Abstract
Robert rosner's thoughtful piece advocating new research on nuclear reactors in the context of climate change and “the loss of cheap oil” (“Making Nuclear Energy Work,” March/April 2008 Bulletin) fails to make a convincing case. Developing new, sophisticated reactor simulation models and validating them will take years. Building and testing new prototypes–which is even more imperative with reactors than with aircraft–will take more than a decade. Unlike test flights, where those who fly take the risk, a severe case of radioactive contamination will affect many for generations.
Moreover, the prospects of success are uncertain. About $100 billion (in 1999 dollars) has been spent worldwide trying to commercialize sodium-cooled fast neutron reactors, plutonium separation, and plutonium-based fuels. Overall that effort has flopped commercially, and some fast reactors, including the largest, the French Superphenix, have been technical failures. Current commercial reprocessing is pricey, polluting, and proliferation-prone.
We have a “peak CO2” problem–that is, global carbon dioxide emissions must peak before 2015 or 2020 to avoid dangerous climate change. A nuclear path that has no prospect of contributing to a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions for 20 years or more and contributes to proliferation concerns is costly, risky, and unnecessary.
President
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
I commend Robert Rosner for addressing research and development needs for expanding nuclear power generation capacity, but the shortage of physical infrastructure remains a critical near-term issue. According to Tom Christopher of French nuclear energy conglomerate AREVA, a company would need to order components for a new reactor seven or eight years in advance of the first loading of fuel, based on current global forging capacity for casting pressure vessels. Even if this capacity tripled, sustaining a global deployment rate of 40–50 i-gigawatt reactors per year, we'd fulfill one of Robert Socolow and Stephen Pac-ala's greenhouse gas stabilization wedges in about three decades.
Rosner was right in acknowledging that some countries would pursue spent fuel reprocessing regardless of any precedent set by the United States. In my discussions with Argonne National Laboratory scientists Gerald Marsh, Monica Regalbu-to, and Jeff Fortner, each stressed that the United States would be at a disadvantage if it doesn't engage in international efforts to develop new reprocessing technologies. There is heightened proliferation risk if, without U.S. participation, countries adopt insufficient safeguards.
I support deploying fast reactors coupled with a closed fuel cycle when feasible, both to mitigate anthropogenic climate change and to reduce the volume of spent fuel requiring storage and/or disposal. Given that Japan, France, and Russia are all investigating advanced fast reactor and fuel cycle technologies, the United States stands to benefit greatly from increased cooperation with them and other countries pursuing or planning to pursue civilian nuclear energy.
Illinois Math and Science Academy
Aurora, Illinois
It's unfortunate that the Bulletin wasted six pages on ways to revive the moribund nuclear power industry. But it's a national tragedy that the waste was penned by the brilliant Robert Rosner, director of Argonne National Laboratory, which is doing critical work in the efficiency and renewable energy sectors. His time and Argonne's resources should be expanded in those areas, not wasted on more nuclear pipe dreams.
Rosner posits, then dutifully answers, the wrong question: “What needs to change so we can build new nuclear plants…one every four to six months for the next 40 years?” The question we need to answer is, “What must we do to make this construction unnecessary?”
Rosner's solutions/suggestions uncritically regurgitate the same timeworn litany of nuclear industry demands. These seem deceptively reasonable and internally logical on paper. Yet they only address how to rescue nuclear power in its platonic form, i.e., as it exists in the abstract. The operating reality of nuclear power is far uglier, with myriad devils already hiding in details Rosner fails or chooses not to mention.
The reality is nuclear power can't solve global warming. The numbers don't justify nuclear's horrendous waste of time and money–the determining factors for successful global warming abatement. Safer, quicker, more cost-effective carbon-capture alternatives already exist and are not being implemented. Rosner and Argonne should turn their attention and resources toward that low-hanging fruit first.
Nuclear Energy Information Service Chicago, Illinois
I appreciate your evenhandedness in publishing articles about nuclear power. The interview with Brice Smith (November/December 2008 Bulletin), who strongly opposes new nuclear power plants, contrasts with Robert Rosner's “Making Nuclear Energy Work.” While I personally find Smith's view more persuasive, I commend your presenting arguments on both sides of this important issue.
