Our extinction happens in climate wars; A-Bomb is used in thousands.

If we build 30 – 50 IFR 1000 MW plants per year, we are going forwards without any climate wars.

And our species and all species go on happily.

The only thing that countries like Canada and Australia with large uranium mining sectors can do is join the party, or watch. The days when we could leverage the supply to dictate terms on nuclear issues has passed. Not only are there other players, but we will find ourselves increasingly dependent on the Indian and Chinese markets and will have to treat with them accordingly.

But Charles touches on a much bigger issue…proliferation is above all an aspect of policy of a given country. Should we not develop LFTR, or IFRs, in China, or India, or France because we are worried about proliferation in *these* countries? Of course not, it is, in reality, totally irrelevant as they already have a weaponized nuclear industry. It is kin of a fake argument to raise this.

But what about countries that have only a civilian nuclear program or are thinking of developing one? Canada (which has a partial WMD program), Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Veneuzlea, Nigeria, S. Africa (which gave up it’s WMD program…should they not have access to this advanced technology?), Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Israel, Jordon, UAE, Kuwait, Turkey, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Holland, Beligium, S. Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Uganda and I probably missed a few.

These countries are all considering nuclear energy programs or have them. But “we” think… “hold on, you can’t because *maybe* you’ll develop nuclear weapons with this technology?”.

Charles likes to say that it’s “too late, the cat is out of the bag”. And of course this is true. No country needs a public commercial nuclear program to develop nuclear weapons. It’s *cheaper* to just develop it by building small R&D type plutonium reactors. And that is what they do. That is what they will do and continue to do. Thus the issue then is one of political proliferation policy and not one of having commercial nuclear energy that can help liberate their people from poverty.

I think the problem with proliferation concerned anti-nuclear folks, like Helen Caldicott who in fact lies about how nuclear weapons are developed, have lost the forest for a single nuclear weapon.

Even if progress on safeguards is considered as a necessary condition for increased a wider deployment of nuclear energy, it might not be sufficient. Andrew Grotto argues that political and security factors are likely to prevent states from cooperating in nonproliferation efforts. He has said:

“The behavior of states is guided not only by normative considerations about fairness, hypocrisy and the like; it is also animated, and in many cases dominated, by security and economic interests. A state may oppose an NPT-plus obligation on principle because it is unfair, but it does not follow that a state would necessarily support the obligation if the unfairness were remedied. That’s because taking on new nonproliferation obligations is not costless. Budgets and time are finite for all governments, and officials must spend scarce resources—time and money—formulating, evaluating, and negotiating the content of a proposed obligation. Then they have to implement it, which could entail a new set of costs, such as adjustment costs and a potential loss of sovereignty. In short, a state may continue to oppose a nonproliferation measure on the grounds that it will not produce a net security, economic, or prestige benefit.”

In other words safeguards are not a simple matter of extending IAEA powers or making unilateral conditions between seller and buyer. The experience of Canada and India is an ideal example of this; the only thing that happened when Canada cut India off, was that both sides were harmed with no change to India’s weapons program.

Over the years, many experts have predicted proliferation cascades, but this has yet to unfold. The track record of proliferation to date, has been both limited and slow. The historical record does not support the dire predictions that have been made, especially when the presumed proliferators have close ties to one of the five legitimate nuclear weapon states and are dependent on them for their security. Although admittedly this has not stopped Israel or North Korea, nether has existing international controls.

What is needed is a full re-evaluation of the whole non-proliferation regime, based on a firm historical foundation, and an awareness of the geopolitical forces that drive the need for the acquisition of nuclear weaponry.

It worth repeating: no country prosecutes a nuclear weapon program without a belief in a pressing need, the expense is just too great, the potential of international sanctions are just too strong. Continuing to erect barriers to nuclear energy in fear of runaway proliferation is at best just wrong and at worst counterproductive.

If Rudd goes to Copenhagen and big notes himself over Australia’s pathetic efforts I will be quite angry. Australia is at the same time both a massive carbon pimp and a renewables delusionist. At least the conference hosts the Danes have the decency to recognise their own hypocrisy.

PS the last couple of days I drove 600km on biodiesel. Yet it’s clear to me barring algae breakthroughs it will never scale up. No doubt some Federal minister will soon tell us it’s the next big thing.

