnerabilities of other industrial facilities.

Indeed, the attention paid to nuclear power plants may make other industrial targets and football stadia more attractive targets.

Also in this series
Part 1 Nuclear Bombs, Nuclear Energy, and Terrorism
Part 2 Today’s Bombs, Making a Bomb
Part 3 Making Bombs from Nuclear Waste
Part 5 Nuclear Proliferation—International Treaties
Part 6 The Bomb Spreads
Part 7 Nuclear Power and the Weapons Threat
Part 8 Wrapup on Nuclear Power Series

Visalia, CA, near Sequoia National Park, is the urban center (pop. 100,000) of Tulare County, a rural, agricultural region with a population of nearly 400,000 people. Transportation is a major issue in this region. People typically drive long distances on a daily basis at high speeds on 2-lane farm roads. The Visalia Friends Meeting (Quaker) is on property donated by the generous (and very friendly) Lovetts, Bill and Beth. Adjacent to the Lovett farm is an experimental community with a decidedly “green” attitude. One home is made with thick straw bales, another with adobe, and another with rammed Earth walls which make air conditioning unnecessary – or less necessary – in the hot summers. (Since nights are relatively cool in the dry Central Valley, windows and attic vents opened in the evening help overcome daytime summer temperatures that frequently rise into triple digits.

The retreat met from Saturday morning through Sunday noon. We started with a PowerPoint presentation and discussion covering the basic facts of Global Warming. In the afternoon we divided into small groups and looked at the questions “What is Mine to Do?” as related to educating oneself and others, changing our personal behavior, and laboring with politicians and environmental groups, to move climate change higher on their lists. (Even environmental groups often ignore Global Warming in favor of issues more popular with their donor base.)

The retreat was long enough that attitudes had a chance to shift. One person made statements early on suggesting that the real work had to be in the policy arena and anything we as individuals could do, which might help us feel good, wouldn’t accomplish much. By the end of the retreat, he was recalling how the personal practice of early Friends refusing to doff their hats to royalty actually helped lay the foundation for more egalitarian attitudes in society. In the end there was a general feeling that witnessing to deeply held beliefs on the individual level can have significant effects on the society as a whole.

Others tapped into emotional obstacles to shifting behavior. Does living a consciously different lifestyle make one feel like a freak? Does it give us a sense of joy in the midst of crisis? Exploring feelings like these is a necessary part of changing consciousness. Almost no one, in this rural area, talked about giving up the car, but people did consider the witness, and concrete conservation implications of driving the speed limit, or even slower, and bicycling short distances. Many saw that exploring their feelings towards change, and teaching others what they learned, is an important part of the solution.

The members of the Visalia Friends Meeting sensed that it was important to make a once-per-month commitment to meet and discuss aspects of climate change. Several short books were mentioned as possible discussion starters, such as Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe and Brower and Leon’s The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. (There was a request for a useful guide to making choices after someone in the group complained about the set of suggestions being distributed that included everything including the kitchen sink, with no sense as to which changes are most important. There are many such lists available, not all useful.)

There was also interest in looking at their own behavior, and at least one small group talked of committing to a 10% personal reduction. The starting point for this kind of commitment is a questionnaire to assess greenhouse gas emission implications of current travel and household practices. This questionnaire was circulated beforehand, but few responded before the retreat. With the heightened consciousness of the retreat there was renewed interest in this exercise.

For me, the discussions were rewarding. Most participants searched for changes they could make personally and actions they could take that might make a real impact, rather than focusing on pie-in-the-sky technological fixes. Two teenagers met with me to give feedback on how young people might respond the PowerPoint presentation and what changes would make it more accessible to young people (Many thanks!).

During the weekend I visited old friends and made new ones. This retreat brought together a committed group of people around a topic they had previously considered interesting, if somewhat distant, and resulted in an elevated sense of urgency for this issue. The results were far different from what would have been possible after a one or two hour talk. In the retreat setting they had the time, and took the time, to make climate change part of their own work. I hope that Friends in Visalia Monthly Meeting keep us informed about what they are working on, their successes and difficulties.

