I was but a babe when the Atomic Age began -- babe in the infant sense, babe -- and a mere tot when the decision was made to tame the mighty atom. Viewed from this distance, Atoms for Peace (as the taming project was called) seems impossibly wrongheaded, an invitation to mischief, suspicions of mischief and mischievous suspicions of mischief.
Atoms for Peace, announced with grandiose fanfare by President Eisenhower, was the launching of the civilian nuclear-power industry. No longer was the split atom to be the symbol only of hideous warfare on a scale unimaginable to humans before Hiroshima; now our smiling atomic friend was to power the all-electric homes of our future, a cheerful accomplice to nothing more threatening than Westinghouse and General Electric. Better yet, countries that cowered in fear of our nuclear might would soon become happy customers of our nuclear bounty.
Flash forward half a century, and both Iran and, more recently, Syria stand as testimony to the lunatic flaw in that strategy. If the same technology, embodied in the same infrastructure, can be used either (or both) for peace and war, one's ability to detect preparations for war is seriously, if not fatally, compromised. And a country which intends nothing more than the ego boost (and power boost) of a civilian nuke plant may not mind a bit of vagueness about whether the centrifuge array can enrich to greater than three percent, the way Saddam didn't mind a bit of vagueness about his capabilities, just to keep the nasty neighbors in check. When the vagueness proves to be, or can be used to seem, truly threatening, as we learned in 2003, it can be too late for all concerned.
How much easier this current moment would have been if nukes were weapons of war, period. Of course, then we wouldn't be looking at a nearly $60 billion bill for the country's only high-level nuclear waste disposal facility, Yucca Mountain, years away from opening, and only a couple of decades from closing, having reached its storage capacity. Then, while the Mountain only has to protect its contents for the next several thousand years (warning signs are to be erected in less than a dozen current human languages -- save your dictionaries, folks), our mid-century quest will be for the next storage site, and the next.
But how much easier life on the world stage would be, as well. Indonesia wouldn't at this very moment be contemplating nuclear plants near the site of active volcanoes, and A.Q. Khan might be far better known (and perhaps even prosecuted) as a lunatic rogue threat to world peace, having sold or given nuclear knowhow and technology to, among others, Libya, North Korea and Iran, from his position as the father of Pakistan's A-bomb.
Atoms for Peace allowed everything to be fudged. We just need a clean source of electricity, the plant-builders say. They're hiding their true intentions, the war-mongers say.
And we, trapped in the great middle, can just say, "Thanks a lot, Ike. Next life, try promoting Heroin for Peace."
Some form of power generation from nuclear fission will almost certainly be a part of our future, barring major breakthroughs in fusion research. The question facing us is not IF we will go nuclear, but rather whether we let the GEs and Westinghouses once again opt for economy --- over longterm safety --- when we do.
dangerous, ridiculous, anti-life.
Enough with the "nuke-u-lar" power.
The power of GREED.
It's time for the FAT, UGLY, GREEDY REPUBLICAN ELEPHANTS to take their BAD ACT and get out of town!
REPUBLICANS ARE WORTHLESS TO THE AVERAGE AMERICAN!. THEY ARE DANGEROUS TO LIFE.
What about their baloney "war for peace"?
They stand up for GREEDY RICH CORPORATE WELFARE QUEEN CORPORATIONS getting richer on their Bush-Cheney "designer war" the IRAQ INVASION. Designed to enrich corrupt contractors and capture oil fields for Big Oil.
Over dead and maimed USTroops and Iraqis.
NO THANKS, YOU JERKS!!
Take your nuclear ambitions and stick 'em where the sun don't shine. I hope you blow up.
Dual-use.
Peace and War.
Have and have-not.
Black and White.
Forget about the "alternatives" argument.
What it will be, will be.
But only if we decide to deal with Harry's truth. He precisely points out a half-century old mistake.
Atoms-for-peace , NOT.
The earthlings made a kind of deal in agreeing to move forward with atomic fission after it was seen that it can readily be the end of human civilization as we know it.
We made a deal. A faustian bargain?
But it didn't work.
We now have many, many thousands of nuclear weapons on a hair trigger, and while some may be junk that will be recycled, we also see the push for new generations of these weapons.
Atoms for peace?
