nuclear-news

Nuclear Gambling with Earth’s future

Sino-American rivalry: Energy consumption, nuclear energy and deadly nukes  Dr. Can Erimtan is an independent scholar residing in İstanbul, with a wide interest in the politics, history and culture of the Balkans and the Greater Middle East. He tweets at @theerimtanangle July 10, 2014“……….. not content with just matching Chinese commitment to fossil fuel imports and consumption by means of production, the Obama administration also “incentivizes oil, gas, and coal production overseas by providing billions of dollars in favorable financing each year to fossil fuel projects through its participation in multilateral development bank lending as well as bilateral financing through the US Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation … Since President Obama was elected, US financing of fossil fuel projects overseas through these international financial institutions has increased by 14 percent from $4.1 billion in 2009 to $4.7 billion in 2013, having declined from a peak of $6.3 billion in 2012.

Both global powerhouses thus appear to persist in gambling with the Earth’s future. In fact, American and Chinese willingness to continue playing with fire is also demonstrated by their actions in the field of nuclear energy and weapons. Some time ago, the award-winning journalist Ken Silverstein wrote in the Christian Science Monitor that the “Obama administration wants to seed the United States with pint-size nuclear reactors … The US Department of Energy said it would provide $217 million in matching funds over five years to [the private company] NuScale, which builds small, ready-made reactors that can be strung together”. These pint-size nuclear reactors would be added to the already existing “100 commercial nuclear power reactors [that] are licensed to operate at 62 sites in 31 States.”

Meanwhile, in China 20 nuclear power reactors are in operation, with a further 28 under construction, and even more about to start construction. The recent Fukushima disaster in Japan (11 March 2011) and the now-legendary Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine (26 April 1986) provide ample evidence that the mere principle of nuclear energy seems patently absurd: in order to boil water to operate some turbines, nuclear material is fused to produce high levels of energy (or heat) that is then put to use to boil water basically, or to put it in more formal words, as can be found on the website Three Mile Island (named after another famous nuclear mishap on 28 March 1979): the “only purpose of a nuclear power plant is to produce electricity. To produce electricity, a power plant needs a source of heat to boil water which becomes steam. The steam then turns a turbine, the turbine turns an electrical generator, and the generator produces electricity”. And the dangers of nuclear radiation are manifold, as explained by Dr. Helen Caldicott, the well-known Australian anti-nuclear advocate: “[n] dose of radiation is safe. Each dose received by the body is cumulative and adds to the risk of developing malignancy or genetic disease … Children are ten to twenty times more vulnerable to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults. Females tend to be more sensitive compared to males, whilst fetuses and immuno-compromised patients are also extremely sensitive … High doses of radiation received from a nuclear meltdown or from a nuclear weapon explosion can cause acute radiation sickness, with alopecia, severe nausea, diarrhea and thrombocytopenia”.

All in all, the US and China seem well-matched in their dedication to endangering the continued existence of humanity on this earth: either by their use and propagation of fossil fuels leading to disastrous climate change. Or by sticking to nuclear energy as an alternative, which is a dangerous proposition to begin with, while the issue of the resultant nuclear waste material has not even been touched upon.

The military perspective

Even more ominous is the continued presence of nuclear arsenals in the US as well as in China. During the Cold War the US and the Soviet Union superpowers adhered to the principle of mutually assured destruction, which meant that the whole world was basically kept hostage to a game of chicken. Now that the Cold War is over, one would think that these nuclear warheads would finally be confined to the dustbin of history. Alas, nothing seems further from the truth, as the US still deploys about 2,000 strategic warheads, with even more in reserve.

Just the other day, the Associated Press (AP) released a timely report on America’s still-existing nuclear arsenal,http://rt.com/op-edge/171824-sino-american-rivalry-energy/

July 14, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, safety, USA