The civilian-military nuclear nexus: the nuclear energy industry finally gives up the pretense of "no connection"
Promoters of the “peaceful” use of the atom
have always insisted that there is no link between nuclear energy programs and
nuclear weapons programs. They usually frame their argument around the issue of
nuclear proliferation, trying to make the public believe that the only problem
to worry about is whether more countries and bad actors will get nuclear
weapons. They assert that the proliferation of nuclear power plants cannot lead
to and has never led to any nation acquiring nuclear weapons. This statement by
the World Nuclear Association (WNA) is typical:
Civil nuclear power has not
been the cause of or route to nuclear weapons in any country that has nuclear
weapons, and no uranium traded for electricity production has ever been
diverted for military use. All nuclear weapons programs have either preceded or
risen independently of civil nuclear power.[i]
Framing the problem this way conveniently steps
around several other problems related to the production of plutonium and other
by-products of splitting uranium atoms. Most fundamentally, it ignores the
problem of what is to be done with this highly toxic material that needs to be
isolated from the ecosystem for thousands of years. It is an environmental
problem as much as it is a nuclear weapons proliferation problem. In spite of
claims that plutonium waste can easily be buried in suitable sites, this
solution has proven illusory.
As can be seen by the selection of quotes
below, the WNA’s statement above has been proven problematic even by agencies
that promote nuclear energy. The US Department of Energy, and even a former
head of the IAEA, Hans Blix, have described the potential risks:
On the basis of advice
provided to it by its Member States and by the Standing Advisory Group on
Safeguards Implementation (SAGSI), the Agency considers high burn-up
reactor-grade plutonium and in general plutonium of any isotopic composition
with the exception of plutonium containing more than 80 percent Pu-238 to be
capable of use in a nuclear explosive device. There is no debate on the matter
in the Agency's Department of Safeguards.[ii]
US Department of Energy in 1997:
Virtually any combination of
plutonium isotopes—the different forms of an element having different numbers
of neutrons in their nuclei—can be used to make a nuclear weapon. ... The only
isotopic mix of plutonium which cannot realistically be used for nuclear
weapons is nearly pure plutonium-238, which generates so much heat that the
weapon would not be stable.[iii]
Jim Green, a nuclear industry critic, covered
this issue comprehensively in the article cited below. He explained that the
issue is not only proliferation. He pointed out how a civilian nuclear complex
supports the military nuclear complex in various ways. He stated:
The premise [that there is no
civilian-military connection] is false—RGPu [reactor grade plutonium] can be
used in weapons. Moreover, the links between nuclear power (and civil nuclear
programs more generally) and weapons proliferation go well beyond the use of
RGPu in weapons. Ostensibly civil nuclear materials and facilities can be used
in support of weapons programs in many ways: (1)Production of plutonium in
power or research reactors followed by separation of plutonium from irradiated
material in reprocessing facilities (or smaller facilities, sometimes called
hot cells), (2)production of radionuclides other than plutonium for use in
weapons, e.g. tritium, which is used to initiate or boost nuclear weapons, (3)diversion
of fresh highly enriched uranium (HEU) research reactor fuel or extraction of
HEU from spent fuel, (4)nuclear weapons-related research and (5) [nuclear
energy programs enable] development of expertise for parallel or later use in a
weapons program.[iv]
India explodes its first
atomic bomb using weapons-grade plutonium produced in the Canadian-supplied
CIRUS reactor. The explosion takes place at the Pokhran site in the Rajasthan
desert near the border with Pakistan. Canada suspends nuclear cooperation with
India pending nuclear safeguards negotiations. India protests that it has not
broken any agreements, because its nuclear explosive device is a ‘peaceful
nuclear explosive’ and not a military weapon.[v]
Now, in 2018, the nuclear industry seems to be
changing its tune and finally giving up the pretense that there are no
civilian-military connections. Several
years have passed since the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe put the nuclear
industry in defensive mode, so they no longer have to try so hard to persuade
the public. The issue is out of the public eye. More importantly, the nuclear
energy industry is in desperate straits financially. It needs enormous inputs
of public funds because it cannot compete with the cost of other sources of
energy. The truth will out, the saying
goes, and this week no one was too ashamed to admit the reality:
A broad coalition of 75
industry, government, and military dignitaries—a quarter of whom are retired
admirals or vice admirals—has come out in support of President Trump’s plan to
bail out the nation’s struggling nuclear plants, agreeing that more premature
closures pose a national security threat.[vi]
The vaguely worded “national security threat”
is of course a euphemistic way of saying the nuclear arsenal will be useless if
it isn’t replenished with tritium and fissile material from the civilian
sector. It will be too difficult to maintain the technical know-how, and too
costly to maintain the infrastructure if electricity isn’t
sold as a by-product of the nuclear complex. It has been obvious to many for a
very long time, but Professor Andrew Stirling put it succinctly in 2017 when
speaking of the government’s readiness to pay the enormous costs of the Hinkley
Point power plant in the UK:
… there was a crucial,
largely unspoken, reason for the government’s rediscovered passion for nuclear:
without a civil nuclear industry, a nation cannot sustain military nuclear
capabilities.[vii]
Update:
See Jim Green’s coverage of this topic, written two months after the post
above:
Notes
[iii]
US Department of Energy, 1997, Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation,
January, “Final Nonproliferation and Arms Control Assessment of Weapons-Usable
Fissile Material Storage and Excess Plutonium Disposition Alternatives,”
Washington, DC: DOE, DOE/NN-0007, pp.37-39.
[iv]
Jim Green, “Can
‘reactor grade’ plutonium be used in nuclear weapons?” Wise International,
June 6, 2014,
[v]
Gordon Edwards, “Canada's Role in the Atomic Bomb
Programs of the United States, Britain, France and India,” Canadian
Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR),
[vi]
Tom Henry, “Government,
military officials in favor of Trump's nuclear bailout plan,” Toledo Blade, July 1, 2018.
[vii]
Andrew Stirling, professor of science and technology policy at Sussex
University, quoted in Holly Wott, “Hinkley
Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant,” The Guardian, December 21, 2017.
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