Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements

[kristopher]

"Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements"

Journal Article, International Security, volume 34, issue 1, pages 7-41
Author: Matthew Fuhrmann, Affiliate, Project on Managing the Atom

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: International Security; Managing the Atom; Quarterly Journal: International Security; Science, Technology, and Public Policy

SUMMARY

Peaceful nuclear cooperation-the transfer of nuclear technology, materials, or know-how from one state to another for peaceful purposes-leads to the spread of nuclear weapons.

In particular, countries that receive peaceful nuclear assistance are more likely to initiate weapons programs and successfully develop the bomb, especially when they are also faced with security threats.

Statistical analysis based on a new data set of more than 2,000 bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation agreements signed from 1950 to 2000 lends strong support for this argument.

Brief case studies of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons programs provide further evidence of the links between peaceful nuclear assistance and proliferation.

The finding that supplier countries inadvertently raise the risks of nuclear proliferation poses challenges to the conventional wisdom. Indeed, the relationship between civilian nuclear cooperation and proliferation is surprisingly broad.

Even assistance that is often viewed as innocuous, such as training nuclear scientists or providing research or power reactors, increases the likelihood that nuclear weapons will spread.

"Proliferation-proof" nuclear assistance does not exist. With a renaissance in nuclear power on the horizon, major suppliers, including the United States, should reconsider their willingness to assist other countries in developing peaceful nuclear programs.


http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/19317/spreading_temptation.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2F20322%2Fwhy_do_states_proliferate_quantitative_analysis_of_the_exploration_pursuit_and_acquisition_of_nuclear_weapons

[NNadir]

1. Really? Well we really can't refute that as the 2,334 nuclear wars since 1945 prove it.

Those really nasty nuclear wars between Mexico and Bulgaria were particularly egregrious, no?

[joshcryer]

4. According to Wikipedia there have been 2079 nuclear tests (eg, explosions of nuclear bombs).

[Terry in Austin]

2. "Peaceful nuclear"

That's gotta be a phrase that ranks right up there with "clean coal."

There are so many ways that nuclear power is a bad idea that it'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Proliferation, waste disposal and all the other really nasty stuff should be self-evident to anyone with a conscience, but amazingly somehow it isn't.

Closer to home, though, is how it doesn't even work economically, if nukes are proposed as a "replacement" for fossil fuels. To build that many reactors, even if there were the political will, the capital formation necessary would hog up an unprecedented percentage of world GDP, and leave none for anything else.

Fifteen thousand plants at $10 billion per. Figure the odds of that happening. Time better spent worrying about asteroid strikes!

Meanwhile, members of our busy little species will inevitably insist on building a few more of these overgrown lab curiosities, and inevitably make some real messes. Be nice to be able to mess them up instead. Again, figure the odds, but you gotta keep trying!

[Confusious]

3. Wow, now it's 15 thousand? A few days ago it was 10 thousand.

Not that that number was correct either.

I guess that's anti-nuclear inflation for ya!

[kristopher]

5. For once you are correct! Yeah!!!!

The number is probably closer to 8000 IMO but 10,000 was the number DOE Sec Chu used in a 2005 presentation where he pointed out we need to bring a new plant online every other day for 50 years if we look to fission as a solution to our energy problems. I'd guess he has his reasons but they weren't articulated in the presentation. Perhaps he was going with something like this:

...The RMI authors say (p. 10) actual load factors are much lower because “even reliably operating nuclear plants must shut down,” for roughly 8% of the time, “for refueling and maintenance, and unexpected failures” cause additional shutdowns for another “8% of the time.” Thus even the most reliable reactors have average load factors of 84%, but not all reactors are reliable.

Why not? Although 253 US reactors were ordered, only “132...52% of the 253 originally ordered,” were completed; reactors that were not completed (numbering 121) are typically excluded by industry from alleged load-factor averages. Industry data also exclude another 28 US reactors (21% of the US reactors that were built), because they were “permanently and prematurely closed due to reliability or cost problems.”

