Beyond Nuclear International
What if it doesn’t work?
“Not absolutely foolproof” isn’t good enough when it comes to nuclear deterrence
By Linda Pentz Gunter
“Long live deterrence to dissuade nuclear attacks” blasted the headline on Gwynne Dyer’s December 6, 2021 column in The Hill Times. And then came this subheader:
“It’s not absolutely foolproof, but it has protected us all from nuclear war for 75 years.”
There is just one obvious problem with this statement. In order for deterrence to work, it has to be absolutely 100 percent foolproof. The consequence of it being less than that is beyond catastrophic. It could amount to the end of life on earth as we know it. That’s one hell of a gamble. And it’s a gamble that is not morally defensible on any level. It’s one that should never be taken.
As we wrote on the cover of our pamphlet —The Myth of Deterrence: Why nuclear weapons don’t deter or protect and aren’t really weapons at all — “The only way to be 100% certain of nuclear deterrence is to have 100% nuclear weapons abolition.”
Trusting in nuclear deterrence is a risk of such monumental humanitarian consequences that it changed the entire dialogue around disarmament, prompting a new civil society movement to push the United Nations to adopt, sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW worked — and came into law in January 2021 — precisely because the issue of nuclear weapons was viewed from the perspective of their humanitarian consequences if used.
Those consequences — and the myth of nuclear deterrence that could allow such horrors to play out — was discussed eloquently during an online event recently by a man who played an integral part in steering the TPNW into fruition — Ambassador Alexander Kmentt of Austria.
Kmentt recently published a book — The Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons. How it was Achieved and Why it Matters — telling the behind-the-scenes backstory of how the treaty happened and, as the title suggests, defending its necessity. He gave a recent talk on the contents and background to his book, hosted by the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.
The impediment of deterrence, clung to by governments and academics, is, says Kmentt, “a psychological construct,” one “based on an assumption of rationality: If both sides have it, we will never use it.” It is even, admits Kmentt, “a very attractive idea.”
But when the proponents of deterrence, such as Dyer, argue that deterrence has proven effective, Kmentt pushes back.
“It’s not proof,” he says. “It’s an assumption. We can assume nuclear weapons prevented nuclear war. Do we know for sure it will be the case in the future? Neither can I prove that nuclear deterrence doesn’t work, but also proponents cannot prove that it does work.”
Read MoreSix reasons to say ‘no’
Nuclear energy is spectacularly unfit to power a just transition
By Makoma Lekalakala
A just transition is the only way out of the multiple crises we face — the climate emergency, the collapse of life systems the world over, and growing political and social discontent. Over the past year, we have seen some argue that not only is nuclear the best way to “green” our economies, but we have also seen nuclear being framed as a technology that will be good for “workers”.
However, the publication by Dr Neil Overy and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Neither Climate Nor Jobs: Nuclear Myths About the Just Transition, offers a comprehensive account of why nuclear will be detrimental to our collective capacity to transform our energy systems in a way that leaves no one behind — #LeaveNoOneBehind.
Here are six reasons why nuclear energy is spectacularly unfit to power a just transition, in a way that leaves no one behind:
1 Just transitions require stable electricity supplies in the face of extreme weather. It is widely claimed that nuclear power is reliable but, over the past five years, French nuclear power plants have had to shut down for up to 7,000 hours due to climate events. In fact, nuclear energy’s reliance on water for cooling makes it particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The causes for these have ranged from floods to droughts and dramatic temperature increases. Earlier this year, we saw that in the Texas snowstorm, nuclear plants had to be shut down because water in pump stations froze.
It is also argued that a green energy system would require nuclear for “baseload”, but technology has moved far beyond this. It is outdated thinking such as this that keeps us from doing what must be done to keep temperatures below 1.5°C, even though it has been shown that smart grids can draw from a mix of renewable energy sources to provide a constant energy supply.
Read MoreMore fusion folly
Billions already spent on ‘energy pipedream’
By David Blackburn
Nuclear fusion has been a long-held ambition of the nuclear industry and governments who support nuclear power for decades. Since the end of the Second World War, governments around the world, backed by elements of their scientific communities, have always lauded fusion power as the ‘next step’ above and beyond fission that is almost within reach, yet many billions has so far been spent over the past seven decades on what has often been called by its critics an ‘energy pipedream’.
Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) has rarely commented on nuclear fusion, given such energy projects have yet to be commercially realised. All have foundered around the complex challenges in developing such technology, many of which in the third decade of the 21st century remain unsolved.
In summary, to date, none of the experimental reactors in operation have produced more energy than was put into them.
However, given the current UK Government’s declared intent to invest further money in fusion reactor development with the aspiration to develop a commercially viable design within two decades, it would be remiss of NFLA not to comment on this consultation.
Operating a fusion reactor presents many challenges and risks.
In response to concerns expressed by member authorities, the NFLA itself commissioned a special briefing on this subject (Edition 62, published in September 2020) ‘NFLA New Nuclear Monitor Policy Briefing – NFLA Response to the UKAEA call for potential sites to host a nuclear fusion reactor in England’.
The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) has also recently published a preliminary position paper ‘Radioactive Wastes from Fusion Energy’ (6 December).