Columbus, Ohio
Make No Old Plans
Thank you for running “The Bureaucracy of Deterrence” by Tanne Nolan and James R. Holmes (March/April 2008 Bulletin). No one writes better than Nolan on the tensions between the bureaucracy of nuclear war planning and the highest-level political officials to whom war planners are accountable–and Nolan and Holm-es's concise and nuanced piece is no exception. Nolan and Holmes offer a terrific analysis of policy from Reagan through Clinton and wise counsel to an incoming administration: The president should reach down into the military bureaucracy “shroudfed] in administrative secrecy” to reshape the assumptions and content of nuclear war plans; this can only be done by enlisting knowledgeable insiders and expending scarce political capital.
This is a tough problem: Amy Zegart's recent Spying Blind (2007) argues that presidents don't want to expend political capital on hidden management issues. Nina Tannenwald's The Nuclear Taboo (2007) claims that recent presidents see nuclear weapons as unusable. Taken together, one sees why continuing the discrepancy between war plans and political intentions may be the easiest course of action–even though the disjunction carries considerable danger. Still, Nolan and Holmes are right on the merits and savvy about political process. They will make an even more persuasive case for the next administration when they go beyond singling out an admittedly important area and put it in the context of other issues that will take courage and stamina to resolve, including nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran; increasing interest in nuclear power in the Middle East; significant strains on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and, more optimistically, the gathering momentum to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether.
Center for International Security and Cooperation Stanford University
Iraq: the Crucible of Civilization?
John Steinbruner argues that Iraq demonstrates the limits of U.S. power in forging social cohesion abroad (“Consensual Security,” March/April 2008 I Bulletin). We agree. But he attempts to graft this point on to a second one: that globalization, particularly the problems it exacerbates, such as global warming and weapons proliferation, requires increased international cooperation. This claim is sensible–but it has nothing to do with Iraq.
Steinbruner ties Iraq to his second point with the following argument: Globalization undermines government authority, Iraq lacks such authority, restoring it requires multilateral cooperation, and therefore Iraq exemplifies both a problem wrought by globalization and its solution.
This argument has three problems. First, as Steinbruner notes, there is little evidence for the popular claim that the trends in the last several decades that we refer to as globalization–principally the integration of national economies–have caused a measurable decline in the power of governments. Globalization may in fact aid government authority by increasing taxable wealth. Second, Iraq's problems are not the product of globalization but of sectarian discord and wars, especially the one the United States launched in 2003. Third, there is no reason to think that an international policing force would have been more successful than the U.S.-led one at restoring order in Iraq. Civil war looms in Iraq not because the United States lacks legitimacy to govern, but because all would-be governors do. Outsiders cannot solve that problem, no matter how much multilateral backing they have.
The lesson of Iraq is that the United States should avoid wars of occupation and state-building, not that we need more multilateral cooperation to fight them.
Research fellow
Director of Foreign Policy Studies Cato Institute
Bulletin Redux
The Bulletin's new design is very crisp and elegant. The magazine now sports a modern, streamlined look that should appeal to a younger generation of readers and arms control advocates. As the concise and thoughtful “Disarmament Redux” (March/April 2008 Bulletin) by J. Peter Scoblic indicates, a new wave of disarmament activity may be coming online. It is critical to expose these foreign policy elite activities to a wider audience, and the Bulletin is increasingly becoming an outstanding vehicle.
World Security Institute Washington, D.C,
I have looked forward to each unique issue of the Bulletin for current, compelling, and comprehensive information not easily found elsewhere. For the last two years, the uninspiring covers, the uneven articles, and the loss of the signature sense of humor seem to have augured the March/April 2008 issue. Allow me to be critical without being unkind: The current Bulletin is a wall of words. The dark, lifeless cover is a foretaste of the burdensome text, which to my mind puts off rather than engages the general reader. At the expense of a broad readership you have produced a dense, arcane manual for the techno-elite.
The Bulletin serves a most critical and worthy purpose and needs both a specialist and general readership. I urge you to readjust your present editorial improvements. I may not be alone in finding them well intentioned but less than satisfying.
Gloucester, Massachusetts
The revamped Bulletin is at the intellectual and scholarly level suitable for its mission. The long analytical pieces match the tenor and content caliber of other policy-oriented journals. You have done it again!
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
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