Nuclear weapons are a bigger threat to humanity than global warming

[bananas]

"First and foremost ... nuclear weapons"

http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

James Lovelock predicts we can live with global warming:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7061020.ece

“What would you bet will happen this century?” a mathematician asked him. Lovelock predicted a temperature rise in the middle range of current projections — about 1C-2C — which we could live with.

The failure rate of deterrence: about 1% per year - "almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes":

http://www.nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php

Soaring, Cryptography and Nuclear Weapons
Martin Hellman
Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering
Stanford University
October 21, 2008

Hellman is a co-inventor of public key cryptography, the technology that secures communication of credit card and other sensitive information over the Internet. He has worked for over twenty-five years to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons and his current project is described at NuclearRisk.org. He is a glider pilot with over 2,600 hours in the air.

Section 1: 99.9% Safe Maneuvers

Let's face it, nuclear weapons are the elephant in the room that no one likes to talk about. So let's approach the issue from the less threatening perspective of the awesome picture below.

<snip>

On an annual basis, that makes relying on nuclear weapons a 99% safe maneuver. As with 99.9% safe maneuvers in soaring, that is not as safe as it sounds and is no cause for complacency. If we continue to rely on a strategy with a one percent failure rate per year, that adds up to about 10% in a decade and almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes. Because the estimate was only accurate to an order of magnitude, the actual risk could be as much as three times greater or smaller. But even ⅓% per year adds up to roughly a 25% fatality rate for a child born today, and 3% per year would, with high probability, consign that child to an early, nuclear death.

Given the catastrophic consequences of a failure of nuclear deterrence, the usual standards for industrial safety would require the time horizon for a failure to be well over a million years before the risk might be acceptable. Even a 100,000 year time horizon would entail as much risk as a skydiving jump every year, but with the whole world in the parachute harness. And a 100 year time horizon is equivalent to making three parachute jumps a day, every day, with the whole world at risk.

While my preliminary analysis and the above described intuitive approach provide significant evidence that business as usual entails far too much risk, in-depth risk analyses are needed to correct or confirm those indications. A statement endorsed by the following notable individuals:

* Prof. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford University, 1972 Nobel Laureate in Economics
* Mr. D. James Bidzos, Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO, VeriSign Inc.
* Dr. Richard Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus, former member President's Science Advisory Committee and Defense Science Board
* Adm. Bobby R. Inman, USN (Ret.), University of Texas at Austin, former Director National Security Agency and Deputy Director CIA
* Prof. William Kays, former Dean of Engineering, Stanford University
* Prof. Donald Kennedy, President Emeritus of Stanford University, former head of FDA
* Prof. Martin Perl, Stanford University, 1995 Nobel Laureate in Physics

therefore "urgently petitions the international scientific community to undertake in-depth risk analyses of nuclear deterrence and, if the results so indicate, to raise an alarm alerting society to the unacceptable risk it faces as well as initiating a second phase effort to identify potential solutions."

<snip>

[provis99]

1. either one sucks.

the difference is: nuclear war might never happen; global warming is happening, and is unavoidable, and that "minor" rise in temperature is going to fill the oceans with blue-green algae, likely wiping out most of the species on the planet.

[joshcryer]

4. Exactly, global warming is happening, and mitigation is not.

COP15 was a disaster of epic proportions, and emissions are not going to be reduced any time soon.

[joshcryer]

2. Treaty between Russia and USA moved the clock back a minute.

They actually believe COP15 led to positive climate change mitigation.

[joshcryer]

3. More downplaying of AGW on these forums.

[Birthmark]

5. Let's put it this way

I am in no way worried about a major nuclear war at this point.

I am very worried about AGW.

[bananas]

6. Play Russian roulette - the gun might never go off

Play long enough, and the gun will go off.
Global warming is happening, but the worst case is avoidable.
You have become complacent about nuclear war, like the person playing Russian roulette.
The gun hasn't gone off yet, therefore it's perfectly safe to keep playing.

Even a small nuclear war between Pakistan and India would result in a devastating nuclear winter.

It's not "either-or", one or the other, the fact is that nuclear energy isn't needed at all to stop global warming.
It's a false choice, the nuclear industry has glommed onto global warming as its saviour, but nuclear energy isn't needed at all to stop global warming, and by most analyses would make things worse because the time and money can be used more effectively.

