Wittner on Abolition

Peace historian Lawrence Wittner has written a piece in response to the letter published in the WSJ on nuclear abolition. As he points out:

One would find this position remarkable were it not for the fact that most people around the world already agree with it. Polls over the last decade have found overwhelming support for a nuclear-free world. Asked if Britain "should help to negotiate a global treaty to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons," 87 percent of Britons responded affirmatively. Queried as to whether all nuclear weapons should be eliminated, 78 percent of Japanese agreed. When Germans were asked if the nuclear weapons states should "start getting rid of their own nuclear weapons as soon as possible," 87 percent backed the idea. Asked if the nuclear weapons states should abolish their weapons, 61 percent of Russians expressed approval. Even the citizens of supposedly nationalistic Third World nations have shown a strong aversion to nuclear weapons. Asked if their country should produce nuclear bombs, 63 percent of Indians said "No."

I feel this misses the point, however. My own understanding is that the nuclear arms complexes of both the United States and Russia are extremely capable of resisting outside pressure. For another example, look to Britain- despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Britons endorse the idea of abolishing nuclear weapons, as attested by Wittner's own numbers, Parliament voted last year to replace Britain's Trident submarine fleet. It doesn't matter if the masses and (former) policymakers agree on a nuclear weapons-free world; all that matters is if the tiny cabals that decide such matters could be made to change their minds on this issue, and that seems extremely unlikely.

The Dream I Wish I Could Believe In

The Wall Street Journal has published a new letter by George Schultz, Bill Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn on the question of eliminating the world's nuclear arsenals.

I agree with Pavel Podvig that the concrete steps listed in the letter should be taken as soon as possible. But I must admit that I am skeptical that they will bring us much closer to a world free of nuclear weapons. They are good, practicable measures that will make the world a safer place; but the reality of the situation is that there are vital strategic and political reasons why the Russian government will not be interested in disposing of nuclear weapons completely.

On the first point, nuclear weapons are the backbone of Russia's strategic offensive capability. The skeptic will scoff that this is meaningless, as "everyone knows you can't use nukes." This objection, however powerful it may seem in the light of 63 years of experience, is in fact a mere cultural construct. There is no physical reason why the Russians cannot lay waste to the United States, and while they would receive a response-in-kind, this does not mean the threat is meaningless or nonexistent. There are credible circumstances under which the Russians might feel that such threats were necessary in order to restrain the United States, and while I hope that no such circumstances are in the offing they must be the focus of Russian war planning.

Politically, nuclear weapons play an important role within Russia proper. Russia's nuclear arsenal is the foundation of Russia's great-power status, in which the Russian people take intense pride. Despite the economic windfall afforded by high energy prices, Russia's claim to a prominent place in world affairs is largely due to its status a nuclear superpower, not to any great economic or military capability. And the prospects for Russia becoming world-class in either economic influence or conventional forces are dim. The current economic boom is based on exports of oil and natural gas, and it is predicted that these reserves of these resources will decline after a few decades. Russia's demographic problems pose probably insurmountable challenges to future governments hoping to field world-class military forces. In a world without nuclear weapons, Russia's influence and power would almost certainly be greatly diminished.

As a student of Russian history, I have difficulty imagining that the Russians will be content to sit back and allow themselves to fade into obscurity. Indeed, it seems that the Russian government is working to avoid this possible outcome. And I believe that the Russians' project to modernize their nuclear arsenal is central to this goal. The mobile Topol-M launcher, the Project 955 submarine, and the Tu-160 bomber are insurance against a future in which Russia is irrelevant and eclipsed by powers such as China and India. Why would the Russian government abandon these investments to their great detriment and the de facto enthronement of American strategic hegemony? Indeed, to expect anything different from the Russians would be foolish.

This does not mean that the Russian government is opposed to disarmament. Quite the opposite, in fact- Putin has expressed an eagerness to negotiate further arms reductions on multiple occasions, only to have his proposals rebuffed by the United States. But I suspect that the Russians see disarmament talks as an opportunity to adjust the balance of power in their own favor, rather than as a step to a nuclear weapons-free world. They have hinted strongly that they would like to include the issue of American conventional forces in future talks- a likely deal-breaker. But I am quite confident that they would gladly sign a treaty that called for nuclear arsenals strictly limited to 1,000 strategic warheads apiece, and possibly fewer. This goal should be pursued. However, it is not really a step to a nuclear weapons-free world. As far as the Russians are concerned, it's a step towards a world in which American military might is more constrained- a goal which they are likely to view as incompatible with the abolition of nuclear arsenals.

Lest this be dismissed as an expression of imperialistic expansionism on the Russians' part, can it really be believed that the American government would behave differently under similar circumstances? Indeed, is it really believable that the US military would give up its nuclear weapons, especially given that the Russians cannot be expected to relinquish theirs?

I must conclude, sadly, that nuclear weapons are here to stay. They are not going away because they're too useful. They really do confer strategic influence and power on their owners. And while the world would be better off without nuclear weapons, the Russian state would not be. So however noble the goal of eliminating nuclear arsenals appears, I cannot regard it as anything more than a pipe dream. Still, it is vital that we work to keep the "bad old days" from coming back. And the proposals provided in the letter are an excellent place to start.

Who Watches the Watchers?

I really wish that I could do some good by editing this thing.

I was dismayed when I found it, as it is a blatant editorial piece masquerading as an impartial assessment of the ability of nuclear power to address climate change. It concludes, on the basis of a few dozen regurgitated anti-nuclear talking points, that:
Past experience, and current experience in Finland, suggests that new reactor programmes may even struggle to meet the carbon reductions expected of them. And in future carbon emissions from the nuclear life-cycle may climb to unacceptable levels. Clearly nuclear power is one of the worst, if not the worst way of tackling climate change.
Unfortunately, when I went to see who wrote it, it turns out that the entire thing was penned by the editor of SourceWatch, Bob Burton. This wouldn't be worthy of a response, except for the supposed editorial policies of SourceWatch:

Be fair
Propagandists engage in selective presentation of evidence. Articles written for SourceWatch should strive for a higher standard, by summarizing all evidence and points of view on a subject accurately and thoroughly.

Somehow I doubt that this standard will be upheld if I try and rewrite the article so that it actually acknowledges the existence of a pro-nuclear point of view, much less admits that such a position is worthy of consideration. I'm too timid to try (and I'm behind with my class reading about the history of the medieval Rus'), but I'll invite braver souls than myself to take a crack at editing the editors own work so that it upholds his own policies.

This Will make Your Brain Hurt

Check out the document that Greenpeace put out claiming that the UK doesn't need new nuclear plants.
It's predictably unconvincing, but the problem is that it's not merely poorly argued: much of it is just plain factually untrue.

Take this gut-buster, for instance:

“We need baseload, and renewables can’t supply that.”

We also need what’s known as baseload – guaranteed electricity to meet constant demand - and Britain can generate it with low-carbon technologies like CHP and some renewable technologies like tidal, biomass, biogas and hydro. More efficient use of fossil fuels also has a part to play.

This would all be well and good- except that Combined Heat and Power (CHP) is NOT a low-carbon technology, and it's no more efficient at producing electricity than other types of fossil fuel plants. And the last sentence an admission that Greenpeace's answer to nuclear is more fossil fuels, and given current technology, more CO2 emmisions.

Also take this clunker:

“If we don’t go for nuclear we’ll be dependent for gas on unstable regimes like Putin’s.”

The real threat to our energy security is interruptions to our oil supply. However, essentially all of Britain’s oil is used for transport and cannot be replaced by nuclear electricity. Much has been made of the threat of becoming over-dependent on imported gas, particularly from Russia. Unfortunately, half of our gas is used directly for domestic space and water heating and cannot be replaced by electricity.

I was unaware that space and water heating could not be accomplished with electricity. I was under the impression that my grandmother's house featured these apparently impossible technologies, but I guess that its warmth and hot water is simply a figment of her 91-year-old imagination. (Seriously, this is technology that was widespread in the US before my parents were born.)

If this is typical of their work, it seems that they pose no great threat to the UK's energy future- which is a blessing to both Britain and the world.

Is the BFS impartial?