Many of the following comments are taken from the NFLA paper, particularly from pages 4-6, but reference is also made to specific sections of the CoRWM report.
Read MoreTelling the truth
Parade of false climate solutions betrays global south
Statement from Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice
Organizations can sign on and endorse the below statement here.
As social movements and civil society organisations, we exist to uphold the centrality of life, people and planet, and fight until we win a better existence for all. It is our duty to tell the truth about the world we all share and the crises that engulf us. This is the truth about COP26.
Even before it began, COP26 was presented as a resounding success. Those of us who could find a way around the vaccine apartheid, “hostile environment”, constantly changing quarantine rules, challenges of visa processing, and exhorbitant prices which made the ‘most inclusive summit in history’ the most exclusionary ever, found ourselves locked out of the negotiations. Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry and other merchants of misery had a red carpet welcome, and made up the single largest delegation at COP26. We came to Glasgow and found ourselves in Davos, policed heavily while the criminals were feted.
For days we were force-fed long pronouncements, speeches and declarations from so-called world leaders in government and business, who descended in their private jets and broke the rules the rest of us were expected to comply with to tell us to applaud them. But being honest we must say these statements are delusions – a distraction from the truth, and a dangerous one at that. For the richest countries, the relationship between affirmation and action doesn’t exist. The ugly reality is that developed countries are all in favour of climate action — as long as they don’t have to do much of the work themselves.
Year after year we have tried to intervene as these negotiations drift further away from their purpose. The process, stacked as it is in favour of the powerful, has not led to binding commitments to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius and the redistribution of resources to ensure a just transition, but instead to flexible and voluntary “contributions” misaligned with science and divorced from justice. Across three decades in this process we have witnessed polluters’ great escape, an historic shifting of burden from rich to poor, from those who created these injustices to those upon whom these injustices are forced. There may be some language in some texts that have been the smallest of victories but 26 consecutive COPs have in practice ignored the need to pay the outrageous historical debt owed to the global south by the global north.
Instead there is an endless parade of false solutions, empty promises and fake, opportunistic announcements empty in their content and dangerous in their implications. Marked by corporate capture, the very talks that are meant to foster global collaboration to address climate change have now become the main vehicle for corporate and government “greenwashing.”
Read MoreA symphony for Rachel Carson
At nearly 90, piano jazz legend, Marian McPartland, paid tribute in music to the famed environmentalist
By Linda Pentz Gunter
It’s always a joy to come across extraordinary women. Rachel Carson was certainly one; Marian McPartland, longtime host of the NPR program, Piano Jazz, another.
Who would have thought there was a connection between them? It was therefore another joy to discover that there very much was.
Aside from being a wonderfully talented jazz pianist, McPartland was also an environmentalist. And so, a few months before her 90th birthday, with her show still on the air, McPartland set down an improvised piece of piano music in tribute to Carson. (McPartland hosted Piano Jazz from 1978 until her retirement in 2011. She died in 2013 at 95. NPR retired the show in 2018.)
For McPartland, as for many of us, Silent Spring, Carson’s breakout 1962 masterpiece, was a work of seminal importance. And it was to honor Carson and that book that McPartland composed what became her symphony, A Portrait of Rachel Carson. The orchestration was arranged by New Zealand pianist, Alan Broadbent.
McPartland premiered the work on November 15, 2007 with the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, herself on piano. At the time, she was enduring considerable medical challenges, and announced before the performance that “I can’t walk. I’m in miserable pain. But at the piano, I don’t feel a thing.”
Read MoreNuclear can’t deliver on climate
Nuclear energy cannot meaningfully contribute to a climate-neutral energy system say German scientists
By Ben Wealer et al., Scientists for Future
In light of the accelerating climate crisis, nuclear energy and its place in the future energy mix is being debated once again. Currently its share of global electricity generation is about 10 percent. Some countries, international organizations, private businesses and scientists accord nuclear energy some kind of role in the pursuit of climate neutrality and in ending the era of fossil fuels. The IPCC, too, includes nuclear energy in its scenarios.
On the other hand, the experience with commercial nuclear energy generation acquired over the past seven decades points to the significant technical, economic, and social risks involved. This paper reviews arguments in the areas of “technology and risks,” “economic viability,” ’timely availability,” and “compatibility with social-ecological transformation processes.”
Technology and risks: Catastrophes involving the release of radioactive material are always a real possibility, as illustrated by the major accidents in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Also, since 1945, countless accidents have occurred wherever nuclear energy has been deployed. No significantly higher reliability is to be expected from the SMRs (“small modular reactors”) that are currently at the planning stage. Even modern mathematical techniques, such as probabilistic security analyses (PSAs), do not adequately reflect important factors, such as deficient security arrangements or rare natural disasters and thereby systematically underestimate the risks.
Moreover, there is the ever-present proliferation risk of weapon-grade, highly enriched uranium, and plutonium. Most spent fuel rods are stored in scarcely protected surface containers or other interim solutions, often outside proper containment structures. The safe storage of highly radioactive material, owing to a half-life of individual isotopes of over a million years, must be guaranteed for eons. Even if the risks involved for future generations cannot be authoritatively determined today, heavy burdens are undoubtedly externalized to the future.
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