Stage 3: Nuclear Power and Weapons Proliferation

This is the third in our three part series about talking with open-minded skeptics about nuclear power. In Stage 1, we talked about nuclear power safety. We found that spent nuclear fuel becomes just another poison in less than 600 years. After that the fuel must be swallowed to do any harm. We renounced the Two Lies with which the nuclear establishment has strangled nuclear power, acknowledging that releases are inevitable but arguing that even a Chernobyl-like release is roughly equivalent to a bad airplane crash in terms of public Lost Life Expectancy due to radiation harm. Based on past experience, most releases will produce no detectable public harm.

In Stage 2, we were forced to admit that nuclear power in the West is prohibitively expensive and slow. But we found it was not always this way. In the late 1960's nuclear power was as cheap as coal, when coal was as cheap as it ever was in real terms. Even today nuclear is cheaper than coal in China, and probably cheaper than coal in Korea. We learned that the Japanese built close to 60 nuclear plant in the 1970 to 2009 period. The median build time was less than 4 years. The median build time was less than 4 years. The takeaway was that nuclear need not be expensive nor slow. It is the way we regulate nuclear power that makes it so. Our skeptics and we were left to ponder what to do about this.

The last bastion of the anti-nuke is the proliferation argument. It is unlikely that your open-minded skeptics will go this route. Nuclear weapons proliferation is not the reason the public is not embracing nuclear electricity. The proliferation argument simply does not resonate. Reasonable people realize that horse left the barn a long time ago. Any country that wants a bomb can have it, even a country as backward as North Korea. The only practical way to stop them is with force, as the Israelis did to Iraq. But I have never heard an anti-proliferation activist advocate this route.

The well off elitists who think nuclear power should be hobbled to make weapons proliferation more difficult know the anti-proliferation argument does not sell. So they focus on radiation hazards or the dangers of used nuclear fuel in arguing against nuclear power. We've dealt with those issues.

But if it does come up, admit the obvious: a civilian nuclear power program can reduce the time between when a country decides she wants a bomb and when she has a bomb.

1) Although the key technologies in making a successful bomb have nothing to do with a civilian nuclear program, a civilian program can be used to conceal a weapons program, or at least provide a cover story.

2) An enrichment program is obviously dual-use.

3) In theory, a civilian power reactor could be used to provide weapons grade plutonium; but this is such a difficult and expensive route, that with almost no exceptions the current weapons states have elected to use special purpose reactors to do this.

The 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) recognized the problem; but, unlike current anti-proliferation activists, the NPT took a constructive attitude. The deal was simple: in return for full access to the wonders of nuclear power, you will forego making a bomb and allow our inspectors full access to all your nuclear facilities. Unfortunately, the weapons states, led by the USA, have violated the letter and spirit of this treaty over and over, and in process they have gutted the treaty and made it much more difficult for nuclear power to solve the Gordian Knot. Maybe we should take a look at the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

191 countries have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty . (The exceptions are India, Israel, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea withdrew.) Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty gives the signatories the ``inalienable right" to nuclear power for peaceful uses. When the treaty was being negotiated in the late 1960's, the non-weapons states wanted to make sure they did not get screwed twice:

1) giving up the bomb,

2) being on the outside in the peaceful use of nuclear electricity, which everybody figured was going to take over the world.

So they insisted on strong language that allowed them complete access to nuclear power for peaceful use. This includes fuel enrichment and recycling. This was subject only to Article II (peaceful use), enforced by allowing full inspections (Article III). Here's the full text of Article IV.

1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.[Emphasis mine.]

For a diplomatic document, the English is remarkably clear. Here's William Foster, then head of the US delegation, testifying before the Senate in 1968 during ratification.

It may be useful to point out several activities which the United States would not consider per se to be violations of the prohibitions in Article II. Neither uranium enrichment nor the stockpiling of fissionable material in connections with a peaceful program would violate Article II so long as these activities were safeguarded under Article III. Also clearly permitted would be the development under safeguards of plutonium fueled reactors, including research on the properties of metallic plutonium, nor would Article II interfere with the development or use of fast breeder reactors under safeguards.

Under the NPT, a signatory nation has the right to do whatever she wants to in an indigenous program, provided it is for peaceful use, which is enforced by allowing complete inspection. Under the treaty, Iran is entitled to have whatever enrichment facilities she wanted. She violated the treaty by not allowing full inspection, and coupling enrichment with a weapons program.

The weapons states have continually violated the wording calling for the ``fullest possible exchange" of technology, especially with developing countries. In fact, in violation of this wording, they formed the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which attempts to maintain the cartel by deciding who can and who cannot get fuel and other goodies.

Signatories to the NPT can sign away their inalienable rights and, under duress, some have. The USA is the biggest violator of the ``fullest possible exchange" clause. Despite the NPT, if a country wants to have any real access to US nuclear power technology, it must sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with the USA. These are called 123 Agreements, after the section in Atomic Energy Act that authorizes such agreements. Under a 123 Agreement, the US agrees to provide nuclear technology and fuel with all kinds of strings attached. One of those strings is that the country agrees to forego enrichment or recycling of the fuel. Some agreements require the non-US party to forego any enrichment or recycling.

When the US was the leading provider of nuclear plants and fuel, signing such an agreement may have made some sense. But those days are long gone. The US is not only not a leading provider; it isn't even a competitive provider. There is no point in signing 123 agreements.

One of the cool things about nuclear is uranium and thorium (which can be transmuted into fissile uranium) is rather widely distributed around the planet. But no country should be dependent on a tiny handful of possibly adversarial enrichers for the fuel for her electricity, the life blood of her economy. In 1977, the Carter administration threatened to stop fuel shipments to any nation that undertook reprocessing. Hard to imagine a more flagrant violation of the NPT. Nor a more counter productive one. Overnight, countries that thought they had a treaty, which said they could rely on the US to be their nuclear fuel supplier, knew this was not the case. They now had a strong incentive to become self-sufficient.

Any country who is a signatory to the NPT should invoke her inalienable rights. Buy or build enrichment facilities. Recycle fuel if she wants. Just forego a nuclear weapons program and let the IAEA inspect whatever they want. This is not only her inalienable right, but the NPT shows that the USA and all the other signatories recognize that it is her inalienable right.