The recent study produced by the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection definitely appears to be... methodologically dubious, to say the least. The fact that most of the discrepancy is the result of one infamous (and much studied) cancer cluster implies that the results are a fluke. But what interests me is the fact that the BFS seems to be intentionally spinning the results in the most onerous possible way:

The German researchers behind the new study, published online in the International Journal of Cancer, said they did not know whether radiation from the plants played a role in the cancers.

However Wolfram Koenig, director of the BFS, said: "Given the particularly high risk of nuclear radiation for children, and the inadequacy of data on the emissions of nuclear power plants, we must take the correlation between distance of residence and high risk of leukaemia very seriously."

Does anyone know if the entire study was an exercise in preconceptual science intended to legitimize the Germans' notorious anti-nuclear biases? It kind of looks that way to me.

Also, does anyone have any bets on how soon the Germans will reverse their anti-nuclear position? Given what will happen if they actually start shutting their plants down on the current schedule, they can't keep up their wishful thinking for too much longer. They seem to be so far gone, however, that it may actually take the widespread environmental and economic catastrophe that will result from this pig-headed policy to result in such a shift. Still, it can't be more than 15 years max.

England Heading Back to the Future

The long-anticipated announcement from the British government endorsing new nuclear construction has finally been made public. This is, of course, very good news for Britain, as the closure of existing nuclear plants there over the next two decades would probably have posed insurmountable challenges for British electrical infrastructure. It is also a critical step in the ongoing nuclear renaissance, and a massive defeat for the anti-nuclear power movement worldwide. Indeed, events unfolding in Britain have simultaneously disproved a number of longstanding canards that continue to be repeated by nuclear power opponents, and I believe it wise for advocates of the technology to familiarize themselves with events in Britain as ammunition for debate.

The Labour government has followed a long and twisted path to reach its current position of nuclear power. I must admit that I find an enormous amount to dislike in "New Labour," as it was dubbed years ago, but this is one area where I think they've gotten it right. What cannot be emphasized enough is that Labour would never have come to endorse this position without regarding it as an urgent necessity, as nuclear power is an enormous political liability in Britain. Indeed, the evolution of Labour's Energy White Papers over the last few years is indicative of this. In 2003, Labour seriously proposed the kind of gargantuan renewable energy scheme favored by so many environmentalists. Thousands and thousands of windmills would dot the British countryside and coast, shuttling power from one part of the country to another via a high-tech "supergrid." This was, of course, pleasing to the environmentalist lobby; but when figures both within and without the UK government studied the physical implications of the scheme, they were dismayed to discover that it simply wouldn't work. Indeed, it is from the research inspired by this quandary that we have the best-balanced and authoritative analyses of renewable energy (that I've seen, anyhow): the success of renewable energy is a political necessity in Britain, and the British were forced to grapple with the real-world impossibility of this. And today we saw the fruits of their discoveries: the final admission that Helen Caldicott is wrong and that nuclear power is the answer.

What is perhaps even more instructive than the British political reversal on nuclear power is the fact that both Labour and the Tories insist that nuclear power is to receive no subsidies, but that private industry is actually stepping up to provide the capital. This is because the British government is in fact subsidizing new nuclear plants, albeit not in the usual sense of the term. British policy guarantees that no new fossil fuel plants will be built there anytime soon, as carbon capture and storage are not yet economical (and if current trends hold, may never be). At the same time, the impending closure of the existing nuclear plants, along with existing fossil fuel plants under Britain's ambitious plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, guarantee ample demand for electrical generation in even the near future. Although the government is still planning to construct innumerable windmills, these do not really pose and serious threats to nuclear generation. Indeed, electricity prices in the UK are probably going to increase dramatically in the next few decades, even with the new nuclear plants. So at least in Britain, nuclear power is a pretty sure bet. The investors may not make back their money for 10-15 years, but after that they are likely to roll in a near-inconceivable amount of lucre for their troubles. If anyone tries to tell you that nuclear power is uneconomical, you might be wise to inform them of Britain's example. Hopefully it'll finally get Amory Lovins to stop repeating his ridiculous line about "no private risk capital in nuclear power," but somehow I doubt that'll happen.

But in any case, today was a landmark for nuclear power. Although I won't consider the anti-nukes truly defeated until the German government makes the same reversal (and however improbable that seems now, in a few decades they'll probably have no choice), the world is truly going our way.

Does The Power to Save the World Have What It Takes?

I received a copy of Gwyneth Cravens' new book, The Power to Save the World, as a Christmas gift and read it with considerable interest. I found the book interesting and informative overall, but I couldn't help but wonder if it is up to the task for which it was written- that is, to convince nuclear power skeptics to reconsider the issue. This is no small order, as I'm sure anyone who has followed the nuclear power issue with any interest is well aware.

As I was reading the book, I attempted to imagine what a hypothetical nuclear power opponent would make of Cravens' arguments. I realized, however, that I simply don't understand the thinking of your typical nuclear power skeptic. Having grown up in Oak Ridge, I have never conceived of nuclear technology as exotic, or particularly dangerous. Because of this, the stereotypical arguments against nuclear power that essentially prey on public anxieties stemming from its supposedly "unnatural" nature have always struck me as bewildering and laughable. Because of this, the mind of a nuclear power opponent is simply alien to me.

One of the heartening developments of the last few years is the fact that people of my generation seem far more open-minded about nuclear power than those of a few decades ago. Indeed, many self-identified environmentalists in the under-30 set now hold this position, much to the consternation of older anti-nuclear activists. (There was a fascinating article about this in the Earth Island Journal a few months ago, that admitted that large numbers of young environmentalists are basically pro-nuclear, to the great consternation of their elders who run the actual organizations.) I can imagine readers in this category finding Cravens' book cogent and reasonable. At the same time, The Power to Save the World has some weaknesses that provide openings for anti-nuclear activists to attack the book.

The most serious of these is probably Cravens' coverage of non-proliferation issues. While I wholly agree with her arguments on the issue- namely, that civilian nuclear power generally and reactor-grade plutonium don't really pose great proliferation risks- they aren't supported as well as they need to be to forestall dismissive criticism. Importantly, Cravens overextends the point that civilian reactors have been divorced from weapons production. While it is true that nuclear weapons states have acquired the bomb without possessing civilian nuclear power, there is one case in which "civilian" reactors were used to bolster the stockpile of a nuclear state- namely, the early MAGNOX reactors in the UK. I can easily imagine an anti-nuclear critic latching onto a quibble like this and using it to dismiss the book as a whole. Cravens may also be too glib regarding the possibility of building weapons with reactor-grade plutonium- although I agree that this is a relative non-issue, the book's failure to really grapple with this issue opens it up to attacks of the sort that the Nuclear Control Institute used to perpetrate.

I hate to sound so negative of the book. Although the overall argument was anything but shocking to me, I learned quite a bit. The sections on Subseabed and WIPP were particularly well-done, in my opinion. I had honestly always thought that Subseabed was simply crazy, and was surprised to learn that it was a far better-reasoned idea than I'd assumed. A particularly delightful part of the book is its introduction by Richard Rhodes. His own brief account of his own journey from being a nuclear power skeptic in the 1970s to being a proponent of the technology today is particularly powerful, especially since Rhodes became a reknowned authority on nuclear weapons issues in the intervening years. But does it have what it takes to change the minds of nuclear power skeptics? I'd love to hear any accounts you might have of how readers who weren't already in favor of nuclear power responded to The Power to Save the World.

[As an aside, I'd like to draw your attention to the section of the Amazon.com page for the book titled "Customers who searched for "The Power to Save the World" also expressed interest in:"- if this is any indication of the book's readership it may not be reaching nuclear power skeptics much. I really hate to see Cravens' book associated with dreck like The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism).]

Bill Richardson: 20 Years Behind the Times, or My Candidate?

From the New Hampshire debate:

Governor RICHARDSON: Charlie, when I was secretary of Energy, that was one of my responsibilities, securing nuclear stockpiles, nuclear materials, mainly with the Soviet Union. And I went there many time; we made progress. But since then there's been a proliferation of loose nuclear weapons, mainly in the hands of terrorists, that could cross presumably a border, that could be smuggled in in a cargo ship with our very weak port security.

If I'm elected president, I will do two things. First, I will seek immediate negotiations with the Soviet Union and other nuclear states to reduce the number of nuclear weapons.

