nuclear-news

Nuclear power a goer only in new nuclear weapons states

…….. the nuclear industry, at heart, is a military industry holding up a battered commercial facade.

Nowhere is this more true than in the new markets of China, Russia and India – nuclear weapons states -.

Old-tech nuclear power is not the answer * Scott Ludlam   The Australian * September 17, 2010 LET’S not expect a volatile, antiquated technology to solve any problems “…… All nuclear power stations are based on 1940s-era technology to build nuclear weapons. They are essentially plutonium factories, producing small quantities of plutonium while shedding vast amounts of heat.

In the 50s, Soviet and US engineers realised they could adapt these plants for power generation, hooking them up to steam turbines and promising electricity that was “too cheap to meter”. Now we have more than 400 of these hybridised weapons plants generating a shrinking fraction of electricity across the world.

Since the beginning, the potential has existed for the diversion of a few dozen kilograms of refined plutonium or highly enriched uranium through the porous boundary between civil and military facilities.

It takes 4kg to 16kg of refined plutonium or highly enriched uranium to reduce a city to a field of irradiated debris in one flash of light. This has led to the establishment of a sprawling acronym soup of multilateral agreements and treaties designed to keep nuclear weapons in the hands of “responsible” countries and out of the hands of everyone else, even as the industry tries to push the enabling technology into as many countries as possible.

Nuclear flashpoints in Iran and North Korea are the only examples we should need. In North Korea, “peaceful” facilities were turned to more lethal purposes on nothing more than a quiet change of policy. Iran is pursuing a more ambiguous path, building a massive uranium enrichment plant while pursuing a suspect argument that the intention is benign. The technology for bombs or fuel is the same, it all depends on changing government policy.

…….. the nuclear industry, at heart, is a military industry holding up a battered commercial facade.

Nowhere is this more true than in the new markets of China, Russia and India – nuclear weapons states -.

…. Old-tech nuclear power is not the answer | The Australian

September 17, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons