It is my important discovery from the Fukushima nuclear power accident that we failed to understand radiation from nuclear bombs and the radiation from the nuclear accident are little different in terms of the risk for human life. We have long accepted the dangers of attacks by state actors with nuclear weapons, and now we understand the threat of human error and natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes on nuclear power plants. It seems that we have missed one key piece. What about attacks on nuclear power plants? Above all, I am concerned with terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants in volatile countries.
I have met eminent opinion leaders who are against nuclear weapons but support nuclear energy because it greatly contributes to reduce carbon dioxide. Both opinions might have valid arguments but it seems to me that both have lost sight of the long term risk and consequences.
I have asked Dr. Scott Jones, an International Advisory Council (IAC) member of the Nuclear Emergency Action Alliance (NEAA), to write on the relationship of nuclear energy plants and nuclear weapons. Dr. Scott Jones was a career naval officer with extensive nuclear weapon experience. He was a qualified nuclear weapons delivery pilot, and in intelligence assignments, a Nuclear Weapons Deployment Officer, and created Nuclear Weapon Target Annexes for U.S. European Command War Plans. Following this he became special assistant to Senator Claiborne Pell He wrote an article entitled : Fading Memories and Lessons Learned.
– Akio Matsumura
What is the Relationship of Nuclear Energy Plants and Nuclear Weapons?
Scott Jones, Ph.D.
Setting aside the classical tenderness of the phrase, they are Mother and Child. Within the science community and the business of commercial nuclear energy this reality is a given. However, the “Atoms for Peace” commercial slogan may have introduced some ambiguity about this reality. This is quickly cleared up for the lay person by a January 1983 article published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
“An even more specific confirmation of the economic advantage of the commercial-power route to bombs is available in a most distressing form: the admission by the U.S. government, in late 1981, that it is considering turning to commercial-reactor fuel as the source of plutonium for a new round of nuclear warheads. Would the United States even consider paying the political costs of such a move unless the economic attractiveness were compelling?”
The family relationship is the basic and fundamental link between nuclear energy production and nuclear weapons. However, it leads to other important relationships.
Nuclear weapons are the result of willful national security political decisions. After the development and use of nuclear weapons by the Unites States, every country that followed in the club of nuclear weapon owners made that decision because of an assessment that it gave them security that they otherwise would not have. It was claimed to be a defensive move to deter all potential enemies from use of nuclear weapons against them.
Fear is a great fertilizer. It takes a person with great independent wisdom to judge whether a perceived threat was reduced or exacerbated by following a path of fear. Judging is not the mission of the Nuclear Emergency Action Alliance. The NEAA’s mission is to be of service when the emergency is underway.
What we can say with certainty is that a nuclear power plant nominates itself as a potential target. What cannot easily be predicted is who or what may be the aggressor. While progress is being made in predicting threats from nature, it will always remain to a significant degree a capricious force.
In the human realm, current and traditional enemies most certainly will be on target and threat lists. But the threat may be from a terrorist group that selects one of the world’s existing 450 operating nuclear power plants in 31 countries, or later, one the 60 new plants under construction in 16 countries. Which plant to attack may be decided because it is assessed to be the most vulnerable target for their capability to attack.
There is no shortage of targets now and the number is increasing. Success will not be measured by the amount of radiation released. That will almost be immaterial.
The global nuclear power plant network shares a nervous system that is highly tuned to every nuclear event. Deserved or not an accident or an attack will be perceived by much of the world through a memory lens of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.
I am really ashamed of myself for being absent from responding to your kind and meaningful messages and information due to my terribly busy everyday and night for taking care of my own website editing. I sincerely pray for your success in your meaningful information deliveries.