As a student of nuclear policy I'm surprised to learn that lots of nuclear weapons have fallen into the hands of terrorists, but I'm much more surprised to learn that the Soviet Union still exists. I was under the impression that the USSR ceased to exist back in December 1991. However, Governor Richardson's policy platform may include a "revive the Soviet Union" plank of which I was unaware. Seeing as such a revival would do wonders for my job prospects as a sovietologist, I am naturally in favor of it.

I wonder what the positions of the other candidates are on reviving the USSR so we can initiate disarmament negotiations with it? ;)

Harvey Wasserman's Orwellian Redefinition of "Victory"

Harvey Wasserman's latest column, Anti-nuclear renaissance: a powerful but partial and tentative victory over atomic energy, is now available for your perusal over at FreePress.org. I had been wondering how Wasserman would spin the fact that nuclear power ended up receiving loan guarantees despite all the efforts of anti-nuclear campaigners to prevent it. And now we have our answer.

I'm personally quite confused. I'm having a hard time interpreting this development as anything but a "partial and tentative" disaster for NukeFree.org. Wasserman does have a few relevant points to make in his favor, most importantly that "the Appropriations Bill finally passed both houses of Congress in late December. But the legislative standing and ultimate outcome for the loan guarantees is murky at best, with legal and procedural experts still debating over what exactly has been done. ... Robert Alvarez, a former long-time employee of the Energy Department, now Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, says the nature of the provision leaves the legal standing of the guarantees in limbo and could “paralyze (some say strangle) the loan program.”

But this is certainly not a given, and in fact events could swing in the exact opposite direction: Wasserman admits that "Based on the 2005 Energy Act, the $18.5 billion can be seen as just a benchmark number, with the DOE technically capable of issuing all the guarantees it wants. Long-standing Congressional procedures may also be used to interpret the submission requirement as merely informational, granting Congress no power to stop the DOE from issuing the guarantees once they're reviewed."

Unfortunately, the argument devolves into bizarre, nonsensical assertions like
"With the guarantees, reactor builders will be insulated from all that, and could simply build as many plants as the Congress is willing to underwrite. That the Congressional Budget Office has predicted a 50% default rate on these proposed loans, may be of no consequence to them. They could simply suck as much available capital into new reactors as the DOE will underwrite."

Wasserman claims this despite the fact that he admitted earlier in the column that the loan guarantees only cover 80% of costs- so any prospective reactor builders stand to lose billions of their own dollars if they fail to complete their projects. NEI's analysis pointed out that this would ensure that no utility would begin one of these projects without every intent of completing it. Indeed, it's difficult to fathom where the Congressional Budget Office got its 50% figure from. I tried to find documentation on the CBO website explaining this figure, but I was unable to find an analysis supporting what seems to be a vastly overinflated figure.

The greatest logical gaffes, however, occur towards the end of the column:

But without those guarantees, the pro-nuclear renaissance will die in a puff of radioactive hype. "As fossil fuels diminish in supply, and are curtailed due to global warming, no new reactors will be built here. All available capital for new energy supply must flow instead to renewables and efficiency."

I have a hard time believing that Wasserman is unaware of the current scramble for so-called "clean" fossil fuel energy technologies, which are the actual competition of new nuclear plants. Although natural gas and oil supplies are waning, the United States possesses massive supplies of coal, and is the site of the world's greatest reserves of this resource. So resource depletion is not going to impact the coal industry anytime soon.

"According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, some $6 billion in new wind farms are currently under construction in this country. Billions more are pouring in solar, bio-fuels, ocean thermal, wave, tidal and other forms of green power. "

It is true that billions of dollars are being invested in renewables, although this does not necessarily mean that renewables are market winners in any sense. Far more so than nuclear, renewable energy is dependent on Government intervention to survive. Renewables get loan guarantees, tax credits, and most importantly, mandates. Would utilities be investing so much of their capital in renewable energy without inflexible mandates demanding that they purchase these technologies? I seriously doubt it.

It is interesting, however, that Wasserman mentions the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It just so happens that I just read a PowerPoint presentation made by Dr. Dan E. Arvizu, the director of the NREL, at a conference back in September. This presentation contains a very interesting slide (page 5 of the .pdf) regarding the future of America's electrical generation industry. In the most optimistic scenario, about 25% of America's electricity is projected as coming from renewable sources by 2040. Take note of the fact that the optimistic scenario calls for maintaining current nuclear generation capacity- which in the 2040 timeframe implies the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants. Indeed, the slide argues that new nuclear power plants are not regarded by the NREL as a threat to expanded renewable generation.

"Indeed, if this tuneful victory over Pete Domenici's single-sentence insertion into the Energy Bill of 2007 holds through the end of 2008, it may someday be remembered as a landmark step toward a green-powered Earth. "

I'm not sure what "tuneful" means, but given the technical and economic impossibility of Wasserman's energy vision, I'm personally quite confident that this will not be the case.

Some Bad History from Harvey Wasserman

Harvey Wasserman has trotted out his old saw about the Paley Commission Report again.

According to Wasserman:
In 1952, President Harry Truman's Blue Ribbon “Paley Commission” Report showed that the future of American energy was with the sun and wind. Predicting 15 million solar-heated American homes by 1975, the administration pointed the way to a green, energy efficient economy. One that would have avoided the current climate crisis, and rendered the nation energy self-sufficient.

But in December, 1953, at the behest of the nuclear weapons industry, President Dwight Eisenhower told the world its energy would come from atomic reactors. The “Peaceful Atom” would provide electricity “too cheap to meter.” When no utilities would invest in it, the Republican administration offered massive subsidies, and federal insurance against liability for accidents and terror attacks. When it became clear the industry had no answer for its radioactive waste problem, the government promised to take care of it. Federal agencies promoted the technology while allegedly regulating it.

Readers who saw my earlier post on the Paley Commission know that this is a load of balderdash, but I'd like to particularly call attention to Wasserman's claim that the report "pointed the way to a green, energy efficient economy." The Paley Commission predicted the United States consuming several times as much coal in 1975 as it actually does in 2007. It predicted that nearly every imaginable natural resource would be used as fast as it could be pulled from the ground. Its predictions were, with almost no exceptions, wrong.

Much like Wasserman himself.

As for "Atoms for Peace," this isn't the way it happened... at all. There was no "behest of the nuclear weapons industry," as the nuclear weapons industry was probably the most socialized entity in US history in its early years. (My entire hometown was planned, owned, and operated by the U.S. government until 1959. I grew up going to church in a standardized, Army Corps of Engineers-issued chapel.) Also, Wasserman's claim that "no utility would invest in it" is simply wrong. American utilities risked considerable amounts of their own capital on the first-generation nuclear plants knowing that they would be unprofitable. It's true that there were subsidies, but the construction of fossil fuel plants was heavily subsidized in the 1950s as well. Simultaneously, the Soviet decision to pursue civilian nuclear technology was made before Eisenhower's 1953 speech- at a time when nuclear resources were desperately needed by the Soviet military. Indeed, Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" strategy was to try and cripple the Soviet nuclear weapons program by convincing them to divert fissile material to an international repository of fuel for civilian nuclear enterprises. This is widely understood by historians, but for some reason Wasserman seems incapable of acknowledging it.

Interesting Article on Lovins

I just found this piece on Amory Lovins in the Energy Tribune:
Green Energy Advocate Amory Lovins: Guru or Fakir?
It says all the things I've been trying to say, with much better eloquence and evidence.

A representative quote:

The facts plainly show that Lovins has been consistently wrong about the ability of renewables to take large amounts of market-share from fossil fuels. He’s been proven wrong about the long-term ability of efficiency to reduce overall energy consumption. And yet, despite being so wrong for so long, he keeps getting awards and prizes by the forklift-load. And the fact that the Lovins love-fest continues unabated causes no small bit of antipathy among some long-time energy watchers. One of them is Vaclav Smil, the polymath and distinguished professor of geography at the University of Manitoba who has written numerous books on energy. “Inexplicably,” Smil wrote recently, Lovins “retains his guru aura no matter how wrong he is.”

The article strongly supports my case that Lovins simply does not understand Jevons' paradox:

Lovins refuses to admit that his forecast was flat wrong. In an e-mail, Lovins said he couldn’t verify the quote and that the Business Week piece was “widely misquoted.” In his initial response to the question, he said that “the general sentiment is correct in its historical context.” What that means, I have no idea. A few days later, after I sent him the full text of the Business Week story, Lovins sent another response, in which he again declared that the magazine had misquoted him and that “Cost and climate pressures and revolutionary efficiency techniques will ultimately make electricity demand stabilize and then decline in most states as it has begun to do in some. Most electricity is now wasted, and eventually economics wins. New central plants are uncompetitive and getting more so.”

In fact, the author actually asked Lovins directly, and got this response:

Despite the evidence stacked against him, Lovins insists that Jevons – and Smil, and especially Mills – are wrong. In an e-mail response to my question of whether Jevons was wrong, Lovins replied, “Broadly, yes.” He goes on to try to turn the point into a non sequitur by saying, that if his thesis were true, if we wanted to save energy, “we should mandate inefficient equipment.”

One area the article doesn't go into, however, is the area in which Lovins' claims are closest to my field of study- nuclear proliferation. I'm planning a future post on this issue.

USA Today on New Nukes

... leaves a lot to be desired.

From the article:

Nuclear reactors generate heat that produces electricity when uranium atoms split. In the reactor core, uranium is kept in water to prevent it from overheating, melting down and releasing radiation.

A meltdown by itself typically would not be disastrous because the reactor sits in a concrete containment structure to prevent radiation from escaping.

However, a meltdown could cause a buildup of temperature and pressure that ruptures the containment building. A massive release of radioactive gas into a surrounding community could destroy or damage human cells and cause death or cancer.

Lots of uncritical reporting from a recent Union of Concerned Scientists report, too. But note one bright spot in the UCS press release:

"The risks posed by global warming may turn out to be so grave that the United States and the world cannot afford to rule out a substantial expansion of nuclear power," said Dr. Gronlund."

Can you imagine a UCS scientist making this statement even five years ago? Perhaps there's hope for them after all. We should make every possible effort to build bridges with the open-minded and reasonable "nuclear power skeptics"- the long-term outcome of the current nuclear debate depends on it.

What Disarmament Should Be

Recently on Physical Insights I expressed the opinion that Helen Caldicott is just as much a liability to arms control as she is to the movement against civilian nuclear power. As my readers know, I'm a vociferous advocate for the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. At the same time, I'm in favor of doing everything possible to reduce the threat of nuclear war. As much fun as it may be to poke fun in the writings of people like Caldicott, I feel like I need to be more positive and introduce figures whose efforts on behalf of disarmament are worthy of praise and acclaim.

In general, I believe that arms control has suffered from the fact that many of its proponents have conceived of it as a mass protest movement, rather than as an exercise in intellectual debate or policymaking. Although some of the greatest intellects of the 20th century wrote learned treatises against nuclear war- Bertrand Russell, for instance- it seems to me that too little attention has been paid in the disarmament field to the matter of sitting down and doing the requisite research. Another problem now is that many of the people who did this work in the past have died or retired, leaving too many puppet-wielding marchers, and not enough scholars.

Another problem was that the disarmament community lacked competent Soviet specialists. (This was not limited to disarmament: knowledgeable Sovietologists were always quite rare, so the government was only slightly less deprived.) Before Gorbachev western knowledge of the Soviet nuclear complex was extremely limited, and rumor and hearsay substituted for fact.

In my opinion, the disarmament debate needs the following qualities:
1. The highest levels of intellectual rigor, research, and decorum;
2. Thorough knowledge of the societies, cultures, and governments possessing nuclear weapons or contemplating their acquisition;
3. A Realist policy outlook (at least in the near-term) that eschews wishful thinking in favor of real, foreseeable measures that are achievable in the current geopolitical environment.

I believe that Pavel Podvig is the best current example of an arms control expert who embodies these three qualities. Firstly, Podvig's research is nothing short of first-class. His edited volume on the Russian nuclear arsenal, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, is without a doubt the best work available on the subject. I seriously doubt that there is anyone outside of the Russian government whose knowledge of the subject is broader than Podvig's. On the second point, Podvig benefits from the fact that he is Russian, and was educated at first-class Russian educational institutions. On the third point, Podvig understands that the only way to restart disarmament in the near term is to try and repair the fraying relationships between the Russian and American governments and militaries that were forged in the 1980s and 1990s. Closer US-Russian cooperation is the key to arms control.

I don't agree with Podvig on everything. I have a very different take on the motivation behind some of the recent decisions made by the Russian government- the MIRVing of the Topol-M missile, for instance. But I utterly respect him. Furthermore, Podvig has been extremely hospitable to me and (I presume) to others who send him inquiries. He also has a wonderful blog that I heartily recommend. In my humble opinion, we need more people like Pavel Podvig.

Sticking Up For "Our Man Adams"

I noticed that Amory Lovins' economic analysis of nuclear power was referenced on a thread on Deltoid, Tim Lambert's weblog, and I posted a link to Rod Adams' many excellent posts on the subject. This received a rather hostile response:

Try actually reading the posts-"

My Dear D'oh (Sovietologist):

I did read the first sentence of Adams' post and it is an ad hom attack.

That's all I need to read.

If "Adams is a genuine nuclear energy expert" as you claim, he would not need to resort to such attacks.

I don't read ad hom crap.

Your man Adams is pathetic.

Well, besides the fact that Rod's "ad hominem attack" is really a series of factual, if unflattering statements about Lovins (quote: "One of the great ironies in today's America is that a two time college drop out and Friends of the Earth campaigner who spent a lot of time advocating the use of coal is often held up as a hero of the environmental movement while also making a lot of money as a consultant for the natural gas industry, Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense."), I don't know what to say. Are we going to let this outrage stand? I beseech the readers of this blog to go and stand up for "our man Adams" over at Deltoid. Just remember to be polite!

Why Does Andrew Cuomo hate Poor People?

The NYT has reported that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has declared that he wants Indian Point shut down immediately. This raises the obvious question: why does he hate New York's poor?

Obviously, Cuomo doesn't have any idea of the sheer magnitude of the problems that shutting down Indian Point would create for his constituents. Maybe he thinks blackouts and the social chaos that follows them are a good thing. Maybe he believes that New Yorkers will gladly pay $20+ billion dollars in additional electricity bills over the next 25 years.

Maybe he has no idea just what hardship these problems would cause for New York's least privileged. Maybe he just doesn't care.

In any case, Andrew Cuomo is no more a friend of the poor than predatory lenders or Dick Cheney. Closing Indian Point? Not progressive, not democratic.

A Little Historiography

I apologize for the lengthy interlude since my last posting. I've been tied up with end-of-the-semester responsibilities.

One of the great frustrations of my field of study is the fact that it is (to my judgment) dominated by people who aren't very knowledgeable about the real issues. My specialty is the history of nuclear technology in the Soviet Union, but the study of the nuclear arms race is dominated by Americanists. These fall into two categories:

1. Cold War Triumphalists. The premier example of these is John Lewis Gaddis, the "doyen" of Cold War studies. The problem with these scholars is that they generally know little or nothing about the USSR, so their historical narratives are very one -sided. They also tend to have little or no technical knowledge about nuclear technology. Although historians in this category are often famous, they're actually fairly rare in my experience.

2. Peace Movement Hagiographers. A good example of one of these is Lawrence S. Wittner, who wrote an enormous three-volume history of the anti-nuclear movement that claims that it was the efforts of protesters that shaped the history and outcome of the arms race. These scholars tend to glorify the peace movement because they participated in it themselves. Unfortunately, this generally blinds them to the fact that the movement was and is an utter failure. These scholars dominate the nuclear field outside of political and military history- i.e., they tend to write histories of Atomic Culture. At the same time, they generally have no knowledge of the USSR or nuclear technology either.

In my view, both of these groups are deficient. No-one without at least a superficial knowledge of Soviet history and culture can claim to understand the dynamics of the arms race. This is not to say that there aren't some fine scholars (and some fine scholarship) in both categories; it's just that most of what's been written is just plain inadequate.

What causes problems for me is that my particular sub-field (civil defense) is dominated by a particularly uninformed and dogmatic division of the latter group. All of them are Americanists, and the average level of scholarship is simply abysmal. There are some exceptions to the rule- I value Kenneth L. Rose's One Nation Underground and Laura McEnaney's Civil Defense Begins At Home. Neither of these scholars is knowledgeable about Russian history, nor are they experts on nuclear weapons effects; however, their arguments are restrained and fairly well-researched.

And then there's this.

It's kind of hard to describe my enormous frustration with this book. As someone who has done extensive archival (and non-archival) research on civil defense, I can assure you that the author's thesis (that the "civil defense protest movement" killed civil defense) is totally unsupported by the historical record. It's also obvious if you search old H-Net postings that she came up with this idea back in the early 1990s, and that she had decided before doing her research that this would be her argument. (A little aside: I used to have this kind of take on civil defense too. Then I went to the National Archives and went though Record Group 304.) In any case, check out the endorsement from Helen Caldicott herself!

My problem is that these are probably the people that are going to review my research when I submit it for publication. No amount of fact or reason will save me from the fact that they are simply anti-nuclear. I'm hoping the worst of them retire soon.

What did I tell you?

Observe!

Take that, Lovins!

The Myth of a Path Not Taken- the Paley Commision Report

A myth within the anti-nuclear movement that I find particularly galling is summarized neatly by this excerpt from a 2000 op-ed by Arjun Makhijani:

One of the official reviews of the resource situation in the early 1950s was conducted by a commission appointed by President Truman, called The President's Materials Policy Commission. It came to be known as the Paley Commission, after its chairman.

In the energy sector, the prime area of concern that the Paley Commission addressed was petroleum. The 1952 report predicted oil shortages by the 1970s. Furthermore, the Paley Commission made a strong negative assessment of nuclear energy and called for "aggressive research in the whole field of solar energy - an effort in which the United States could make an immense contribution to the welfare of the world." The Commission also encouraged work on wind energy and biomass. However, despite the Commission's conclusions, a significant renewable energy effort was not made until the oil crisis was upon the US in the 1970s.

Given the assessment that nuclear energy could meet only a modest fraction of energy requirements at best, it seems illogical that nuclear energy was pursued vigorously rather than solar and other renewable energy sources. Evidently, it was assumed that renewable energy sources would not provide the same propaganda capital in the Cold War as nuclear energy. Interestingly, a lack of government money for renewables was accompanied by a lack of corporate research effort and an absence of interest on the part of large numbers of scientists and engineers.

Anti-nuclear activists from Amory Lovins to Harvey Wasserman have cited the existence of the Paley Commision report as evidence that renewable energy was seriously considered during the 1950s, only to be rejected in favor of nuclear energy. However, this is simply not what happened.

I'm not sure that this blog has any readers old enough to remember the Korean War, which provided the historical context for the Paley Report. What is generally forgotten in the United States is that many of the same sorts of economic controls were imposed during the Korean War as were in WWII. One particular area in which these controls had particularly significant effects was in the area of raw material supply. Between the demands of war industries and the Office of Defense Mobilization stockpiling materials for a potentially global and nuclear war, serious deficits emerged. With these came understandable anxieties about the long-term outlook of America's supply of raw materials. The Paley Commission was assembled during the last years Truman Administration to produce an authoritative report addressing the subject.

The report was published in mid-1952 and remains an interesting document, as it provides insight into how less optimistic economists projected intermediate-term economic growth in the early 1950s. The commission presented a projection of what the American economy would look like in 1975. There is a serious caveat, however: the Paley Commission report was incorrect in almost all of its predictions, often by an enormous margin.

It's true that the Paley Commission predicted that there would be oil shortages in the 1970s. However, it also predicted that there would be coal shortages, and chromium shortages, and shortages of almost everything else. In short, rather than being a prescient prediction of the future, the Paley Report was like a stopped clock that is still right twice a day.

The basis of the Paley Report's errors lies in its overall economic projections. It underestimated GDP growth and private domestic investment enormously, while simultaneously anticipating massive increases in demand for certain raw materials that never materialized. The Paley Commission was also pessimistic about the prospects for commercial nuclear power. As a result, they predicted massive energy shortages that were radically different qualitatively than those that actually occurred.

It is true that the Paley Commission recommended massive investment in renewable energy technology. But this was a result of its errors, not because it was presbyopic. Its authors thought that solar water heaters would be necessary because there would be insufficient fossil fuels and nuclear-generated electricity would be unavailable. In practice, they were wrong on both counts. And the actual document is not exactly something Amory Lovins would endorse. Richard N. Cooper wrote in 1975 that "... the report gave little encouragement to true conservation, and only general encouragement (rather than concrete recommendations) to the development of substitute materials."

Anti-nuclear activists who cite the report make much of its pessimistic expectations for nuclear power. But this was not because the commission had some magic insight into the problems that nuclear generation would encounter. It was more that they assumed that raw materials shortfalls would affect nuclear generation as well, and underestimated the speed at which the technology would mature. It's important to remember just how primitive existing nuclear reactors were in 1951- most of them were crude plutonium-production reactors, and many respected nuclear experts believed that it would be many decades before their commercial exploitation became remotely practical. It is unreasonable to expect the Paley Commission to have been aware of the ongoing reactor research that would produce practical reactors- after all, much of it was highly classified. This changed not because of some Cold War propaganda plot, but rather because the PWR emerged as a highly promising technology soon after the report was published. At the same time, reactor research in Idaho, Tennessee, and elsewhere had produced five different potential commercial reactor designs , with plans to build operational versions of each by the early 1960s. The enthusiastic participation of large utilities in this research program indicates that they expected nuclear power to be a highly lucrative endeavor.

The historical influence of the Paley Report was minimal. This was not because it failed to suit Cold War propaganda needs, but because it was wrong. Wrong about economic growth, wrong about growth in the demand for raw materials, and wrong about the practicality of nuclear power. Once Korean War-era government controls were lifted and reactor research progressed this became abundantly clear, and economists became optimistic that technological advancement would obviate the effects of any supply deficits that emerged. And so far, this optimistic view has been absolutely correct. In any case, the Paley Report is not proof that there was a "path not taken," but rather an indication of how short-sighted pessimistic predictions of the future often are.

More on Hillary

See the two YouTube videos at NEI Nuclear Notes.

Response From Zach Wamp

This morning I received the following email in response to the message I sent to my Congressman using the link on Harvey Wasserman's website:

Dear *****:

As our country looks for ways to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear energy must be part of the equation to help meet our country's future energy demands. As chairman of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus for seven years, I am among the most outspoken Members of Congress on alternative sources of energy. Nuclear energy is essential to providing low cost energy in the Tennessee Valley and we need to expand its use to other parts of the country.

Yucca Mountain has been authorized as a nuclear waste repository, but I am also a strong supporter of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative (GNEP), which supports nuclear power and the reprocessing of nuclear waste.

The research and testing should and can be done in Oak Ridge but the reprocessing of this waste will likely be handled in a more remote location in Idaho. There are many questions the Department of Energy and Congress must consider before a final decision is made.

We must determine if a large scale reprocessing plant or smaller scale pilot plant will work best and how many regional facilities are needed. We have several missions going strong at the lab and at Y-12 and I am looking forward to what the future holds for Oak Ridge. I am sending you an article from The Oak Ridger about this very issue.

Thanks for being an active citizen and supporter of nuclear energy. Keep up the good work!

Wamp touts TVA role in nuclear waste project

SPRING CITY (AP) - The Tennessee Valley Authority is vying to host a national demonstration project for recycling spent nuclear fuel, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp said Thursday.

"I believe TVA is going to ... prove to our country that you can deal with the No. 1 liability associated with the nuclear industry and that is the waste," the Chattanooga Republican said after touring an unfinished Watts Bar Nuclear Plant reactor that TVA intends to complete in five years.

America needs nuclear power to meet growing demand for energy and power sources that don't foul the air like coal-fired plants, he said.

But the country will never be able to find enough places to bury the radioactive waste already piling up at nuclear plants, including TVA's, he said.

"You can't build Yucca Mountain after Yucca Mountain after Yucca Mountain," Wamp said of the long-stalled Nevada site for nuclear waste. "As a matter of fact, we are proving it is kind of hard to build the first one."

But if an anticipated nuclear revival develops as predicted, the United States will need six more Yucca Mountains over the next 50 years, said Wamp, a member of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.

"So let's look at what the British and French do and prove to our country that you can close the fuel cycle. Reprocess the waste back into energy - safely and efficiently," he said.

Wamp is confident that reprocessing works. He said he's seen it work on a small scale at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Reprocessing the waste to extract still-usable uranium could help recycle about 80 percent into new fuel. Officials estimate the remainder would still have to be buried at a facility like Yucca Mountain.

Toward that end, the Department of Energy is reviewing proposals from four industry groups for a nuclear fuel reprocessing pilot project under the Bush administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative.

Cooperative agreements with the groups are expected to be announced next month. They will then have until 2008 to come up with more detailed business plans.

TVA, the nation's largest public utility, has incorporated its processes into proposals from three of the four groups - AREVA Federal Services LLC, EnergySolutions LLC and General Electric-Hitachi Nuclear Americas LLC. The fourth group is General Atomics.

Warmest Regards,

Zach Wamp
Member of Congress

Gore on New Nukes: They're Going to "Play a Role" in Solving Climate Crisis

From this article in Fortune:

Toward the end of the meeting at Kleiner's offices with Ausra, the solar thermal company, one of the executives starts to boast that the plants Ausra is building will thrash nuclear, geothermal, clean coal, and photovoltaic solar solutions. Gore cuts in, a mildly alarmed look on his face. "You know, all of these technologies are going to play a role," he says. "I hate to see you assassinate the competition as a key messaging point."

Now, if only he'd express this sentiment publicly and explicitly...

Delusions of Grandeur

I just discovered this recent addition to the antinuclear blogosphere:
Nuclear Jesus and the NEI Kids
("NEI Kids" stands for "Nuclear Energy Indigo Children," which seems a bit redundant. Wondering what an indigo child is? Aren't you sorry you asked?)

With enemies like this, we don't need allies. The mixture of New Age crackpottery and sheer blasphemy seems perfectly calculated to alienate mainstream readers. Anyone who asks "WWJD?" and responds by redefining himself as "Jesus" isn't going very far in Red-state America.

Also, given Jesus' predilection for clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and bringing light to the world, I'm pretty sure he'd build the reactors. Just a thought.

Is This Blog Inpenetrable?

.... apparently.

Hillary: Secretly Pro-Nuclear?

Hillary Clinton's campaign recently released her energy plan. While I can't say that I'm thrilled by its actual contents (a lot of it seems to have been inspired by a certain resident of Snowmass, CO), I believe that it's less menacing in actuality than it appears in print. Take, for instance, the section on nuclear power:

Addressing Nuclear Power: Hillary believes that energy efficiency and renewables are better options for addressing global warming and meeting our future power needs, because of significant unresolved concerns about the cost of producing nuclear power, the safety of operating plants, waste disposal, and nuclear proliferation. Hillary opposes new subsidies for nuclear power, but believes that we need to take additional steps to deal with the problems facing nuclear power. She would strengthen the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and direct it to improve safety and security at nuclear power plants; terminate work at the flawed Yucca Mountain site and convene a panel of scientific experts to explore alternatives for disposing of nuclear waste; and continue research, with a focus on lower costs and improving safety.

At first glance, this appears very anti-nuclear. But in fact, I believe that Hillary would never be using this kind of language if she didn't think that she might need to support nuclear at some point in the future. Let's break it down line-by-line:

"Hillary believes that energy efficiency and renewables are better options for addressing global warming and meeting our future power needs, because of significant unresolved concerns about the cost of producing nuclear power, the safety of operating plants, waste disposal, and nuclear proliferation."
This is mostly nonsense, of course, but it's required for anyone in Sen. Clinton's end of the political spectrum. Taken in context with other things said here and elsewhere, I believe that this can be dismissed as window dressing.

"Hillary opposes new subsidies for nuclear power, but believes that we need to take additional steps to deal with the problems facing nuclear power."
On the first point, the cap-and-trade scheme described in Hillary's energy plan would operate as a de facto subsidy for nuclear, although without more details it's impossible to say how large it would be. I personally believe that any such scheme strong enough to seriously discourage carbon emissions will be enough to carry nuclear on its own. As for the "additional steps," these are probably a blessing in disguise.

"She would strengthen the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and direct it to improve safety and security at nuclear power plants;"
What does this mean? My guess is "not much." And in any case, improvements to NRC procedures aren't a bad thing. Done correctly, they'll just demonstrate how superior nuclear power is. And given Hillary's "agnosticism," I doubt they'll be vengeful attempts to cripple the industry.

"... terminate work at the flawed Yucca Mountain site and convene a panel of scientific experts to explore alternatives for disposing of nuclear waste..."
I am probably in the minority here, but I think this is a Good Thing. This is probably the only way to get out of the nuclear waste disposal rut that the Ford and Carter Administrations got us into thirty years ago- for a Democrat to sponsor research into advanced fuel cycle management. Hanging the future of nuclear power on the Yucca facility is extremely foolish- so long as the opponents of nuclear power can cripple the nuclear industry by targeting one facility the prospects for a genuine "nuclear renaissance" are slim indeed. Now, I'm perfectly aware that geological repositories will still be needed in any case. However, if Yucca is mothballed, it can still be completed later. And with Yucca unavailable for storing material from civilian and military nuclear programs, the pressure will really be on to develop viable alternatives- like transmutation and pyroprocessing. Once these technologies are available, a future administration can complete Yucca or some other site, and the waste problem will finally be over.

" ...and continue research, with a focus on lower costs and improving safety."
Am I crazy, or does this sound like an endorsement of advanced reactor research? After all, Generation IV reactors are intended to do those two things... (Keep in mind that the Clinton Administration killed this sort of research in the 1990s, like the IFR. I may be wildly overoptimistic.)

Now, I'm no great fan of Hillary. I'm not exactly in the same end of the political spectrum (I'm a small-l libertarian), and there is much in this energy plan that I find absolutely horrifying. But I don't think that Hillary actually intends to carry out all of this if she gets into office. Parts of it, such as the carbon caps, are highly likely, but other sections are unlikely to pass even a firmly Democratic Congress. But this document is intended to shore up Hillary's support in the Democratic base. I suspect her real energy policy is far more pragmatic, and that her "nuclear agnosticism" is a symptom of this. Her language on the nuclear power indicates a conscious calculation that she might have to endorse nuclear energy in the future- or maybe even an understanding that if she's elected she'll have to. After all, she's a smart woman, and Tony Blair had to do the same thing a few years ago.

Don't Do This In Your Bomb Shelter

Soviet Civil Defense

Speak Russian? Отлично! Прочитайте сразу!

Радиогальванизм- что это такое?

In the course of my studies into the history of the Soviet nuclear complex, I occasionally encounter descriptions of unusual research that I have never encountered in western sources. An example of one such discovery is радиогальванизм- literally "radiogalvanism." This is described in a book I purchased in St. Petersburg this summer titled Атомная энергия в мирных целях- "Atomic Energy in Peaceful Uses." Published in Leningrad in 1957, this volume contains chapters including "The Development of Science About the Atomic Nucleus" and "The Atomic Icebreaker." The final chapter, however, is on the subject of nuclear batteries, and it is this chapter that describes the "radiogalvanic source of current."

As the name implies, this kind of nuclear battery was the same kind of chemical battery that we're all familiar with- with a radioactive twist. The oxidation of the electrolyte was achieved by the use of a beta source. (The article suggests that alpha sources were also tested, but it states that the best results were achieved with beta sources.) According to the description in the book, the "coefficient of use of the energy of decay" entering into the oxidation process with their apparatus was 60%- and even if the battery could only capture a fraction of that back as usable electricity, that still puts most kinds of nuclear batteries to shame. The chapter concludes that "Several experiments, conducted according to these principles, yielded promising results."

I'm kind of skeptical. If this "betagalvanic nuclear battery" really worked so well, it's kind of hard to imagine how it became lost to history. The entire chapter was written by the scientists who performed the original research at the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute in 1954, so perhaps they exaggerated their success. Does anyone know of western experiments with devices like this? My attempts to find references to any on the internet came up with nothing.

Disappointing New Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

I believe that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has improved considerably in recent years. It seems that the current editorial staff is somewhat more hesitant to publish dubious articles written by people like Joseph Mangano. One area of marked improvement has been its coverage of Russian nuclear affairs. Years ago, the BAS occasionally published something about the Russian nuclear complex that was not simply ill-informed, but actually insane. (Perhaps I'm imagining it, but I remember an editorial piece that argued that the Russians would be better off not upgrading their early-warning systems, because they would trust the new systems too much and this would increase the likelihood of accidental nuclear war.) But now that Pavel Podvig is writing for them, things have really looked up. While I have some serious differences of opinion with Podvig, he is definitely the best analyst currently working on the subject of nuclear weapons in Russia. The September/October issue was quite strong, and included a special report titled "getting Power to the People" which I found fair, balanced, and to the point.

This does not mean that the magazine does not suffer regular lapses. There was, for instance, the May/June piece on the recent revival of the "nuclear winter" idea. The new nuclear winter studies make for interesting reading, if only because they admit that the original TTAPS study was as useless as its detractors said it was back in 1983. Unfortunately, the new models are almost as lacking in credibility as the old one, because the study simply guessed on the most important variable- the proportion of soot that would be lofted above the tropopause to begin with. The authors had no justification for this beyond "we think .8 is a reasonable value." I think it's probably off by at least a factor of 10, but I digress.

Unfortunately, the November/December BAS has more than its fair share of clunkers. The most distressing is a piece advertised on the cover as "A clear-eyed look at nuclear power risks." Unfortunately, what the magazine actually contains is an interview with Brice Smith. Smith, if you don't recall, is a former consultant at IEER and author of Insurmountable Risks, a book purporting to demonstrate that nuclear power is unnecessary to combat climate change. Smith states that proliferation, the risk of reactor accidents, and waste disposal , along with the cost of nuclear power, make it "a very risky technology overall." I think that's balderdash, but I won't give an in-depth critique here. What's significant is not that BAS included an interview with Smith, but that they characterized the perspective of this less-than-unbiased researcher as "clear-eyed."

Another disappointing piece was "Thinking Past Ourselves," an article by noted environmentalist Bill McKibben, which posits that "Climate change challenges us to move beyond a culture that has reduced nature to yet another consumable." McKibben believes that modern American society is hyperindividualistic, and that we should adopt a more communal, "sustainable" lifestyle. He literally argues that the "liberation" brought about in Western society by modern technology has gone too far. Words cannot describe the depth of my disdain for misanthropic luddites like McKibben- but this 2003 effort by Ronald Bailey comes pretty close.

A rare high point of the issue was a brief piece about civil defense. As civil defense is my specialty (I'm currently writing my thesis on Soviet civil defense), I was pleased to hear of efforts to revive the idea as a response to nuclear terrorism. It should also be noted that in most cases, shelter-in-place is the most efficacious response to radiation hazards resulting from nuclear power plant accidents. In fact, the grandiose evacuation schemes demanded by some state and local governments would result in unnecessary casualties, since the populace would receive less radiation exposure if they just stayed indoors. Because of this, I believe that it is actually immoral to keep these inane and dangerous requirements in the law books- and the nuclear power industry should make this fact abundantly clear to the government, the American public, and everybody else.

Why Harvey Wasserman May Win After All

I encountered this today and I realized that the ongoing debate over the energy bill has really missed the point. Basically, there's good reason to believe that President Bush will veto the bill because of the provisions related to fossil fuel power- which means the "$50 billion in loan guarantees" that have generated so much controversy in recent months may be a dead letter in any case.

I don't think that the editorials suggestion that the loan guarantees be spun out into separate legislation would end well for the nuclear industry. I suspect that such a bill would be tied up in committee and might never come up for a vote, and I have a hard time imagining it passing in both houses of Congress.

So Harvey Wasserman and his "NO NUKES!" minions may yet win after all- thanks to a veto from George W. Bush.

Amory Lovins: True Believer or Malevolent Deceiver?

Recently I have been having an interesting exchange with Rod Adams regarding Amory Lovins. I made an offhand comment that Harvey Wasserman's misunderstanding of the Jevons Paradox reminded me of Lovins, to which I received several incredulous responses. We had no disagreement about whether the paradox is compatible with Lovins' declared theories about the economic implications of energy efficiency- rather, we disagreed about Lovins' honesty. According to Rod Adams and Stewart Peterson, Lovins is perfectly aware of the implications of Jovens' paradox, but is mendacious about it because he knows that its true economic implications keep filthy fossil-fuel lucre rolling into Snowmass.

Now, I don't like Lovins any more than Rod Adams does, but I'm inclined to think he's not dishonest. He actually reminds me of a deluded cult leader more than a con man. One of the main reasons I think so is that Lovins has earnest acolytes who emerge from Snowmass and actually attempt to implement his theories in the real world. Take, for instance, this article in Business Week, which describes the misadventures (and partial disillusionment) of one such RMI apostle. On the other hand, Rod has far more experience with Lovins than I do, and uncovered his dishonest portrayal of his educational credentials. Perhaps I need to get to know Lovins better.

I think that Lovins has a fetish for certain things- energy efficiency, small, local generation, and so forth- and an irrational disdain for others, particularly nuclear power. The problem is that Lovins' theories make economic assumptions that are utterly heterodox- neither Karl Marx nor Milton Friedman would ever accept them. This is because Lovins assumes that individual people want to "do more with less" rather than "get the best deal they possibly can"- i.e., maximize utility. Lovins actually claims that "doing more with less" = maximizing utility, but this logic is so flimsy that I cannot understand why the man has gotten away with saying it for thirty years. Resource efficiency can be a critical aspect of maximizing utility- but as Jevons discovered back when my mustache was in style, the results of this are increased resource utilization.

Similar to the Communists of old, I think Lovins has a vision for social transformation that begins with the individual. The New Efficient Man will waste little or nothing, because this will be the New Morality. But besides this, he will embrace "soft" technologies that tread lightly on the earth, apparently because he will share Lovins' disdain for things like biotechnology. For reasons I don't really comprehend, making these "right" choices would somehow result in utopia, or at least a much-improved world. I have a hard time taking any of this seriously, to be honest. Compared to Marxism or other coherent ideologies with similar utopian goals, it's a half-baked, illogical mess.

Any thoughts? Also, does anyone know of a bonified economist who's taken the time to refute Lovins?

Awesome Article in the BAS

Check out this awesome article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
Nuclear Terrorism's Fatal Assumptions

This is the best piece I have ever seen on the subject. The problem of nuclear terrorism has been completely overblown, and most of the things "everyone knows" about the subject are simply wrong. Popular misconceptions about the potential misuse of ordinary civilian nuclear technology by terrorists, or the supposed ease of acquiring nuclear weapons, materials, and expertise in the former USSR, abound.

I'm planning to write a post about the usability of reactor-grade plutonium in nuclear weapons, and the reasons that I believe that the proliferation risks of this class of material have been grossly overestimated. The incredible thing is that a critical part of the debate hinges on an appeal to the authority of a single document produced by Sandia National Lab in the 1970s- a document that is probably being misinterpreted, at the very least. Besides this, there are excellent historical reasons for believing that this material is extremely difficult to use in nuclear explosives. I'll explain this in detail when I have time.

Renewable Energy and Economic Utility

I just noticed this post on the Sierra Club's new energy blog, and I was mystified by this statement:

"The opponents of clean energy like to fall back on that old chestnut, claiming it's jobs v. the environment--but never both. They argue that thousands will be thrown out of work as we transition to America's clean energy future. Unfortunately for our opponents--and fortunately for America's economy and environment--nothing could be further from the truth."

I have two major issues with this:

1) I read pretty widely on energy issues, and I have never seen this argument. Ever. I suppose someone has made it at some point, but if I had to guess it's probably somewhat less common than the "Tesla invented secret technology that could supply all our energy needs if Thomas Edison hadn't suppressed it" meme. In fact, it seems that just about everyone believes the opposite- for instance, the Apollo Alliance makes job creation the centerpiece of their renewable energy campaigning.

2) The idea that renewable energy "creates jobs" is economically dubious. Under some (probably most) circumstances job creation is good. But the supposed "advantage" of renewables in this area is based on replacing industries that aren't very labor intensive (fossil fuel and nuclear power) with labor-intensive substitutes. This is one of the reasons renewable energy is so expensive- all those new workers have to eat, after all. Now, if the marginal utility of renewable energy was vastly superior to conventional or nuclear power, the new jobs would be a net economic benefit. But a kilowatt-hour of electricity from a solar panel does the same job a kilowatt-hour from a nuclear plant does- and is several times as expensive. Taking environmental externalities into account helps renewables' case some- but I doubt that it's anywhere near enough to make up for the price difference in most cases, at least compared to a well-run nuclear plant.

Economically, this means that renewable energy isn't creating jobs at all- it's actually depriving other sectors of the economy of skilled labor while producing less utility (usable energy) than before.

This goes against the popular intuition that "more employment=better." But the problem with this logic is readily apparent from an example near and dear to my heart- the Soviet Union. In the USSR, there was "full employment." If greater employment was the key to economic success, the Soviets would have beaten us into the ground and I'd be studying the collapse of American capitalism instead of the other way around. But in an economic system that seeks to maximize utility, employment isn't about "more jobs," It's about "getting the most bang-per-buck." New technologies create jobs because they create new goods and services people want to buy, and therefore create new markets. They also free up labor by maximizing the productivity of the workers who remain. This may seem like a bad thing, but in the long run it's good for society- because the same work is getting done with fewer people and less money, and now more labor is available to create more utility. It's a cyclical process, and can be painful at times, but without it we'd be in the dustbin of history along with the Soviet Union.

So, we shouldn't be trying to "create more jobs with renewable energy." Instead, we should be building an economically rational energy infrastructure. This doesn't mean we should ignore environmental externalities or dismiss renewable power altogether. We should be trying to internalize the various externalities of energy sources- carbon emissions, toxic waste from semiconductor manufacture, wars over oil, and so on- and let the market create the energy supply we need. This supply would include "renewable" energy when it made economic and geographic sense- some wind, some hydro, some geothermal- but these wouldn't be forced into existence through Soviet-style "mandates." We need to build a better market and let the market decide.

But I believe that the real winner of this fair match-up would be nuclear power- whose spectacularly low labor intensity is an economic asset, and whose environmental externalities are, joule-for-joule, on par with renewables. In short, nuclear power can provide the clean, affordable energy America needs while fueling real economic growth.

Nuclear War on YouTube

Nice round-up on Salon.com of the ongoing battle:


As an aside, I've noticed that Salon.com is the only site I've seen so far where the commenters appear to be largely anti-nuclear power. I was a little disheartened by this because reader response to the entire No Nukes revival stunt has been so negative in other venues. But for a variety of reasons, I think that Wasserman's tactics may be more beneficial to our cause than his. His media grandstanding detracts attention from people like Amory Lovins who are capable of misleading people who have some actual knowledge of the issue. I'm tempted to do my own Wasserman rebuttal explaining why the example of Russia proves him utterly, utterly wrong, but I lack a camera and physically resemble a villain from a D.W. Griffith one-reeler, so I probably shouldn't.

Sticking it to Harvey Wasserman

I was recently struck by an urgent desire to subvert Harvey Wasserman's current antinuclear effort at NukeFree.org, so I used his "contact your representative" feature to send this message to Sen. Lamar Alexander and Rep. Zach Wamp:

Dear Sir:
In light of our nation's ongoing energy crisis, as well as climate change, it is vital that we develop a diverse portfolio of energy sources that will provide our citizens with cheap, safe energy for the foreseeable future. I believe that currently, nuclear power is the only technology that fits the bill. Renewable energy is only cheap in the feverish imaginations of the rent-seekers who are eager for politicians like you to force the citizenry to buy their product via "renewable energy mandates." Nuclear is currently competitive with fossil fuels. And in real terms, nuclear is safer than either fossil fuels of some kinds of renewables. Coal plants cause global warming and release noxious, carcinogenic particulates into the atmosphere, while windmills produce so many worker accidents that in any given year they kill more people than the US nuclear power industry has in fifty. Outside the realm of wishful thinking, the expansion of nuclear power is essential to the continued health and prosperity of America. Meanwhile, the "Renewable Energy Mandate" is, in effect, a tax raise on all Americans who buy electricity. It makes as little sense as a "coal mandate" or an "oil mandate." All energy sources should be compared based on their actual virtues- and on this issue, there has been broad consensus among scientists for decades- that nuclear power is the answer.

I myself was born and raised in Oak Ridge and I know better than to believe the stories that anti-nuclear activists have promulgated for decades about nuclear power. And as a historian studying Soviet history- and in particular, the history of the Soviet nuclear program- I have considerable familiarity with the history of nuclear energy abroad as well. My professional and personal opinion that opposing the construction of new nuclear power plants is not only foolish, but irresponsible. Fortunately, our own state is moving in the right direction, but there are powerful forces working to lead our country astray.

Please work to see that our country's energy future is secured. Be willing to compromise. For instance, there is no reason that a nuclear renaissance has to be tied to the Yucca Mountain facility. Certain members of Congress are determined that this project fail. But I believe that this may not be a bad thing, and could in fact benefit our state. In light of experience in Russia, France, and Japan, I believe that we should construct a centralized interim repository for nuclear fuel, and I believe that Oak Ridge is a logical place to put it. As a longstanding Oak Ridge resident I can assure you that many Oak Ridgers would welcome this- not just because of our familiarity with nuclear materials and nuclear technology. The founders of our city had a vision- a vision of a world made, safer, healthier, and wealthier by nuclear energy. They may have built bombs, but they dreamed of nuclear desalination plants that would make the African desert green and fertile. Although most of the men and women who first had this vision have since passed away, I hope to someday help make it a reality.

Please take these thoughts into consideration when the current Energy Bill comes up for debate.
Sincerely,
A. Sovietologist

My girlfriend suggested that the last part was over the top, but it's true. (Perhaps my childhood in Oak Ridge was a bit abnormal.) It's not like I think Lamar Alexander is going to suddenly sponsor sweeping new pro-nuclear legislation after reading my letter. I'm just sticking it to Harvey Wasserman.

How Many Atom Bombs Does it Take to Melt the Greenland Ice Sheet?

Given the current hullabaloo about Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I thought that I'd publish a little analysis that I did regarding the Greenland ice sheet. As you may have heard, the Greenland ice sheet is in peril- note, for instance, this 2006 study suggesting that climate change could melt the ice sheet in as little as 500 years. Since this is a worst-case-scenario (even most climatologists aren't this pessimistic), we'll probably have to wait much longer for the darned thing to melt. The problem is that the ice sheet has a mind-boggling amount of thermal inertia. Wikipedia describes the Greenland ice sheet as containing 2.85 km^3 of ice. Now, a km^3 is a billion m^3, and each m^3 of ice weighs about one metric ton (I know the density is off, but it makes the math easier.) The heat of fusion for water is 334 J/g, so melting each m^3 of ice requires 334 x 10^11 joules of energy, presuming it's already at o degrees centigrade. Since the primary sources of heat for melting the ice sheet is the dim arctic sun, it will take centuries for the ice sheet to melt.

(334 x 10^11) x 1,000,000,000 x 2.85= 9.519 x 10^20 joules

(This is the amount of energy 7,268 billion gallons of gasoline.)

Perhaps this isn't soon enough for you. Maybe you're a supervillain or someone suffering from an ice phobia. You want that ice sheet gone, by, say, next month.

Fortunately, technology has an answer.

One megaton is 4.184 x 10^15 Joules, so the amount of energy needed to melt the ice sheet is 227, 509.56 MT.

This is a very large amount of megatonnage, far more than existed even at the very height of the Cold War- but far from beyond the scale that could be built, as we will see.

The first nuclear weapon, the Mk-1 dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, had a yield of approximately 15 kT. Therefore, it would take 15,167,304 Hiroshimas to melt the ice sheet. This is an imposing number, and would require far too much enriched uranium to be practical. Large thermonuclear weapons make this far more practical. The largest nuclear weapon ever built, the Soviet Tsar Bomba, had a predicted yield of 100 MT. (It tested at 56 MT because the U-238 tamper was replaced with lead to reduce fallout.) It would take 2,275 of these bombs to melt the ice sheet. The largest nuclear weapon ever mass-produced, the American B-41, had a maximum yield of 26 MT. It would take 8,751 B-41s to melt the ice sheet. As 400-500 of the B-41 were built during the early 1960s, large thermonuclear bombs can almost certainly be built in the quantity required. The primary problem would be sourcing enough tritium and Li-6 to build the bombs (or maybe deuterium, as the bombs don't need to be deliverable.) In any case, it is definitely possible to melt the ice sheet on a short-term basis if need be.