Uranium

Bombs use weapons grade uranium enriched to 90% or more U-235. Lower enrichments are possible, but the bomb is technically more difficult.

Terrorists or nations could obtain uranium bombs by steal one. Alternatively, they can stealing enriched uranium, or enrich uranium to weapons grade from natural or lightly enriched uranium, and make their own bomb. Enriching uranium to weapons grade is complicated enough that it requires government leadership or sanction, so Iran could do it, Al Qaeda can’t.

It is much easier to dispose of weapons grade uranium than plutonium (Pu will be addressed in future post). It only requires diluting the weapons material with natural or depleted uranium (the U-238 left over from the enrichment process), the Megatons to Megawatts program.

Uranium bombs are not made from commercial reactor waste.

Plutonium

Plutonium-239 is the isotope used for weapons. Pu-240, with a half-life of 6,564 years, is a contaminant. It usually decays by alpha decay (emitting two neutrons and two protons), but can also spontaneously fission (break into two much smaller nuclei, emitting neutrons at the same time). These neutrons can start a chain reaction (predetonate) before the plutonium is fully compressed. Predetonation causes a fizzle, a smaller explosion than the bomb was designed for.

Pu-239 is made when U-238 captures a neutron to become U-239. This decays without any neutron release to become Pu-239. If the fuel is left in the reactor, some of the Pu-239 captures a neutron to become Pu-240. Taking the fuel out before long exposure minimizes the amount of Pu-240 formed.

Supergrade plutonium is 98% Pu-239, or more; the rest is Pu-240. Regular weapons grade is 94% Pu-239, 6% Pu-240, and 0.4% other. Reactor grade plutonium is 60%Pu-239, 24% Pu-240, 9% Pu-241, 5% Pu-242, and 1% Pu-238. Weapons grade produces a little over 3 times as many neutrons by spontaneous fission as does supergrade; reactor grade emits 18 times as many. While no military uses reactor grade plutonium, sophisticated bomb designers could make some sort of weapon.

Predetonation is guaranteed in a weapons using reactor grade plutonium; there is a 70% chance that the yield will be less than 10% of what the bomb was designed for. Even weapons grade plutonium has only a 50% chance of a yield more than 40% of design. Supergrade plutonium with only 1% Pu-240 has an 80% chance of exploding at full design yield.

An authoritative National Academy of Sciences report says,

[E]ven with relatively simple designs such as that used in the Nagasaki weapon—which are within the capabilities of many nations and possibly some subnational groups—nuclear explosives could be constructed that would be assured of having yields of at least 1 or 2 kilotons. Using more sophisticated designs, reactor-grade plutonium could be used for weapons having considerably higher minimum yields.

Bodansky says that it is clear that

reactor grade plutonium can be used to make an explosive device that would release a substantial amount of energy. This would be enough to create an explosion that would do great damage due to the blast itself, the heat and radiation produced in the chain reaction, and the radionuclides dispersed in its aftermath.

A national government is more likely to make a reactor particularly to irradiate the uranium for a shorter time. This is simpler, and the bomb is more likely to meet the needs of a government. A terrorist organization might take whatever is available, and worry less about uncertainties in yield.

Once reactor grade plutonium is obtained, there are several obstacles to making a bomb:

• The reactor fuel must be reprocessed to separate out the plutonium.
• The plutonium must be carefully machined, shaped, and assembled. A mistake could kill the workmen.
• The explosives must be arranged for a rapid, symmetric explosion and warm reactor grade plutonium must not overheat the explosives.

One argument against reprocessing reactor fuel is that reprocessing removes the self-protecting element of reactor fuel: fission products which are so radioactive that no one can steal it. Remote handling equipment and reprocessing could work for a national government; again, creating weapons grade plutonium would be simpler.

Some oppose reprocessing of commercial reactor fuel both because nations could make a bomb somewhat faster from reprocessed reactor fuel then from scratch and because theft is now possible. These considerations, along with the relatively high price of reprocessing, led President Carter in 1977 to forego reprocessing. This was not out of fear that the US could develop the bomb, but to discourage reprocessing elsewhere. The good example has not been completely successful. When Carter acted, France, India, Japan, and the UK reprocessed nuclear fuel. Each of these countries has expanded its reprocessing capability since then, and Russia and China have begun reprocessing.