Stephen Pacala, co-author of the "Climate Wedges" study:

http://www.theclimategroup.org/our-news/interviews/2004/10/15/stephen-pacala/

I personally think nuclear is a non-starter. In the article we were not trying to choose sides, only to point out the mitigation technologies that are already in place. However, I cannot imagine that in this era of concerns about terrorism that we are going to start the production of fissionable material all over the world. It is disingenuous when the Bush administration says that the way to solve this problem is through coal and nuclear. Clean coal through carbon capture is fine if it can be made to work. But if you actually injected all of the CO2 produced in the United States (1.5 billion tonnes) the entire country would jack up in the air by 1mm/year. You don't have to be a scientist to know that is not sustainable. If you try to solve even one wedge of this problem with nuclear, it would require a doubling in the amount of nuclear power deployed. Solving the problem entirely with nuclear means increasing deployment by a factor of 10, and if you calculate how many of these plants would have to be in countries like Sudan and Afghanistan, you are just not going to do it.

[joshcryer]

7. The worst case is only avoidable if we act now and throw everything we got at mitigation.

[Birthmark]

11. I agree

The news keeps getting worse and worse with little sign that anything substantive will be done.

By contrast, the most likely nuclear war scenario at this point is probably Pakistan-India, which would be a disaster make no mistake. But it pails in comparison to what AGW looks set to do to humanity.

[joshcryer]

8. AGW is like full clip Russian roulette. 5/6 chance of catastrophe.

Nuclear war is like Russian roulette with the bullet not in the gun but in a lock box with everyone in the room holding a key. To put the bullet in the gun everyone has to sign paperwork, everyone has to look over one anothers shoulders, everyone has to have a security official determine credentials.

[Nihil]

12. Oh dear ... now you've done it ...

... daring to *doubt* that NUKLERE HOLOCOST is the
primary threat to bring the end of life as we know it ...
you'll definitely be blackballed by certain members of
the E/E forum ...

[Birthmark]

13. Bah!

I've been blackballed by better...and for better reason. :)

[kristopher]

15. Let me get this straight...

I'm combining your first two posts:
"I am in no way worried about a major nuclear war at this point. I am very worried about AGW. The news keeps getting worse and worse with little sign that anything substantive will be done.

By contrast, the most likely nuclear war scenario at this point is probably Pakistan-India, which would be a disaster make no mistake. But it pails in comparison to what AGW looks set to do to humanity."

Please help me understand how you demonstrate the values you profess when you ignore the totality of the problem. This isn't an either global warming or nuclear power choice; so when you falsely try to overlay that paradigm over a reality where you have the problem below in addition to nuclear slowing the effort to address AGW because of suboptimal economics and build time, it is confusing.

4d. Effects of Nuclear Energy on Nuclear War and Terrorism Damage

Because the production of nuclear weapons material is occurring only in countries that have developed civilian nuclear energy programs, the risk of a limited nuclear exchange between countries or the detonation of a nuclear device by terrorists has increased due to the dissemination of nuclear energy facilities worldwide. As such, it is a valid exercise to estimate the potential number of immediate deaths and carbon emissions due to the burning of buildings and infrastructure associated with the proliferation of nuclear energy facilities and the resulting proliferation of nuclear weapons. The number of deaths and carbon emissions, though, must be multiplied by a probability range of an exchange or explosion occurring to estimate the overall risk of nuclear energy proliferation. Although concern at the time of an explosion will be the deaths and not carbon emissions, policy makers today must weigh all the potential future risks of mortality and carbon emissions when comparing energy sources.

Here, we detail the link between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons and estimate the emissions of nuclear explosions attributable to nuclear energy. The primary limitation to building a nuclear weapon is the availability of purified fissionable fuel (highly-enriched uranium or plutonium)68. Worldwide, nine countries have known nuclear weapons stockpiles (U.S., Russia, U.K., France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea). In addition, Iran is pursuing uranium enrichment, and 32 other countries have sufficient fissionable material to produce weapons. Among the 42 countries with fissionable material, 22 have facilities as part of their civilian nuclear energy program, either to produce highly-enriched uranium or to separate plutonium, and facilities in 13 countries are active68. Thus, the ability of states to produce nuclear weapons today follows directly from their ability to produce nuclear power. In fact, producing material for a weapon requires merely operating a civilian nuclear power plant together with a sophisticated plutonium separation facility. The Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons has been signed by 190 countries. However, international treaties safeguard only about 1% of the world’s highly-enriched uranium and 35% of the world’s plutonium68. Currently, about 30,000 nuclear warheads exist worldwide, with 95% in the U.S. and Russia, but enough refined and unrefined material to produce another 100,000 weapons69.

