Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Weapons plutonium disposition will take place

It looks like after years of thinking about it, part of the U.S. Weapons plutonium stockpile will be initially processed in France. This is good news because it reduces the danger of proliferation of this material in the future. What annoys me in these types of articles is the assymmetry of experts and stories. The anti-nukes side is always overepresented because the pro-nukes are generally the people who are working in that field and they generally work for the government. For instance, in this article, when Tom Clements says that

It is the height of arrogance to carry out a shipment like this while demanding that other nations refrain from proliferating nuclear weapons’ materials and technologies

he basically shows a lack of knowledge of what proliferation means. When you ship special nuclear materials (SNM) from a nuclear weapons state to another nuclear weapons state, you do not proliferate. But then again what would you expect from a spokesperson from Greenpeace international. When Edwin Lyman, from the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC states that
the undertaking is ill-conceived, poorly executed and inadequately secured.

I would like to know if he knows something that everybody else does not. How ill-conceived is a plan that is the final solution to a process that has lasted at least eight years and lived through two different administrations of opposite end on the political spectrum. When he says
It would be safer to choose the “plutonium immobilisation” option

Mr. Lyman does not tell the other side of the story: i.e. that the reason this solution to plutonium disposition is chosen is because it is the mirror process that involves the Russians. See, the Russians have double the amount of weapons plutonium and will not ever think of plutonium as trash. They put a lot of lives/money/effort in producing it, it is a national treasure to them. The response from guys like Mr. Lyman looks like the lessons given by the super rich to the poor, some sort of a nuclear equivalent to "let them eat cake." The Russians always told the U.S. that immobilization amounted to storage. Storage means that plutonium can be retrieved "easily." This situation is unacceptable to both parties eventually because it would mean that it is not disarmament. The situation is even hilarious if it were not for this serious subject. When Mr. Lyman talks about the immobilization option by mixing
manageable plutonium with highly radioactive waste – making it hugely dangerous to anyone attempting to misuse it – before encasing it in glass and disposing of it.

It is the type of thinking of another age; before 9/11 to be exact. Before 9/11, nobody thought that people would hijack a plane and ram it into buildings. The same goes for this "immobilization disposition" solution: to think that nobody would get this glass casing, blow it up, pick up the pieces and try to assemble a weapon out of it is a sure sign that the Union of Concerned Scientists has not evolved since 9/11. The tragedies of 9/11 or Beslan tells us that you will find people who will do this and die doing it (because of radiation exposure) but will eventually get that job done. Matt Bunn, whom I respect, underestimates the French when it comes to nuclear issues. France has 50 nuclear power plants and a mature fuel recycling program, the U.S. has 100 nuclear power plants and stores all their waste at every plant, who is more vulnerable, Matt?

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