Following on from my last blog on climate change fallacies and nuclear power, I had some emails thanking me and asking me some more questions. I am not an expert in this area but a recent article by Mark Diesendorf, where I am sourcing these fallacies from, can give you more details. So fallacy 6 is about spent fuel from nuclear reactors…
Fallacy 6: Spent fuel does not contribute to weapons
That is, spent fuel from nuclear power stations cannot be used to make nuclear weapons.
Response: Big Mark D (or MD) begins by noting that this is one of the most frequent falsities uttered by the nuclear industry and its supporters. This fallacy has been refuted by many experts including Dr Theodore Taylor, commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
MD presents the following information: a standard 1000 megawatt nuclear power station produces about 200 kilograms of “reactor-grade plutonium annually”. This, according to MD, is enough for 20 nuclear bombs. They reactor grade quality is below weapons-grade, it still has an amazing amount of destructive capability.
Attached to this fallacy is that nuclear power stations based on thorium rather than uranium cannot produce a nuclear explosion. MD says, ‘not true’: to use thorium as a fuel it must first be converted to uranium-233 which is ‘fissile’. This means that it can undergo nuclear fission and can be used as either a fuel or as an explosive in a bomb!
MD also reminds us that nuclear power and nuclear weapons are intimately linked: each nation with power ambitions moves pretty quickly into establishing bombs… the more nuclear stations the more likely we are to see more nuclear weapons - something that no-one should be comfortable with.
2 comments:
Thorium is not a proliferation risk.
The word "can" in the post is misleading. It's suggestive of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin". The straightforward question is "Will deploying thorium reactors increase nuclear weapons proliferation?" and the answer is clearly "no", because it's way to difficult, expensive, and hazardous to potential fabricators ESPECIALLY BECAUSE there are much simpler, easier, less expensive methods already used by countries such as India (heavy water moderator), North Korea (carbon moderator)), Pakistan (ultracentrifuge), etc.
Hey Robert... thanks for your message. I am not a nuclear expert so will not attempt split hairs.
The point of the blog is to dismiss the myth that nukes are a simple answer to climate change. I know there are other ways to make bombs, but this does not mean that this should not be acknowledged.
Cheers, james
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