It appears improbable that processing will be abandoned in these countries… [I]t is uncertain for how long Japan will be content to be protected by a U.S. nuclear umbrella…Although a plutonium stockpile would speed the pace of a program to develop weapons, even with no prior stockpile Japan has the personnel and facilities to develop nuclear weapons quite quickly, should it choose to do so.

While it is unlikely that the famed high school student could make a plutonium weapon, a well-organized terrorist group could acquire expertise and equipment.

It might be argued that even for such a group, it would be irrational to proceed with a plutonium bomb when there are simpler alternatives for major destruction and terror. However, it is not prudent to rely on the rationality of terrorist groups.

So good security is a must.

Also in this series
Part 1 Nuclear Bombs, Nuclear Energy, and Terrorism
Part 2 Today’s Bombs, Making a Bomb
Part 4 Terrorist Targets
Part 5 Nuclear Proliferation—International Treaties
Part 6 The Bomb Spreads
Part 7 Nuclear Power and the Weapons Threat
Part 8 Wrapup on Nuclear Power Series

Detour

Bombs are bigger today.

One kiloton was originally defined as the explosive equivalent of 1000 tons of TNT. This definition was found to be imprecise and so the term was redefined to be the release of 10^12 calories of explosive energy. The largest weapon ever tested was a 50 megaton (Mt) (1 megaton = 1000 kilotons) weapon that the Soviets exploded 3.5 kilometers above Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961. For comparison, the total tonnage of bombs dropped during World War II was approximately two Mt, and during the Vietnam War it was approximately 6.3 Mt.

Both the US and Russia have bombs in the Mt range, Pakistan and India have bombs in the 15 – 20 kT range.

Although nuclear weapons are radioactive and this will eventually cause cancers later, the important issue is the size of the bombs that one plane can carry. For example, the bombing of Dresden involved les than 3 kt of bombs, and many, many planes.

Nuclear Winter

A few decades back, nuclear winter was considered to be a possible result of a superpower nuclear war. So much dust is kicked into the air, it’s like being hit by a major meteorite (such as occurred 65 million years ago, killing the dinosaurs and a whole bunch of other species). The original assumption was thousands of Mt in nuclear weapons leading to a dramatic decrease in the Earth’s temperature. However, the people involved in the original calculations were not bomb experts, they also assumed a flat Earth, and generally, it is now believed that a nuclear war of this magnitude would produce some cooling of the Earth during the day due to all the dust, a warming during the night because the heat can’t escape, for a short period of time. It is no longer thought to be a major consequence of an all out nuclear war.

Terrorists and the bomb

Back to Bodansky:

Currently nuclear war between the major nuclear powers (the US and Russia) and the intermittently threats of an India-Pakistan both appear remote.

The most imminent threat for the United States, and perhaps for the world as a whole, appears to be from the possible use of single weapons by terrorist groups.

A 1-kt bomb could kill half of people from thermal burns within 610 meters (0.4 miles). Additionally, people as far away as 790 meters (0.5 miles) could receive an absorbed dose of 4 grays (Gy). Of 23 Chernobyl victims receiving doses between 4 and 6 Gy, 7 died. A ground level explosion could create heavy local fallout: up to 4 Gy for a distance of 5.5 km (3.4 miles) downwind.

Because much of the dose is due to very short-lived radionuclides, the rate falls very rapidly with time–by approximately a factor 10 when the time increases by a factor of 7. Thus, at 7 h, the dose rate is 10% of the 1-h level, at 49 h, it is 1% of the 1-h level.

Preferences on bomb designs are shifting.

It is considerably easier to make a bomb using enriched uranium than to make one using with plutonium, and uranium may be becoming the material of choice for countries or groups that want to build a bomb with minimal effort and chance of detection.