They likewise exclude “another 27% <36 of the US reactors actually built, because they> have completely failed for a year or more at least once.

Climate Change, Nuclear Economics, and Conflicts of Interest
Kristin Shrader-Frechette
Sci Eng Ethics
DOI 10.1007/s11948-009-9181-y

Perhaps he sees a need for redundancy.

[Terry in Austin]

7. Oh, dear, excuse me!

>> The number is probably closer to 8000

ONLY eight thousand!

:rofl:

*whew* oh, that's rich...

Right, like somebody's going to float a note for $80 trillion.

I just love it -- thanks for making my case, chief!

[kristopher]

8. WTF are you talking about?

[GliderGuider]

9. Between 6 and 7 million BIG wind turbines.

A new wind turbine somewhere in the world every two minutes, at about the same capital cost as nuclear power. Full replacement is impossible no matter which technology one uses.

[kristopher]

10. Here is the problem with that...

While nuclear is a plug-and-play replacement for fossil fuels, renewables aren't; so it IS appropriate to look at nuclear as a total replacement for fossil fuels, but since wind is only one of several renewable technologies that would contribute, it isn't appropriate to act as if it were the only one that would be deployed.

As to costs:

[GliderGuider]

11. Here are a few problems with that

1. If wind is one of a basket of technologies, that basket will be available no matter whether the lion's share of the lifting is done by nuclear, wind, geothermal or hamster wheels.

2. In fact the replacement of fossil fuels even by a basket of renewable technologies is a pipe dream. Wind is the lowest-cost renewable we have, and if that's to expensive on its own, any other mix of replacements will be too expensive as well.

3. It's as nonsensical to think of nuclear power entirely replacing fossil fuels as it is to think of wind doing the same thing. IOW, it's not appropriate to act as if nuclear were the only technology that would be deployed. The proposal to "replace X completely with Y" is a thought experiment that is used solely to get a handle on the scale of the underlying problem. It's not some kind of planning tool.

4. "Fossil fuels" includes oil. While it's conceivable to think of nuclear or renewables replacing coal in a straightforward substitution, both of them would have the same problems replacing oil.

[kristopher]

12. Nope.

All generating resources have a set of both operational and system characteristics. Nuclear and coal are both technologies that DRIVE DEMAND. By their nature and the nature of the grid they operate within they are pushed to overbuild by the need to meet peak demand. That overbuilding results in under-utilization of individual plants, which prompts the utilities to promote things that expand the use of energy in order to create a larger market.
That is they cycle that currently exists and it is the same that would result from nuclear power.

The numbers that Terry in Austin used above reflect another related issue. You can't measure the need for renewables by the primary energy consumption of the current system.

For example, the current global fleet of nuclear reactors account for 6% of global primary energy consumption but that is the amount of energy that is FED INTO the plants. Since centralized thermal generation sees most of that input energy being lost as heat, to replace the nuclear fleet with renewables we only need to replace about 1/3 of that 6% to duplicate the same amount of energy that makes it to the end user.

[txlibdem]

17. Fossil fuels includes oil.

Precisely the reason why we need to begin a multi-faceted approach to ridding ourselves of all fossil fuel use. One cannot think simplistically that just by building a few thousand wind turbines all the problems will be solved. Impossible.

We need to focus our combined attentions on the fossil fuels problem, attacking it from ALL angles:

• Increase efficiency of buildings, appliances, gadgets like TVs, etc. (Negawatts is the new buzzword)
  
• ... to include insulation, better windows, geothermal heating and cooling and an end to freon-based a/c units
  
• ... to include properly orienting buildings to take maximum benefit from solar heat and natural cooling
  
• ... to include sealing the building envelope and using the best ideas for solar heating and cooling
  
• Transition to LED lights and away from incandescent/sodium/mercury lighting in all areas: homes, streets, offices, etc.
  