Take the IAEA.
After 50 years of "Safeguard Agreements and Inspection/verification regimes" developed by truly the best minds on the planet, guess what?
Forgot a few things.
Nobody's perfect.
Like enrichment.
Its a dual-use thing.
Now we have almost fifty years of NPT agreed to by the preponderance of the worlds governments and populations, but it is inadequate to protect against the potential for weapons proliferation.
That's the nugget that Harry is laying out here.
We have come to LEARN that we have not learned enough to do this thing right.
Now we have governments and private interests trying to get their hands on "spent fuel" and "waste-products", ostensibly for the purpose of gaining economic efficiency.
We don't want all that un-fissioned uranium and heat-producing plutonium to not contribute to progress now, do we?
Yes, a whole lot of presidents have made grave mistakes with the lives of ordinary human beings.
Sometimes it takes only a few years to realize these consequences, and sometimes a few decades.
In the case of Ike's Atoms-for-peace program, it has taken a few generations.
Thanks, Harry.
That's right, because I am pretty sure that in 2000 years from now society will have figured out how to effectively recycle nuclear waste. Why are you lefties so pessimistic about what humans can do -- uranium is a great natural resources, but there is no better resource on earth than the human brain and what it can create.
The self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the left can be so sickening (as say as a former left winger)
You know, the major American city pretty much destroyed while the President was on vacation.
When did you stop being a "Left-Winger"?
Was it when you stopped paying attention?
"Keep Out", "Bad Juju", "Curse of the Mummy",
and such like warnings have always worked well in the past; humans being so incurious that they naturally stay away from things that they are told not to go near.
They both supported Iran's goals of achieving nuclear energy in 1976. But recently they said that Iran is a nation awash in a sea of oil, and there is no need for a nuclear energy program[1].
[1] http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/144204
Wait till gene splicing is sold in kiddie lab christmas gift packages. Some kid in the garage is going to wipe us all out. Enjoy the nuke power as long as we have it.
But if Iran and Syria have one or two there is no way a country deemed hostile to the US can be using this to supply electicity! However Pakistan, India, China and Russia are not under
any scrutiny. And of course there is Israel. And they have not admitted to anything or have they invited inspectors to look.
If the planets don't align and destroy the world
my guess we are at least going to get to 30 seconds on the "Doomsday Clock" in the near future.
Did they slightly overstate their case?
HARRY ASKS: Sealed how? Underground as well? For how long? How do you guarantee security for as long as the half-life of the waste elements? Anything's cheap if you don't factor in the long-term costs.
The half-life of the materials is about 25,000 years. The original life of these plants was supposed to be 25 years. That means building 1,000 plants and taking care of the materials for nearly 5 times the present existence of civilization before the half-life has expired. After one half-life, the radiation levels are still not at an acceptable level to allow reuse of the property of the original plant.
Still, I don't think we should rule out nuclear power as an energy source. Plus, now that other nations have the secret, no matter what we decide, they will pursue it. We have no choice but to take a Schrodinger approach to their intentions, but I hardly think firing up the military every time the question arises is right either.
So I would ask Mr. Shearer if he is suggesting the world, as a whole, outlaw the use of nuclear energy making it a no-brainer that if someone pursues it, they must be stopped? Is that fair to do while so many nations lack essential energy, and we have no alternative? Or is this merely an exercise in thinking through to the consequences of our decisions?
HARRY RESPONDS: If you're asking me, I'd say the latter, because I'm truly a dreamer.
More than 60 years since the advent of the atomic bomb and we still haven't the skills to figure out how to deal with its implications and ramifications. That is the responsibility of the social and behavioral sciences, not the physical sciences.
We emphasize only the latest and greatest miracles out of the laboratories with no thought given to the ultimate effects of those miracles or how to deal with them.
To continue the heroin metaphor, it is too bad capitalism always gets in the way of using good old-fashioned addiction as a stabilizing influence.
If the Israelis had built a half-dozen more nuclear reactors a few decades ago, they could be giving their neighbors free electricity...as long as they played nice.
The expense would probably net out well against the cost of their wars, and it would eliminate any argument for more reactors elsewhere.
Just another goofball idea, because you know capitalism - war and death are vastly preferable to somebody getting something for nothing.