I agree with you about one of the government’s motivations for being anti-nuclear. The other more important one is that it is an divisive issue on which it is easy to run a scare campaign which wins elections.

The hypocricy annoys me. It is basically lying to the electorate. CCS, solar, wind and geothermal will only ever be small players in our energy supply, and at hugh expence. So the government is trying to pretend it is serious about cutting GHG emissions while misleading the electorate on the potential for renewables and CCS to solve the problem. It is total BS.

Anyway, why are you worried about coal exports? Surely the ‘green jobs bonanza’ will make up for any reduction in coal exports?? :)

The Australian government’s interest in CCS probably has more to do with minerals and technology exporting than emissions reduction. If they can get CCS to work effectively with a bit of patented technology thrown in there is a huge technology export potential if the price is right. (I know – there are a few “ifs” in there)

Over half the world’s electricity is produced in fossil fuel plants. Thermal coal is a big export earner for Australia and swamps uranium exports (ABARE 2009). The government rightly wants to protect that income stream and it knows that if CCS doesn’t deliver – eventually these fossil fuel plants will all get phased out and probably replaced with nuclear or gas plants. The additional uranium exports will never match the lost coal exports.

It’s a difficult conundrum for a government. Does it abandon CCS and embrace nuclear and lose $10b a year in exports or does it do all it can to protect it’s export thermal coal markets and possibly develop a technology export business in CCS conversions.

I wonder how much of this is behind the government’s blockheadedness about domestic nuclear power. They are more concerned about the threat to coal than perceived safety issues.

If CCS can work and come in at a cost which makes it quicker and more financially attractive than doing a nuclear conversion – it may be a better interim solution for fossil fuel plants and reduce GHG emissions more quickly.

I am not expressing a preference here. Just trying to inject another perspective.

IFR/LFTR advocates generally acknowledge that rigorous safeguards are necessary and that existing safeguards fall short. So we’re back to square one – what are proponents of dual-use nuclear technology going to do to redress the contradiction between your fine words about safeguards and your inactivity? Some suggestions (with an Australian bias):
* Lifting the veil of secrecy surrounding uranium exports.
* Adding some integrity to the Howard/Putin agreement, a live issue as the government is pondering the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.
* Leveraging uranium exports to achieve positive outcomes (e.g. bans or restrictions on uranium sales to countries blocking progress on the CTBT, FMCT etc).
* Much-needed reform of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (see EnergyScience Coalition briefing paper #19 at energyscience.org.au).
* Internationally, the outgoing IAEA Director-General has recently been in the media complaining again that the IAEA has neither the resources nor the legal authority required for effective safeguarding.

I confess I don’t follow the pragmatic logic behind several of the items you list, if the objective is to prevent proliferation. For instance,

1. Country-by-country information on the separation and stockpiling of Australian-obligated plutonium.

Of what value could this be? For any given stock of fissile material around the world, at any given point in the fuel cycle, how does preventing its diversion hinge on the percentage of Australian derived content?

What if uranium from Kazakhstan is irradiated by uranium from Australia in a reactor core to produce plutonium? Do we own the whole nucleus, or are we just exporting the neutrons?

Tracking this sort of information through complex materials processing steps is simply pointless bureaucracy. Its not required to put the material to its intended use, and its of no value in preventing illegitimate use.

However, I can see its value in domestic political strategy. Being able to say “x% of the plutonium in the world comes from our own Australian uranium, and did you know plutonium is used to make nuclear weapons” is a great sound bite, if you want to work to confound the development of nuclear power. It hits both the fear and the guilt buttons.

In fact, the only way to improve on that is to say, “They won’t tell you how much plutonium is derived from Australian uranium”. That hits fear, guilt and conspiracy all at once. Its perfect!

But the information has no utility in preventing proliferation, so you’ll understand if its not high on my list of priorities. The most effective technical measure to reduce the proliferation risk would be the development of proliferation resistant resistant fuel cycles, such as discussed here for the IFR and LFTR, which also have huge environmental payoffs.

I really look forward to seeing foe helping out with practical work along these lines,

best, john.

I suspect that’s why you just came by to drop this little turd about proliferation and then scurried off – wouldn’t want to have to answer too many questions from the likes of us.