This is because the spontaneous fission rates for Pu is larger, so a more complicated means is needed to combine the subcritical masses to make a supercritical mass. More on this in the next post.

Also in this series
Part 1 Nuclear Bombs, Nuclear Energy, and Terrorism
Part 3 Making Bombs from Nuclear Waste
Part 4 Terrorist Targets
Part 5 Nuclear Proliferation—International Treaties
Part 6 The Bomb Spreads
Part 7 Nuclear Power and the Weapons Threat
Part 8 Wrapup on Nuclear Power Series

RealClimate, a site run by climatologists, has expanded its search function to include IPCC, goverment labs, research institutes etc.

RealClimate provides (sometimes technical) analyses of climate change topics, and often has a good discussion, including questions and answers, in the comments.

Many observes believe that the most profound problem with using nuclear energy for electricity generation is the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. In this view, the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation increases if the world relies on nuclear power, because nuclear power capabilities could be translated into nuclear weapons capabilities. The relative merits of renewable energy and nuclear fission energy (omitting fusion as still speculative) as eventual substitutes for fossil fuels are highly controversial, with unresolved arguments over relative economic costs, environmental impacts, practicality, and safety. However, the weapons connection is unique to nuclear fission energy and constitutes, for some people, a reason to limit or abandon it.

Giving up nuclear power would obviously avert the danger that nuclear power facilities might be diverted to weapons purposes. However, it would not avert all dangers of weapons development. It is quite possible to have nuclear weapons without nuclear power as well as nuclear power without nuclear weapons. In fact, most countries that have nuclear weapons had those weapons well before they had civilian nuclear power. Other countries that have made substantial use of nuclear power, such as Sweden and Canada, are rarely perceived to be potential nuclear weapons threats.

Nonetheless, a program in one area can aid a program in the other.

From David Bodansky’s Nuclear Energy (second edition), the beginning of two chapters examining these links. I will be summarizing these chapters over a number of posts, and providing some background. Obviously, you would get more detail reading the book!

Both nuclear power and nuclear weapons use U-235. Power reactors use lightly enriched uranium (LEU), natural uranium (0.7% U-235) enriched to 2 – 5% levels. Weapons grade has been enriched to 90%+ U-235. U-235 is the active ingredient in both not because it is more radioactive than the much more common isotope, U-238, but because U-235 plus a neutron does interesting stuff: it becomes U-236 which fissions, releasing lots of heat (the reason nuclear or fossil fuel or geothermal power is used) and lots of neutrons to continue the process. U-238 plus a neutron becomes U-239, which decays into Pu-239; this gives off very little heat and releases no neutrons.

Atomic bombs (using U-235 or Pu-239) depend on an explosion pushing together two sub-critical masses (not sufficient to provide chain reaction) to make a super-critical mass. With a super-critical mass, enough neutrons are generated fast enough to irradiate all of the U-235 atoms in a small fraction of a section.

The Hiroshima bomb used U-235. It killed perhaps 100,000 people immediately or within a few weeks, and had an energy yield equivalent to 15 thousand tons (kt) of TNT. The 21 kt Nagasaki bomb, using Pu-239, killed somewhat fewer people. Additionally, from 1950 – 1990, there have been 421 excess cancer deaths(above that expected). No genetic effects have been observed. [I heard several years ago that with improvements in bio-assays, a study was intended for Nagasaki victims to find otherwise undetectable genetic effects. I also heard that residents of Nagasaki were not lining up to participate. I don’t know whether the study was done and whether the results were positive or negative.]

Atom bomb victims receive treatment under a Red Cross flag on the outskirts of Nagasaki following the attack.

Also in this series
Part 2 Today’s Bombs, Making a Bomb
Part 3 Making Bombs from Nuclear Waste
Part 4 Terrorist Targets
Part 5 Nuclear Proliferation—International Treaties
Part 6 The Bomb Spreads
Part 7 Nuclear Power and the Weapons Threat
Part 8 Wrapup on Nuclear Power Series

I asked a pro-nuclear blogger, WeSupportLee, to address nuclear proliferation issues.