Nuclear weapons, like nuclear energy, has receded into the consciousness of humanity just as many threats are processed into unconsciousness. We need reminders, vivid demonstrations of what we are dealing with- for example the Hiroshima weapon was the smallest of the two dropped in Japan. Nuclear energy’s world wide grid and today’s weapons threaten us way beyond this excerpt from this manuscript-
To describe the Weapon:
“I will, Reiko,” he answered mildly, reaching into a pocket in his voluminous robe and withdrawing a folded, dried-up Japanese newspaper. “I shall now read to you an account of the destruction,” he announced. He removed a pair of reading glasses from another pocket and put them on, then raised the fragile newspaper carefully and began to read aloud:
In Hiroshima, at 8:17 A.M. on a typically warm August morning, human agony that cannot be communicated in words shrieked at the universe. The Americans dropped an atomic bomb, and people of all ages were instantly turned to carbon ash or burned beyond recognition, their scorched skin hanging from their bodies in shreds. Some lost their sight immediately; horribly for others, their eyes melted.
Nothing and no one could determine which of the evils was the worst—the shock, the shattering impact on all matter, the thermal horror of thousands of degrees of heat, the flash of unnatural light, the blackened sky and its black rain, the screams of the living, or the silence of the incinerated and the evaporated.
Shiro gingerly unfolded the brittle newspaper, opening it to its full size, and continued to read the article:
Ten of the twelve schools within a 1.3 km radius of the hypocenter experienced a 100% mortality rate. Most of the children suffered instant death, largely because they were still outdoors. Another 12,000 children, mostly 12- and 13-year-olds, were at work clearing demolition sites to serve as fire-breaks in the event of allied incendiary bombing. They were also within the 1.3 km radius. If any of them survived, they lived to witness flesh falling off their own bodies and their workmates walking with arms instinctively extended to reduce the pain from anything contacting their skin.
Shiro glanced at Reiko and saw that she had closed her eyes. Tears on her lashes glittered in the sunshine, and her lips quivered as she sat silently on the flat rock. The old monk nodded his head in silent approval. He held the paper up to the sunlight.
Among the general population, ground temperatures of 4,000 degrees Celsius were calculated (iron melts at 1,535 degrees Celsius), the blast pressure was estimated to be 32 tons per square meter, and wind speeds were approximated at 440 km per second. Caught up in these unimaginable forces, tens of thousands of Japanese were disemboweled, decapitated, their eyes blown from their sockets, their bodies crushed.
Shiro felt his emotions rising and paused, taking deep breaths and exhaling audibly, to calm himself. “Perhaps we should walk for a few moments,” he suggested.
“That would be good, Uncle,” Reiko answered in a subdued voice.
They rose and walked along the stone wall for a short while, not speaking, both lost in their own thoughts. Reiko sighed deeply, and Shiro, looking at her mournful face, reminded himself grimly that he was telling her this not to hurt her, but because there were things she must know. After several silent minutes had passed, they settled themselves on the flat stones once again, and Shiro, despite being reluctant, resumed reading.
The American weapon exploded directly above the Shimo Hospital in the center of Hiroshima, instantly killing all the patients and hospital personnel. Of those who were within the 500-meter area of the blast and saw the flash, none lived to learn that they were blind. For a millionth of a second, temperatures reached one million degrees Celsius inside that bell-shaped fireball, while the most penetrating of gamma and neutron rays saturated the city.
Shiro lowered the newspaper to his knee. “I can read no more of this;
We need to End the Whole Nuclear Era now. Abolish nuclear weapons. Close nuclear power plants worldwide.
It’s via nuclear power plants that nuclear bombs are spreading. North Korea makes its bombs from nuclear power reactors. Iran could. Pakistan and india have.
The nuclear industry — and world political leaders — want to keep the inevitable link between nuclear power and bombs out of public consciousness. (Countries crave nuclear everything for “prestige.” A tragic ignorance pervades politicians’ thinking.)
Only courageous world leaders who aren’t bogged down by old ideas will lead us out of the nuclear era. (Potentially — yes, I think so, It’s possible — Donald Trump? Working together with Putin.)
After nuclear weapons are outlawed and power plants closed humanity will have to deal with the nuclear era’s legacy — nuclear waste. Which will remain lethal for quarter of a million years. And which future generations will probably mine and make weapons out of.
Our generation has poisoned the earth. Let’s bow our heads in shame and do what we can to try to mitigate the effects of our pride, ignorance, and short sightedness.