-David
Avoiding
Atomic Armageddon:
Why
we should not rejoin the nuclear bazaar
by
Dr. David Lowry
“We
nuclear people have made a Faustian bargain with society. On the one hand, we
offer -- in the catalytic nuclear burner (breeder reactor) -- an inexhaustable
source of energy. Even in the short range, when we use ordinary reactors, we
offer energy that is cheaper than energy from fossil fuel. Moreover, this
source of energy, when properly handled, is almost nonpolluting. . . .
But the
price that we demand of society for this magical energy source is both a
vigilance and a longevity of our social institutions that we are quite
unaccustomed to. In a way, all of this was anticipated during the old debates
over nuclear weapons. . . . . In a sense, we have established a military
priesthood which guards against inadvertent use of nuclear weapons, which
maintains what a priori seems to be a precarious balance between readiness to
go to war and vigilance against human errors that would precipitate war . . .
It seems
to me (and in this I repeat some views expressed very well by Atomic Energy
Commissioner Wilfred Johnson) that peaceful nuclear energy probably will make
demands of the same sort on our society, and possibly of even longer duration.”
[Weinberg, Alvin; "Social Institutions and Nuclear Energy", Science,
7 July 1972, p33]
The venerable
veteran Labour politician, Tony Benn, who once was responsible for the British
nuclear power programme when he was Technology Minister in the late 1960s, when
asked by The Times if he had made any political mistakes in
his life, responded:
“Yes, nuclear
power: I was told it was, when I was in charge of it, that atomic energy was
cheap, safe and peaceful. It isn’t.” (Times
Magazine, 11 September 2010)
A serious
problem for today’s politics is both Conservative ministers, and their Labour
opponents , have not learned from Tony Benn’s conversion on the road to energy
sustainability, and do support new nuclear, here and abroad..
How was it
that thinking politicians like Tony Benn could have originally got nuclear
power so wrong in the 1960s and 1970s?
Retro Radioactive
In post-war
Britain, after the United States had started the Nuclear WMD Cold War by
detonating two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in August 1945, many nuclear scientists wanted to put their
intellectual expertise in atomic science to the public good,
so horrified were they over the nuclear attacks on Japan.
The British
Atomic Scientists Association (BASA) – founded in 1946 – set about trying to
bring good news, in contrast to nuclear weapons deployment, about atomic discoveries
and developments to the public, even sponsoring a mobile exhibition called
“The Atomic Train” which moved from city to city, town to town, seen by hundreds
of thousands of enthusiastic members of the British
public. BASA also published a regular edition of Atomic Scientists
News, which became Atomic Scientists Journal, with a widespread
readership among teachers, journalists and professionals, including MPs
[members of Parliament].
It was
absorbed into New Scientist in 1956, the same year the plutonium production
reactors at Calder Hall on the Sellafield site – then called Windscale,
operated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) – were opened by the
young Queen Elizabeth, on 17 October that year, 54 years ago. Her Majesty
told the assembled crowd of dignitaries, including representatives of almost 40
nations:
“This new
power, which has proved itself to be such a terrifying weapon of destruction,
is harnessed for the first time for the common good of our community….”
She went on to
add
“It may well
prove to have been among the greatest of our contributions to human welfare
that we led the way in demonstrating the peaceful uses of this new source of
power.”
But false
words had been put into the mouth of Her Majesty. Calder Hall was not
built or designed to be put to civilian – or peaceful – uses. Here is
what the UKAEA official historian Kenneth Jay wrote about Calder Hall, in his
short book of the same name, published to coincide with the opening of
the plant. [He referred to] “[m]ajor plants built for military
purposes, such as Calder Hall.” (p.88) Earlier, he wrote: “… The
plant has been designed as a dual-purpose plant, to produce plutonium for
military purposes as well as electric power.” (p.80)
Twenty nine
years ago, , the CND Sizewell Working Group, supported by technical work by Scientists Against Nuclear Arms, SGR’s
predecessor organization, in evidence to the Sizewell B Public Inquiry,
demonstrated in detail how plutonium created in the first generation of Magnox
reactors, scaled-up versions of Calder Hall, also produced plutonium put to
military uses … in the United States. (see Nature, Vol.407, 19 October
2000)
Just over a
year after Britain first tested its own atomic bomb, on 3 October 1952, U.S.