She looks at a program that converts Russian military weapons material to commercial power reactor fuels (Americans think that it’s just cheaper to throw away the weapons materials, but another solution needed to be found for what Russians consider a resource). Also discussed are shifting research reactor fuel away from highly enriched uranium and proliferation-resistant fuel for nuclear power.

However, TVA commercial power reactors are involved in maintenance of US nuclear weapons—creating tritium (hydrogen with 2 neutrons) to replace the tritium that decays at a rate of 5.5%/year. This blurs the line between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and many pro-nuclear power, anti-nuclear weapons people want TVA to discontinue this project.

Check out WeSupportLee for her take on other topics, mostly climate change, North Carolina events, and the Prius. I appreciate her work: reliable, methodical, and no wasted time defending dumb comments: “Climate change isn’t happening and nuclear power is the best way to address climate change.”

I will begin addressing proliferation issues by summarizing two chapters in David Bodansky’s Nuclear Energy (second edition) over several posts. Bodansky (professor at University of Washington) has written an excellent and readable book on nuclear power. I also want to describe my trip to the Friends Meeting in Visalia, CA, to participate in their climate change retreat. Good work Visalia!

Let me know if you have particular proliferation issues you would like to see addressed. I am not an expert, but will try to find answers.

Today’s Washington Post has an article on pollinators, in rapid decline in many areas of the world.

Birds, bees, bats and other species that pollinate North American plant life are losing population, according to a study released yesterday by the National Research Council. This “demonstrably downward” trend could damage dozens of commercially important crops, scientists warned, since three-quarters of all flowering plants depend on pollinators for fertilization.

Important to both farmers and ecosystems:

“Canadian black bears need blueberries, and the blueberries need bees” for pollination, [Peter] Kevan [professor at the University of Guelph, Ontario] said. “Without the bees you don’t have blueberries, and without the blueberries you don’t have black bears.”

The article suggested some reasons for the plummeting levels of pollinators:

A number of factors have cut pollinators’ numbers in recent decades, the researchers said. Introduced parasites such as the varroa mite have hurt the honeybee population, and pesticides have also taken a toll. Bats, which carry pollen to a variety of crops, have declined as vandalism and development have destroyed some of their key cave roosts.

There are other problems I’ve seen in various articles: one prediction of global warming models is that the climate will change to fewer seasons/days we call normal (normal is changing) and more we call extreme. Many insects cannot adapt to the increase in extremes now occurring, whether from global warming or other causes.

The NRC report looks at aspects of climate change impacts:

Declines in many pollinator groups are associated with habitat loss, fragmentation, and deterioration … Changes in phenological synchrony and in distributions of pollinators and plants result from global climate change could lead to a decline in interactions between flowers and pollinators. Disruption of migratory routes is evident in hummingbirds, nectar-feeding bats, and some butterflies.

The report also looks at the effect on honeybees from pesticides used on crops and from mosquito control. Other causes include monoculture and other agricultural methods such as “loss of field margins” and replacing crop rotations involving legumes with fertilizer.

The deterioration in the ozone layer is a humongous problem — after all, life could not come onto land until there was sufficient stratospheric ozone to protect plants and animals from UV. But the solutions are relatively simple. The problems leading to pollinator decline are harder to find solutions to. See the NRC report for some suggestions.

Visiting Doonesbury, I saw the Slate Green Challenge: beginning October 23, we are invited to reduce our carbon emissions 20% over an 8 week period, from our current level. This includes the Thanksgiving holiday, so some of us will need to use mass transit to get to our holiday feast.

The numbers Slate uses are not correct, but the concept is — let us know if you take the Challenge, your successes and difficulties, and whether the feelings tend to joy or resentment. If you don’t want to take the Challenge, why? Share what you learn about yourself and the process with the rest of us.

We have as much to learn from your feelings as your tips on how to reduce emissions fast.

My answer: my big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions need to be made during summer travel, so the timing is wrong.

A large set of interesting comments on Reducing Our Own Emissions 10%, including Wendy’s on the big changes in attitudes and behaviors in her Quaker Meeting.