nuclear-news

Nuclear Power versus Nuclear Weapons

Would nuclear power still be in play today if it were not for the production of man-made Plutonium-239 in nuclear power plants that’s stored and used for atomic and nuclear bombs and weapons?

Sam Arnold, Woodstock, NB

Put another way, is not the almost 80-year existence of nuclear generated electricity that became manifest through President Eisenhower’s infamous 1953 “Atoms for Peace” fabrication responsible for all nuclear weaponry created since due to the military’s reliance on plutonium for its nuclear weapons? 

August is the reminder month of the 81st anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Eisenhower’s speech was a clever ruse designed to gain public support for nuclear power plants after the bombing of the two Japanese cities, but did not reveal that it was the plutonium produced at the nuclear power plants that was critical to building more bombs for the U.S. Military. The purpose of nuclear power plants (NPPs) at the time was to meet the requirement of the military. But NPPs lacked merit as a proven, safe, affordable and economically viable electricity generator, and still do so today. They continue to carry the negative weight of unreliability, high cost, and the incessantly growing tons of high-level radioactive nuclear waste at NPP sites in Canada and all other countries producing nuclear electricity. Globally, nuclear power generates about 9% of produced electricity.

Were the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague to revisit it’s mistaken Advisory Opinion on nuclear weapons in 1996 as unlawful and order the stop of producing such weapons, nuclear generated electricity most likely would soon fade into oblivion. NPPs are now being replaced by affordable and more swiftly installed renewable energy options. Sadly, globally well over 400,000 tons of used high-level radioactive nuclear waste remains in need of very careful and safe permanent disposal. The ICJ should now reconsider its divided Advisory Opinion made 30 years ago for the sake of humanity, and of nature.

Coincidentally, Pope Leo’s new book calls for nuclear disarmament, titled “Unarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift.” In the preface

 he writes

, “Above all in the atomic era, the affirmation of the truth must push through: it is not atomic weapons that generate peace, but disarmament. This truth, which seemed clear in past decades when we witnessed a nuclear de-escalation, has been obscured by a race to armament that today frightens and terrifies.”

Given the current most worrisome nuclear-related situation in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war, and with Trump making a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, this concern is now most alarming. Something must be done now to bring the threat of nuclear war to an end, and the ICJ is the only recognized world court that could possibly bring this about.

July 27, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war