Sense from Seattle

Common sense thoughts on life and current affairs by a Seattle area sexagenarian, drawing on personal experience, years of learning as a counselor to thousands of families and an innate passion for informed knowledge, to uniquely express sensible, thoughtful, honest and independent views.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Nukes


When I was in grade school in the 1950s, the air raid sirens sounded every Wednesday at noon and we got under our desks and covered our heads. Never mind what the newsreels showed of the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those sturdy Catholic school desks would save us from the Atomic Bomb.

The A-Bombs dropped on Japan had powers between 12,000 and 22,000 tons of TNT. Though that wallop was enough to make even the super-militaristic Japanese government unconditionally surrender, the prevailing powers in WWII embarked on a cold war arms race, with one result being the development of a Hydrogen Bomb with a force thousands of times more than that of the A-Bomb.

As any student of history or player of video war games can verify, war (even a cold one), accelerates weapons development, and all developed weapons eventually get used in war. The H-Bomb has not yet been used in War, though in 1961 the Russians tested the Tsar Bomb with the power of 50,000,000 tons of TNT, enough power to devastate 2,000 to 4,000 Hiroshimas and Nagasakis. The A and H bombs are now called “nuclear” [or “nukular” by George W. Bush], an acceptably inclusive scientific term, and a politically useful euphemism to describe our weaponry [the Bush Administration uses the even more inclusive, and sometimes phantasmal, “weapons of mass destruction” to describe the arsenal of its enemies].

To our credit, the human race had enough sense to start the United Nations after WWII, though the five victorious “super powers” insisted on undemocratic veto rights. We also eventually realized that nuclear weapon development and testing had crossed the line of absurdity and needed to be scaled back and eventually eliminated completely. First came a ban on testing in the atmosphere and then in 1970 the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT], under which the “super five” were to have a monopoly on nukes in return for agreeing to let the little guys in on the ways to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Under NPT Article VI the supers also agreed to pursue good faith efforts to eliminate all nuclear weapons, a provision totally ignored by the Bush Administration but recently called to its attention by the President of Iran.

The NPT has been agreed to by 187 nations, with three notable exceptions, each one of which has now joined the nuclear club: Israel (which has never admitted its 1967 acquisition, in spite of UN Resolution 487 requiring it to do so); India in 1974; and Pakistan in 1998 (leading to US sanctions, lifted after 9/11 in order to get cooperation for invading Afghanistan). Iran has strained NPT interpretation to justify its pursuit of nukes, while North Korea is simply defying the NPT and claiming to have withdrawn from it.

The Bush Administration deserves much of the blame for Iran and N. Korea vigorously pursuing nukes in self-defense, because Bush has proven his penchant for war, has declared a right to preemptive strike claimed to be justified even when the supposed basis for the strike proved to be false, and has provocatively labeled Iran and N. Korea as evil enemies of America.

Post-Bush, and hopefully starting with a Democratic Congress next year, the US should take the lead in bringing NPT Article VI back to life, by encouraging the major nuclear powers to join in stopping any further nuclear weapons development and beginning a systematic program of nuclear disarmament. Nobel Peace Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei has wisely advocated limiting to facilities under multinational control all production and processing of nuclear materials capable of being used in weapons. This could be in conjunction with a Fissionable Materials Cutoff Treaty as called for in a 1993 UN Resolution.

The nations of the Earth need to close the nuclear Pandora’s box before more horrors emerge. Cap production and processing, disarm stockpiles, bring India, Pakistan and Israel into the NPT, rein in Iran and N. Korea, and seriously consider whether large scale uses of nuclear power for energy production are worth the environmental risks.

To get a graphic image of the extent of the US nuclear arsenal, check out this video from True Majority, featuring Ben of Ben and Jerry’s.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tom,
As always a very thoughtful and well reasoned article. I have one quibble. You mention the environmental risks of nuclear power. All power sources have negative environmental impacts from the ugly landscapes of windmill farms to acid rain to smog prevalent in large cities especially in the West to oil spills from tankers to ruptures in the Alaskan pipe line. Nuclear power plants are cleaner than all of the above until a disaster occurs and then many people die and more are maimed. And we have the problem of waste disposal. Despite these huge problems, I believe the only hope for a long range sustainable supply of energy is nuclear. So we had better pull our heads out of the sand and reduce these two problems to acceptable levels. If the US doesn't invest in this technology, we will be buying it from France or other countries in the future.
John from Phoenix

8:15 PM  
Blogger Tom Blake said...

The risks of nuclear power should be measured on two scales: the likelihood and the magnitude. With extraordinary safety measures (not a given, considering Chernobyl and Three Mile Island), the likelihood of disaster may be statistically quite small. But the magnitude of a nuclear disaster is overwhelming, as is the duration of the consequences. I believe all nuclear endeavors should be required to meet stringent multinational regulations.

Nuclear energy is not the only hope. Safer sustainable technologies (e.g wind, solar, tidal, magnetic) can continue to be developed, and people can learn to adapt to new technologies and ways of living. For one example, take the US penchant for traffic jammed commuting. Currently available hybrid cars have been simply modified with larger batteries that can be plugged into household power overnight, and they get 100 mpg. Parking garages with solar roof panels can generate power to be used to charge such cars while the drivers are at work. A national program to retrofit or newly build such commuter cars and parking garages in the US, with worker training and job placement, with tax incentives to spur investment and consumer purchase, and with preferential commuting treatment given to such vehicles, is worth serious consideration.

10:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree that all the alternative energy sources you speak of should continue to be funded and explored. They all have potential places in the energy marketplace. But today the workhorse is petroleum with coal not far behind. In the 70's responsible people were predicting we would run out of petroleum reserves by the end of the millenium. That hasn't happened, but it will. The technologies you describe probably cannot take over the workhorse roll, and coal is not the best choice to take over from petroleum. But nuclear could easily take that role and already has in countries such as France.

The US should invest heavily in nuclear energy for the same reason that it should invest heavily in stem cell research. Other countries will, and they will leave the US as a second class nation scientifically and economically.

John from Phoenix

8:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tom,
Everything you mention about energy sources are small potatos. I like potatos and welcome research into these areas. But there are three main sources of energy: petroleum, coal, and nuclear (nucular). Petroleum and coal will easily last past our lifetimes. Remember the 70's? Predictions were then made that petroleum reserves would run out by the end of the millenium. It didn't happen, but it will, much much sooner than coal. Coal and nuclear will not supplant all aspects of petroleum. Petroleum is used to make many products, among them plastics. As petroleum reserves dry up, petroleum may be more valuable for products than for fuel. Coal as a fuel has many limitations. Among them is the huge need for water, a scarce commodity where the best coal reserves are. Nuclear power is clean and seemingly unending. It does have that negative image for killing and maiming large numbers of peolple when the production factories run amok. But life on this planet will become more hazardous as we continue to pollute it so I think the tradeoff of the risk of nuclear power vs traditional power sources is evening out.
John from Phoenix

9:15 PM  
Blogger Tom Blake said...

I know I am probably over phobic about nuclear power, but the potential catastrophe is so awful. I think a mix of alternatives to oil could do a lot to ease petroleum dependence, but it does seem that we are already on the down slide with oil.

Here is a thoughtful 1998 article listing possible replacements for oil and then concluding none are capable of replacing that diminishing commodity.

Here is US Department of Energy page on energy sources [not very impressive].

Wikipedia on energy.

Here is the US Senate Democrats’ Energy Independence 2020 plan [a mix of concrete and visionary suggestions, better than nothing].

Tom

9:26 PM  

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