President Eisenhower delivered to the U.N. General Assembly in New York what
has turned out to be one of the most misguided speeches ever made by a world
leader. This was the notorious “Atoms for Peace” speech, on 8 December
1953. It was crafted at the height of the Cold War, and purported to be an
“atomic swords into nuclear energy ploughshares.”
The President
opened saying:
“Never before
in history has so much hope for so many people been gathered together in a
single organization. Your deliberations and decisions during these sombre years
have already realized part of those hopes. But the great test and the great
accomplishments still lie ahead ….”
He went on to
assert:
“The atomic
age has moved forward at such a pace that every citizen of the world should
have some comprehension, at least in comparative terms, of the extent of this
development of the utmost significance to every one of us. Clearly, if the
people of the world are to conduct an intelligent search for peace, they must
be armed with the significant facts of today’s existence. ... [M]y country’s
purpose is to help us move out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light,
to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men
every where, can move forward toward peace and happiness and well being.”
And
[Eisenhower] unveiled to a rapt audience [his plan that]:
“The United
States would seek more than the mere reduction or elimination of atomic
materials for military purposes. It is not enough to take this weapon out of
the hands of the soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know
how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.”
He proposed
creation of a fissionable (explosive) nuclear materials storage bank and an
international atomic energy agency:
“The more
important responsibility of this Atomic Energy Agency would be to devise
methods where by this fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful
pursuits of mankind. Experts would be mobilized to apply atomic energy to the
needs of agriculture, medicine, and other peaceful activities. A special
purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved
areas of the world. Thus the contributing powers would be dedicating some of
their strength to serve the needs rather than the fears of mankind.”
And he closed
with these high-fluting words:
“To the making
of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you – and therefore
before the world--its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma –
to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous
inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to
his life.”
Eisenhower’s
PR team went into overdrive after the speech, being instantly distributed in 10
languages, with key excerpts being included in 350 US-based foreign
language newspapers. TV and radio stations, newspapers and
magazines, were deluged with articles explaining the case for spreading nuclear
technology worldwide. The US Government used the official US Information Agency
and the Voice of America radio station (the American equivalent to our own BBC
World Service) to propagandise the speech.
Four years later
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was created as a United Nations
Agency in Vienna, the centre of Cold War intrigue, to bang the drum for nuclear
power across the globe.
Britain’s early unintended export of nuclear proliferation
In the same
year the IAEA was founded, the UK made one of its first forays into
international nuclear trade, with Iraq, and [with] the opening Baghdad Pact
Nuclear Centre on 31 March 1957. It was part of the UK’s own Atoms for Peace efforts.
According to a
Parliamentary reply by Michel Heseltine in December 1992, “Iraq
ceased to participate in the activities of the training centre when it was
transferred to Tehran following the revolution in Iraq in 1959.”
In light of
subsequent geo-political history in the region, that was out of the atomic
frying pan, into the nuclear fire!
Around this
time Britain also sold a single Magnox nuclear plant each to Japan and to Italy
respectively.
It is also
arguable that the British Magnox nuclear plant design – which after all was
primarily built as a military plutonium production factory – provided the
blueprint for the North Korean military plutonium production programme too!
Here is what a
Conservative minister, Douglas Hogg – later infamous for his moat – told former
Labour MP, Llew Smith, in a written parliamentary reply on 25 May 1994:
“We do not
know whether North Korea has drawn on plans of British reactors in the
production of its own reactors. North Korea possesses a graphite moderated
reactor which, while much smaller, has generic similarities to the reactors
operated by British Nuclear Fuels plc. However, design information of these
British reactors is not classified and has appeared in technical journals.”
