Abstract
Clock getting Bushwhacked?
For decades, the Bulletin has been an unimpeachable source of information on nuclear issues. It's time for somebody to take a strong stand against this lunatic in the White House and his know-nothing policies of national missile defense systems and abrogated nuclear treaties. The idiot can't even pronounce “nuclear” correctly. It's time to move the clock again.
Ontario, California
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
It's been four months, and “Dubya” has already managed to upset China, insult Russia, trash the abm Treaty, and dig up Reagan's “Star Wars” from the grave, where it should have rested. North Korea and nato don't particularly like him, either, and he's still got at least three and a half more years of partying.
Is the Doomsday Clock going to move anytime soon, or does our beloved president have to invade a country first?
I don't think we're looking at long-term trends. Bush has made his intentions clear. We're at least two minutes closer to midnight than we were several years ago.
I'm not suggesting the clock be moved forward specifically because George W. Bush is in the White House. Rather, I'm voicing my concern about a string of actions that have damaged the country's international reputation and others' willingness to reason with us.
Boston, Massachusetts
Transmutation tiff, con't.
I was surprised at the misstatements in “Magical Thinking,” an article on transmutation by Arjun Makhijani and his colleagues (March/ April 2001 Bulletin). There are many good points in the article, but others are misleading. Most egregiously, the authors state that “Uranium 238, which has a half life of 4.5 billion years, is not a part of any transmutation scheme.”
Well, of course it isn't, and it shouldn't be. Uranium 238 is the non-radioactive part of natural deposits of uranium. This statement seems to be a direct attempt to mislead readers into believing that uranium 238 is dangerous and should be transmuted.
Some comments on weapons proliferation due to pyroprocessing also seemed to be presented without justifying how proliferation could really occur. Pyroprocessing at the Fuel Conditioning Facility at the Argonne National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho, is done remotely in a cell with 5-foot-thick concrete walls. I'd like to see anyone devise a scenario for stealing that pyroprocessed fuel.
I would really like to see all scientists stop trying to push a certain agenda and start searching for the truth. I don't see how this proselytizing does anyone any good in the long run.
Idaho Falls, Idaho
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
Had Charles Solbrig looked in a scientific handbook or a dictionary, he would have discovered that all isotopes of uranium, including uranium 238, are radioactive. In fact, all isotopes of all elements with atomic numbers 84 and higher are radioactive. The atomic number of uranium is 92.
It is true that uranium 238 is much less radioactive than, say, plutonium 239 (about 200,000 times less radioactive). But it is still dangerous because it is usually processed without the protections afforded to plutonium workers. Sadly, a cavalier attitude toward uranium and its dangers permeated the nuclear weapons establishment, which knew better. As a result, uranium has harmed thousands of people in the nuclear industry throughout the world, including the United States, both directly and through its decay products. As a heavy metal, uranium is also toxic to the kidneys.
In regard to proliferation, our article explained clearly that no nuclear weapons state would be likely to use plutonium separated in a py-roprocessing plant for weapons. Our point was that the spread of pyroprocessing technology for commercial purposes raises a proliferation threat. As the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences concluded in a 1996 study on transmutation as a method of waste management:
“Proliferation risks would generally be greater with widespread implementation of S&T [separation and transmutation] systems in the many nations using nuclear power.”
“Let the minutes show that the ethical implications were agonized over in silence.”
Finally, the heavy shielding that Solbrig observed was designed to protect against radiation from fission products, not from separated plutonium which, though it is a radiation hazard, can be processed in much simpler facilities like glove boxes. The potential for diversion after separation would be increased by transmutation technology.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
Send them to:
Letters to the Editor
The Bulletin
6042 South Kimbark
Chicago, IL 60637
fax: 773-702-0725
e-mail:
Be sure to include your mailing address and phone number.
Updates
Iraq's nuclear non-test
In the May/June 2001 Issue, the Bulletin noted the escalation of nuclear-related claims made by Iraqi defectors (“Umm, About a 6 on the Defector Scale”). Perhaps the most Incendiary was a claim by an Iraqi enqlneer, who said that In 1989 Iraq had successfully tested a nuclear device with a 10-klloton yield—without anyone notlclnq. The explosion went undetected, he said, because It was performed In a reinforced natural cavern beneath a lake and muffled by decoupllnq.
No way, accordlnq to the Verification Research, Tralnlnq and Information Centre's (VERTIC), newsletter, Trust & Verify. “There Is no reason to believe that the… story Is anythlnq but a hoax,” wrote seismic expert Terry Wallace, who pointed out that no unnatural sels-mlclty was detected In the area on the date In question. If Iraq had detonated such a device, there would have been conspicuous slqns—like a disappearinq lake, Wallace added.
Treaty-phobic?
Interaqency reviewers In the Bush administration have recommended rejectlnq the draft aqreement to enforce the 1972 Bloloqlcal Weapons Convention (New York Times, May 20). In the March/April 2001 Bulletin, Eileen Choffnes reported on the need for a verification protocol to the bloweapons ban (“Germs on the Loose”). The Times reports It Is “virtually certain” the White House won't ratify the draft. Althouqh the Bush administration has said It supports the convention, backlnq away from the protocol after already coollnq to other International aqreements like the Kyoto accords and the ABM Treaty could qlve other countries the Impression the new administration Is treaty-phobic.