The explosion of fifty 15-kt nuclear devices (a total of 1.5 MT, or 0.1% of the yields proposed for a full-scale nuclear war) during a limited nuclear exchange in megacities could burn 63-313 Tg of fuel, adding 1-5 Tg of soot to the atmosphere, much of it to the stratosphere, and killing 2.6-16.7 million people68. The soot emissions would cause significant short- and medium-term regional cooling70. Despite short-term cooling, the CO2 emissions would cause long-term warming, as they do with biomass burning62. The CO2 emissions from such a conflict are estimated here from the fuel burn rate and the carbon content of fuels. Materials have the following carbon contents: plastics, 38-92%; tires and other rubbers, 59-91%; synthetic fibers, 63-86%71; woody biomass, 41-45%; charcoal, 71%72; asphalt, 80%; steel, 0.05-2%. We approximate roughly the carbon content of all combustible material in a city as 40-60%. Applying these percentages to the fuel burn gives CO2 emissions during an exchange as 92-690 Tg-CO2. The annual electricity production due to nuclear energy in 2005 was 2768 TWh/yr. If one nuclear exchange as described above occurs over the next 30 years, the net carbon emissions due to nuclear weapons proliferation caused by the expansion of nuclear energy worldwide would be 1.1-4.1 g-CO2/kWh, where the energy generation assumed is the annual 2005 generation for nuclear power multiplied by the number of years being considered. This emission rate depends on the probability of a nuclear exchange over a given period and the strengths of nuclear devices used. Here, we bound the probability of the event occurring over 30 years as between 0 and 1 to give the range of possible emissions for one such event as 0 to 4.1 g-CO2/kWh. This emission rate is placed in context in Table 3.

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

[Birthmark]

16. Ah, I can answer that.

I'm brazen, sir! Simply brazen.

But if you want something more substantive, the first sentence of the quote in your post is complete nonsense: "Because the production of nuclear weapons material is occurring only in countries that have developed civilian nuclear energy programs, the risk of a limited nuclear exchange between countries or the detonation of a nuclear device by terrorists has increased due to the dissemination of nuclear energy facilities worldwide." There is a lot of stuff that has to happen to turn the fuel used in energy production to become suitable for use in a nuclear weapon. A whole lot. Terrorists aren't up to the task, period.

A major nuclear war isn't very probable; AGW is a certainty. Limited nuclear war is, well, limited. It's effects will be limited to a few million. Again, that's horrific, but AGW is nearly certain to affect *billions*. That's devastating.

[kristopher]

17. What is a limited nuclear war? 2M instead of 200M dead? 200M dead instead of 2B?

You are sick.

[Birthmark]

18. A limited nuclear...

...is one that is limited (involving a small number of weapons and/or small nuclear weapons), as opposed to what might have happened during the Cold War had the US/USSR unleashed their arsenals.

I would be sick if I were in favor of a limited nuclear. However, I only said that the effects would be less bad than the effects of AGW are going to be. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

So save your righteous indignation. You can probably fit it in somewhere else.

[kristopher]

19. The "indignation" is because you make that statement based on a clearly false assumtion

You are justifying your disregard for the potential consequences of nuclear power by forcing what is an obvious false dichotomy on the situation.

If you are motivated by AGW as you claim, then it is implicit that you possess empathy.
If you possess empathy then the lives of those you condemn would have value to you.
Yet you persist in presenting the options as:
Business as usual and the consequences of AGW or
Nuclear power and the consequences of nuclear proliferation, nuclear waste, and nuclear accident.

You reject with no justification the proven third alternative of non-nuclear, non-carbon energy.

If there were no alternative to nuclear, I too would choose it over fossil fuels. But since there IS an alternative (AND YOU KNOW IT), it isn't credible that a person choosing nuclear actually places their concern for the environment and their fellow humans as a very high priority.

Your choices and claims would fit the values of someone who is has little empathy but a strong desire to ensure energy security, which is the normal profile of those who support not only nuclear energy, but also coal and petroleum.

In which case your appeal to AGW would be little more than greenwashing.

[Birthmark]

21. You're moving the goalposts

Let me know when you get them where you want them and I'll come back to defend my end of the field.

[joshcryer]

9. That Lovelock link is not working for me, and a search shows Freepers flocking to it.

From the snippets I can find from the article it's clear that Lovelock is not one to believe in scientific models. Somehow we continue to come full circle with denialist/minimalist arguments with regards to AGW.

Sorry, but the models are very good. 1C-2C is a complete fabrication and not part of the scientific consensus. 3C is the likely lower bound and it may be higher than that if total feedbacks are at a higher end (and indeed, the models predict that they will be, and observations so far suggest that they most certainly are).

Ugh, I hate reminding myself how fucked we're fucking the planet.

[FBaggins]

10. What's the point? That genie isn't getting back in the bottle.

n/t

[bananas]

14. You could say the same thing about CO2

These are both problems that have to be addressed.

[pscot]

20. The President has been hard at work with Russia on nuclear arms

reduction and has a treaty to take to the Senate. In contrast, AGW seeems to be at a standstill.

[joshcryer]

22. That's why the doomsday clock moved back a minute.

They also seem to be "optimistic" about AGW even when COP15 was a disaster of epic proportions. Nothing could've been worse than what we got out of COP15.