North Korea’s other method of producing its enriched uranium nuclear
explosives, via its uranium enrichment plant, also originated from the UK. The
blueprints were stolen by Pakistani scientist, Dr A.Q.Khan, from the
URENCO enrichment plant (one third owned by the UK) in Holland in
the early 1970s. Pakistan subsequently sold the technology to Iran, who later
exchanged for North Korean Nodong missiles.
A technical delegation from the A Q Khan Research Labs visited Pyongyang
in the summer of 1996. The secret enrichment plant was said to be based
in caves near Kumch’ang-ni, 100 miles north of Pyonyang, some thirty miles
north west of the plutonium production reactor at Yongbon. Defectors have
located the plant at Yongjo-ri, Taechon, Mount Chonma or Ha’gap 20 miles
northeast of Yongbon-kun, where US satellite photos showed tunnel
entrances being built
Hwang Jang-yop, a
former aid to President Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current North
Korean President, who became the highest ranking North Korean official to
defect when he fled in 1997, revealed details to Western intelligence
investigators. ( source p.281 of “Deception: Pakistan, The
United States, and the Global Weapons Conspiracy, Atlantic Books, 2007, by
Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark).
So the UK’s
proud nuclear export record involves provision of support to both Iraq and
Iran, and indirectly to North Korea.
Blowback: NPT as a vehicle for proliferation
At the end of
the 1967, the text of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was
finalised between the U.S., Soviet Union and the UK, and presented to the
United Nations General Assembly next year (1968) for endorsement, with the IAEA
playing an enforcement role.
CND and the
wider nuclear disarmament movement has spent much of its campaigning time since
trying to get countries to sign-up to the NPT; and signatory states to adhere
to its articles.
But the Grand
Bargain embodied by the NPT – the non-nuclear
weapon states(NNWSs) should renounce possession of, or desire to possess,
nuclear WMDs in exchange for civilian nuclear assistance – has now become
a problem in itself. Countries such as the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Japan and
Russia are now promoting nuclear technology sales worldwide.
31. The
Conference reaffirms that nothing in the 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. … The Conference recognizes that this right constitutes one of
the fundamental objectives of the Treaty. In this connection, the
Conference confirms that each country’s choices and decisions in the field of
peaceful uses of nuclear energy should be respected without jeopardizing its
policies or international cooperation agreements and arrangements for peaceful
uses of nuclear energy and its fuel cycle policies.
Several more
paragraphs underscore the agreement to massively expand nuclear trade,
including scientific and technological cooperation, and sales of nuclear
equipment and nuclear materials.
39. The
Conference affirms the importance of public information in connection with
peaceful nuclear activities in States parties to help build acceptance of peaceful
uses of nuclear energy.
Experience of
such activities by national and international bodies suggest this will be pure
propaganda.
Pandora’s Box prized open
The Coalition
Government newly unveiled policy on promoting nuclear exports will open
a Pandora’s Box of problems. Exporting
the very technology used to make nuclear bombs and nuclear material - such as plutonium - as nuclear fuel, will put nuclear weapons
capability and nuclear explosive materials into the hands of many countries –
and possibly non-state terror groups – in an increasingly insecure world.
Labour started
the decline down this dangerous rocky road in 2009. Chris Bryant, MP, then a
foreign office minister, when responding to a Parliamentary debate on prospects
for the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review (on 9 July 2009)
commented sagely:
“It is clearly
important that we secure fissile material. One of the greatest dangers to
security around the world is the possibility of rogue states or rogue
organisations gaining access to fissile material.”
Yet, only a
few days later the Labour Government published one of the most dangerous and
deluded documents issued in modern times by any democratic government – “The
Road to 2010” – interestingly released under the imprimatur of the Cabinet
Office, not the Foreign Office. (The “2010” referred to the NPT Review
conference held in May this year at the United Nations in New York.) Mr
Bryant asserted that it would: “lay out a credible road map to further
disarmament.”