• Transition to 100% electric vehicles for our personal use, businesses, transport of goods, etc.
  
• Doing all those while at the same time moving robustly forward with building more renewable energy power plants
  
• ... to include blanketing the desert southwest with concentrating solar thermal and solar PV generating plants
  
• ... to include geothermal energy generating plants where the geology is right for it and population is sparse
  
• ... to include blanketing the midwest with wind turbines from West Texas all the way to Canada
  
• ... to include offshore wind turbines wherever possible to maximize power generation
  
• ... wind turbines should be of the new Siemens or GE designs that have NO gears, use no oil: reduced maintenance and downtime!
  
• ... to include looking into solar based power generation, beamed down to Earth via microwaves
  
• ... to include tidal and wave energy generation wherever it makes sense to do so
  
• ... ... AND to include energy storage for all the renewable energy plants to stabilize their energy output and make it available 24/7
  
• ... and include a doubling of the number of nuclear power plants to 210 in America
  
• And we need to do something about our industries as well. Concentrating solar can take the place of natural gas in many industrial applications that rely on heat for their processes. Why not use the free heat from the sun instead of burning fossil fuels for your production or facilities or etc.
  
• Algae can make biofuels, why not locate an algae fuel plant alongside every remaining coal power plant so the algae can "eat" the CO2 and grow gasoline and diesel substitutes, helping to eliminate foreign oil and CO2
  

It isn't going to be easy. It isn't going to be cheap. But the cost of doing nothing, and facing the consequences later, are far higher in terms of money lost. Lost productivity due to weather will become a major factor in the next 20 years, then you must think of the loss of life and insurance company bankruptcies. It's in our current economic interest to get rid of fossil fuels permanently and start to do it NOW. And, yeah, there's the whole "it's the right thing to do" part as well...

[Confusious]

14. The title was all sarcasm, if you didn't notice. nt

[kristopher]

16. I see. Broke clock, blind squirrel and all that.... nt

[Terry in Austin]

6. Pay attention

You can do the arithmetic yourself:

Assume 1200 MW plants, divide that into the global 425 - 450 EJ energy requirement. The energy requirement is in a range, and the size of the plants is going to be within a range, as well. So the answer will also be in a range, but in any case more than sufficient to show the magnitude of the problem.

Surely you grasp the concept of "range."

The reality on the ground is that today we've got less than half a thousand nuclear plants, so we're talking order-of-magnitude differences.

Your objection is a little precious, isn't it, when the issue is going from a few hundred plants to 10,000-plus. I'd hate to think your debating chops were that thin.

Get serious. Give us a scenario where world energy needs are met with a given number of plants. Heck, the number can even be a range.

[Confusious]

13. Why does everyone need nuclear plants

And why does all the energy have to come from nuclear? I know of one person who seems to think that all we need is nuclear, but I don't agree.

I would like to see nuclear, but renewables also. I just don't think they can handle it alone. I don't think anything can handle it alone.

As far as the United States, which for right now is by far the biggest producer of CO2, switching to nuclear and renewables would go a long way towards stopping global warming.

and it won't be 10,000 it would be 1,000, or less.

[Terry in Austin]

15. Realistically, no, it doesn't need to be all nuclear

The "nukes only" position is an extreme one, although a few do take it.

The exercise is more to demonstrate that there is a HUGE amount of energy that we get from fossil fuels, and replacing that amount with low-carbon sources would be a gigantic project, not to mention impossibly expensive. It's an attempt to quantify just how gigantic that would be.

In reality, we can expect that we'll see a mix of renewables and (unfortunately) a certain amount of nuclear. However, the kicker is that all of them put together won't come anywhere near "replacing" the amount of energy we currently get from fossil fuels, so with the decline of petroleum (soon) and coal (soon enough), we'll be living in a world that must get by on a lot less energy.

FWIW, in case you couldn't tell, I'm not an advocate of nuclear power. :hippie: