On May 22, I republished a post written by Ben Heard and Geoff Russell for DecarboniseSA titled Green Nuclear Junk. In my introduction to the post, I made the following statement:
My goal is to add just a little more pressure on Jim Green — the national antinuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth, Australia — to come clean and admit his mistakes. It would be even better if Green began to make amends for the environmental and economic damage caused by his antinuclear activism, but that is probably a futile hope.
Though my post probably did not affect the situation, I need to follow up with a report that Jim Green has, indeed, apologized for his math error.
Sincere apologies to Ben Heard and Geoff Russell for attacking them for a “multi-order-of-magnitude mathematical howler”. The recurring 77-fold howler is mine, not theirs. (And Russell’s real mathematical howler is trivial compared to mine since his involved nothing more than an illustrative thought-experiment.)
However, Green has not yet decided to stop fighting the use of nuclear energy.
I’m bound to acknowledge my miscalculations and to apologise for an unwarranted attack. But my messaging − in my critique of the Kharecha/Hansen paper, and in the Choose Nuclear Free paper, and on countless other occasions − is that the greatest hazard posed by nuclear power (and the nuclear fuel cycle more broadly) is the repeatedly-demonstated connection to WMD proliferation. That is unchanged. I’ve also said repeatedly that i’ll gladly volunteer time and energy opposing the uranium/nuclear industry because of i) the WMD links and ii) the sickening, systemic racism which makes the industry unsupportable. Again, no change.
Green has demonstrated that he is willing to read and consider constructive criticism, so I thought I would offer a few thoughts that might help him take the next step away from antinuclear activism and, perhaps even towards pronuclear advocacy.
Like Green, I am no fan of nuclear weapons. Contemplation of the consequences of using them has given me many sleepless nights; as some of you may know, I served two tours on US ballistic missile submarines. I completed 11 strategic deterrent patrols and was a member of the two man control team for all but one of those patrols. I never took that responsibility lightly; it was a sobering assignment when I was 23 and the reality never wore off. However, I am enough of a realist to understand that there is nothing that humans can do to erase the knowledge that certain natural elements can be arranged to explode with enough force to destroy an entire city.
I think we can, and should, reduce the probability of using nuclear weapons to as close to zero as possible. Improving prosperity and reducing the vast inequalities in access to power around the world are two ways to reduce the use of all weapons, especially nuclear weapons; both of those can be enabled by using more and more nuclear energy.
Though hydrocarbons are fantastically useful materials and have served humanity well for hundreds of years, they are also the source of large and growing concentrations of wealth that impoverish others. Their use should be limited – by market competition with increasingly less expensive nuclear energy – to save as much of the finite resources as possible for many future generations and to achieve a situation where natural feedback loops can alleviate most of their climate changing emissions.
As we increase the use of nuclear energy, nuclear materials will become increasingly valuable as fuel sources. Using enriched uranium and plutonium in reactors reduces accessible stockpiles of potential weapons material. The most secure location I can think of for storing materials that could be assembled into weapons is inside the core of an operating nuclear reactor.
Not only are pressure vessels strong vaults, but the complex mixture of radioactive isotopes produced by a fission power plant make the fuel almost completely self-securing. The longer the material remains inside a power generating reactor, the less useful it will be for creating a weapon. After a certain amount of time, the material includes a sufficient variety of isotopes, some with characteristics that greatly reduce their usefulness in a weapon, that it is essentially impossible to convert them to any use other than producing more power.
I am not sure I understand Green’s concern about systemic racism. I am aware that there have been a few campaigns against uranium mining based on the fact that some resources have been exploited from land owned or occupied by aborigines, native Americans, or First Nation tribes, but that is not an inherent factor of nuclear energy. Uranium and thorium are widely distributed around the world; there is a known deposit within an hour of my southwest Virginia home that could supply the entire US demand for two years.
Using nuclear energy is certainly not a racist endeavor; in fact, the Atoms for Peace vision and the program that implemented that vision was one of the least racist programs ever devised by the powerful to share their power and provide opportunities for all to prosper. One of the main reasons that I favor nuclear energy development is that I honestly love humanity and want to bring power to the people.
There is a good chance that people like Jim Green can become effective pronuclear advocates as long as they continue to engage in critical thinking and learn as much as they can about the ways that nuclear energy use aligns with their primary concerns. If Green has the opportunity to watch Pandora’s Promise he might be inspired by a film about leaders who are concerned about both the environment and the power needs of the less advantaged people in the world and, as a result of open-minded examination, have switched from antinuclear opposition to pronuclear support.
For me it takes a big man to admit he’s in error and walk the less harmful rational path that’s a win for the environment and people — which is supposed to be his end game, right? It’s all about the goal, not the means, true greens!
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Nine countries currently have nuclear weapons. Two; Israel and North Korea, have never had a civilian power reactor. USA, UK, The Soviet Union and France developed weapons before any power reactors came online. To my knowledge, only China, India and Pakistan developed nuclear weapons before electricity generation. So out of the 30-odd countries that have power reactors, only 10% had weapons before hand.
I’m not sure anyone is able to claim that nuclear power leads to weapons proliferation when in 90% of cases nuclear power does NOT lead to proliferation.
One of the first articles I read about nuclear power had the quote: “The quickest way to get bombs is to make bombs, not to build power plants.”
@ Manic,
The USA also developed Nuclear weapons before electricity generation.
If I recall correctly, there was systemic racism in lunch counters, mass transit, and public education. I believe the solution was to confront the racism not oppose the continued existence of those institutions.
As for the connection to nuclear weapons, the secrecy surrounding the details of weapon designs, including materials that can be used to make them, means many opponents to nuclear power won’t ever trust statements from proponents about proliferation risks.
Rod, I don’t know your policy on republishing comments from other blogs but from the DeCarbonize site that you commented on, a commentator named “Irregular commentator” posted the following.
[Kudos for Jim Green for apologizing about the whopper he laid in his paper. It is hard to admit mistakes like this.]
Here is the posting/listing of countries with nuclear programs and no WMD program (those with WMD are so noted).
This comment looks familiar. Thank you for the hat-tip.
I’ve got a table in the works that not only looks at what parts of the Nuclear industry that country has but also the non-proliferation treaties, agreements, and safeguards they are signatories to as well. This will give a better picture of the proliferation risk (dual use tech) and proliferation resistance (safeguards, treaties etc.).
To say North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel (maybe Iran) highlight that proliferation is a fait accompli to civilian Nuclear industry ignores the fact that the large majority haven’t proliferated. The question we have to ask is, why has it been so proliferation adverse?
Thank you David for the list of nations that already have nuclear power programs.
If we promote nuclear power use in only these countries that already have the capability to pursue nuclear weapons then I do not see how this would increase weapons proliferation. The countries listed account for over 85% of the CO2 emissions in the world. Reducing the emissions of these countries seems like a good start.
When I see those claims of racism coming from Mr. Green, I can’t help but see it as essentially an instance of Godwin’s Law (albeit w/ no specific mention of nazis) with Mr. Green automatically conceding defeat.
Sorry, Jim Green, but what you have thought about nuclear power for so many years is actually mostly wrong.
Oh yeah, a link for Godwin’s Law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Heh. Godwin was my TA when I took “Shakespear at Winedale” in 1981.
I nominate Riddle’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law:
“As an online discussion opposing nuclear energy grows more tiresome, the probability of a comparison involving racism approaches 1.”
Excellent post Rod. It would be tremendous if Dr. Green would become a born-again pro-nuke. While long-term pro-nukes like yourself have done a lot for nuclear power understanding and acceptance, born-again pro-nukes are especially effective at getting people to rethink long-held anti-nuke beliefs.
I think you did a very good job at extending a hand to Dr. Green, rather than do what I might have done in your place: crush his fault-ridden anti-nuclear advocacy in the dust with maniacal glee, which may be enjoyable for a short while, but which is of course largely pointless and probably counterproductive to the cause of improving nuclear energy acceptance with the aim of increasing the availability of clean, affordable energy for all.
Fossil fuels also have repeatedly demonstrated connections to weapons of mass destruction.
All conventional weaponry – bombs, missiles, even bullets – are powered by fossil fuel and fossil fuel derived chemicals. Such weapons have killed orders of magnitudes more people historically than nuclear weapons.
Since wind and solar need lots of natural gas to back them up, and natural gas *IS* used to make weapons, there clearly is a major weapons of mass destuction risk from wind and solar power.
Or does the killing of millions by bombs and bullets not count as mass destruction? WWI, WWII, Iraq, was this not mass destruction? Many more people were killed by fossil fuel powered weapons in WWII than by nuclear weapons.
While we’re at it, we can also ban toy factories, as they can demonstrably be converted to AK47 manufacturing facilities. No more toys for you, kids!
Windmills are obviously first cousins to other rotating mechanical devices such as propellers. Any idea how many people have been killed by fossil-fueled bombs dropped by by propeller-powered aircraft?
Here in the Netherlands, a windturbine salesman giving us a presentation claimed that the large modern windturbines ‘do not kill more birds than smaller turbines’. I asked him: why should we sacrifice birds by building windturbines? He laughed and pretended I was joking.
You mean windturbine con man.
SNAP! You got him on that one.
The Colt M-16, Vietnam era, was indeed made in large part from a toy company.
The company that designed the weapon, however, came largely out of the aircraft industry.
Colt merely licensed the design.
I had standing personal and professional ties to local institutional environmentalists. When I decided I needed to at least consider nuclear energy, it took me a couple of years, from about 2004 to 2006 to re-think the issue and study my way through my (factually unsupported, but nonetheless strongly-held) objections.
I had the benefit of substantial independence, i.e., of not being, in that time frame, directly employed, or in a leadership position in any environmental institution. This took me out of the continuous, self-reinforcing, anti-nuclear echo chamber, and meant that I did not professionally or personally NEED to maintain the same opinion.
I think it requires extra courage to switch one’s position if one is in a position like Jim Green. It is harder to do so, both socially and professionally, when anti-nuclear activism is part of your defined professional role, and you are closely surrounded by the anti-nuclear echo chamber.
Institutional environmental leaders do not have much independence. Being anti-nuclear is part of their job description. Their daily and weekly experience has them wrapped up in social relationships that are intertwined with a surrounding anti-nuclear echo-chamber. A different position is well-nigh inconceivable. It should be no surprise, then, that virtually all environmental institutions remain virulently opposed to nuclear energy.
Change on this issue among environmental institutions is going to have to be forced in from the outside, by people like the film-maker behind Pandora’s Promise. Further, the targets of reality-based advocacy on nuclear energy will have to be the members of environmental groups, as opposed to the established leaders; the leaders have too much at stake in established positions.
Mr. Green is an example of how environmentalist leaders will only acknowledge facts on nuclear issues when there is no viable alternative to doing so. His acknowledgement of a factual error appears to be a passing phenomena that came about because he could not avoid it anymore. His error was simply too big, too blatant, and too broadly called-out, for him to simply ignore it. When Mr. Green acknowledged his error, he immediately fled to another, equally specious rationalization – – the supposed unbroken link between civilian nuclear energy and nuclear weapons – – that could “justify” his stance.
I would not call this courage. I would call it clever.
It is futile to hope that institutionally connected environmentalists in leadership positions will exercise full intellectual integrity, and carefully weigh all the issues associated with nuclear in light of the full set of relevant facts, and in light of the climate and energy challenges. Doing so would make them uncomfortable, and the social and professional costs of changing one’s opinion are too high.