In my
judgment, whatever its laudable aims on nuclear disarmament, it is in effect a
blueprint for nuclear proliferation and undermines Government aims to create a
more secure world.
The reason for
this is the deeply misguided policy to increase nuclear exports and spread
nuclear technology and material around the globe.
The “Road to
2010” was a remarkably naïve and disingenuous document, and seriously suffers
from not having been subject to critical review before publication.
It appears to
have been only share with blinkered nuclear industry “cheerleaders”, such as
the London-based international industry lobby group, the World Nuclear
Association, which in its reportage of the proliferation blueprint wrote
glowingly:
“The opening
paragraphs in Britain's Road to 2010 strategy set the scene: ‘Nuclear
power is a proven technology which generates low carbon electricity. It is
affordable, dependable, safe, and capable of increasing diversity of energy
supply. It is therefore an essential part of any global solution to the
related and serious challenges of climate change and energy security.... Nuclear
energy is therefore vital to the challenges of sustaining global growth, and
tackling poverty.’”
In March this
year, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – significantly, not
DECC - published a suite of documents promoting nuclear power development in
the UK and abroad, backed with £31 million of new taxpayers’ money. One of the
documents, Long-term Nuclear Energy
Strategy, said the following:
“The Government commits to further increasing its
presence and impact into associated international forums, in particular those
relating to nuclear R&D where government representation has waned over the
last decade.
At an EU level, the Government will work with
like-minded nations to provide a positive and informed political environment
for the civil use of nuclear power both domestically and globally. We will
develop and implement broader strategic relationships with nuclear interested
countries through a programme of coordinated and proactive engagement that can
help shape EU policy and that enables nuclear power to continue to have a role
in the energy mix and harnesses economic opportunities.”
It added:
“Working
with embassies, UKTI, industry, NSA Nuclear and academia, we will explore
options to better showcase the UK’s knowledge, expertise and facilities to the
international market.”
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While
BIS is providing £31 m to promote nuclear technology, including exports, figures released to Parliament on 3 June
this year revealed the Coalition was simultaneously cutting the budget for
nuclear non-proliferation from £27,197,000 to £23,672,000, between 2012-13 to 2013-14. It also plans to cut
the Capital Global Threat Reduction
Programme from £6,600,000 to £5,025,000 over the same period, indicating
Coalition priorities and dubious judgement.
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(Official Report, 3 June 2013 : Column 954W)
DECC
has also made clear it would like to convert our current “civil “ plutonium
stockpile of 110,000 kilogrammes of plutonium- a nuclear warhead can be made with just 5 kgs, the size of a grapefruit-
into MOX ( mixed plutonium- uranium oxide) fuel, and would like to export the substantial proportion of this across the coming decades. To make this MOX, upwards of
£1billion of taxpayers money will be needed for construction of a new manufacturing
plant at Sellafield
Taken together,
these nuclear promotional and export strategies one day will, I fear, result in
multiple radioactive mushroom clouds rising from centres of global cities, as
terrorists carry out their ultimate spectacular.
This may
happen after the architects of this truly mad policy are dead. Sadly, they are
condemning hundreds of thousands - possibly millions- innocent citizens join
them before their time.
The spectre of
an uncontrolled nuclear detonation should chill us all.
As President
Obama told Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward in the famed
Watergate reporter’s book, Obama’s Wars:
“When I go down the list of
things I have to worry about all the time, that [ a nuclear terrorist attack]
is at the top, because that's one where you can't afford any mistakes.”
He is right. And
it is a big mistake to resurrect global nuclear technology and material sales.
Ironically,
the two Cabinet ministers promoting our nuclear exports strategy with taxpayers’ money are both
Liberal Democrat, Energy & Climate
change Secretary Ed Davey and Business Secretary Dr Vince Cable, who, three years ago were elected on a Liberal
Democrat Manifesto that opposed all nuclear power projects.
Their U-turn
discredits political integrity and promotes global insecurity. Just who is
advising these ministers?
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