=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #473
—December 21, 1995—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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THE FOURTH HORSEMAN: NUCLEAR
It was another dismal year for the fourth horseman of the
environment, the nuclear industry. During 1995, bad news rolled
in from around the world, making it unmistakably clear that this
technology is more dangerous, less controllable, and more
damaging to democracy than even its severest critics had
imagined. The end of the “cold war” has, if anything, heightened
the danger that nuclear bombs will one day obliterate another
city–by accident, by terrorism, or by political blunder.
Nuclear technology has two parts, which are barely separable:
A-bombs, and civilian nuclear power plants. Both technologies use
“nuclear fission” –the splitting of atoms of uranium-235 or of
plutonium-239, releasing enormous quantities of energy. Inside
nuclear power reactors, the fission reaction is controlled,
producing a steady heat which makes steam, which makes
electricity. In a nuclear bomb, the fission reaction is
maximized to yield a tremendous explosion.
Bomb-grade uranium-235 can be made from natural uranium. There
are well-known low-tech ways to do it, which the world learned in
1991 when Iraq was discovered making A-bombs using 50-year-old
technology. [1]
The other A-bomb material, plutonium-239, is created inside
nuclear power reactors, but it must be purified before it can be
made into bombs. This step –called “reprocessing” –has been
abandoned in the U.S., mainly to keep plutonium out of the hands
of terrorists and lunatics. But reprocessing still goes on at
numerous locations around the world. Furthermore, a kind of
reactor called a “breeder” creates more plutonium than the
nuclear fuel it consumes. The U.S. has abandoned breeder
technology, but Britain, France, Japan, Germany, and Russia are
all committed to it. [2] Several of these countries plan to build
more breeders. By the year 2010, some 550 tons of plutonium will
have been reprocessed from civilian nuclear reactors.
The official “nuclear club” (those who admit they have the bomb)
now includes the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia, and India.
In addition, Israel is widely believed to have roughly 300
A-bombs. The former prime minister of Pakistan announced in 1994
that Pakistan has the bomb. [3] North Korea is said to have 5
A-bombs. [4] Others known to be aggressively acquiring A-bomb
technology include Iraq, Libya, and Iran.
By far the easiest way to acquire material for a nuclear weapon
is to steal it. The amounts needed are not large: one kilogram
of plutonium (2.2 pounds) will do it, or 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds)
of enriched uranium can make a bomb equivalent to 1000 tons of
TNT. [5] The amount of plutonium needed to make a bomb is
somewhere between the size of a hockey puck and a soda can.
Existing stockpiles of weapons-grade material are substantial.
Here are known plutonium inventories, in kilograms (kg), as of
1990: [6]U.S.: 98,182 kg military (mil), plus 1209 kg civilian
(civ); Russia: 104,545 to 127,273 kg mil, plus 22,727 kg civ;
Britain: 4545 kg mil, plus 43,545 kg civ; France: 5455 kg mil,
plus 35,364 kg civ; China: 1364 to 2273 kg mil; India: 254 kg
mil, plus 455 kg civ; Israel: 363 to 636 kg mil; Belgium: 618 kg
civ; Germany: 855 kg civ; Japan: 2636 kg civ; Pakistan: unknown;
North Korea: unknown; Iraq: unknown; Libya: None yet; Iran: None
yet.
Using the low estimates from the figures given above, the world
total in 1990 was 322,117 kg of plutonium. This represents the
capacity to make 322,117 small atomic bombs. And this is just the
plutonium inventory. The world’s inventory of enriched uranium,
if it were known, would greatly increase our estimate of the
capacity for trouble. For example, the Soviets had at least
120,000 to 130,000 kg of bomb-grade enriched uranium at the end
of the cold war. [7]
The former Soviet Union provides an example of the insecurity
that nuclear technology brings with it. At the end of the “cold
war” the soviets had an estimated 32,500 individual nuclear
weapons, held at 950 separate locations. [8] When political chaos
overtook the land, soviet nuclear weaponry fell under the control
of four governments: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
Then civil war broke out in the Ukraine when Crimea declared its
independence, and in Russia when Chechnya tried to secede. “Train
loads of special radioactive freight often cross regions where
armed interethnic conflicts are under way,” says the Russian
newspaper KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA, quoted in the TIMES. [9]
Now a different kind of political chaos has emerged in former
soviet lands. According to studies by German investigators,
about 5000 different criminal gangs, overseen by about 150
“godfathers,” are now operating in the former Soviet Union; the
total membership of this “Russian mafia” is estimated at 100,000
people. The K.G.B. (soviet secret police) and specialized
military units, which worked to control the gangs, have now been
substantially weakened, and “evidence exists that many
highly-trained veterans of such agencies have themselves joined
mafia bands,” says the TIMES. [10]
Under such conditions, just keeping track of nuclear inventories
is impossible. In mid-1994 the NEW YORK TIMES began a front-page
story this way: “Russia has no way of knowing for sure if any of
its vast supply of bomb ingredients is missing, many of its own
nuclear officials and scientists admit.” The story featured a
front-page photograph of a Russian nuclear scientist saying,
“It’s possible to buy anything in our country, including weapons
and samples.”
Terrorists –and future nuclear club members –will pay millions
of dollars for a few pounds of nuclear material. In early 1995,
the NEW YORK TIMES reported that there had been 124 cases of
actual or attempted nuclear smuggling from former communist
countries during 1994, compared to 56 cases in 1993 and 53 in
1992. Citing as its source “a Western European intelligence
report,” the TIMES said “the smugglers themselves have become
steadily more sophisticated.” The TIMES described some of the
smugglers as “a disaffected former Czech nuclear worker,” and
“officers of the Russian northern fleet in Murmansk.” Other
smugglers mentioned in the report were “a Polish dealer in used
cars, meat and sausage,” a “38-year-old Colombian who had spent
years in Moscow as a student,” two Spanish accomplices, and “a
German businessman.” The intelligence report said that Russian
civilian nuclear research institutes often keep their inventories
of radioactive materials on paper only, without checking them
against actual stocks. [11]
Terrorists want even small amounts of nuclear materials because
making an A-bomb is not the only way to terrorize the world with
uranium or plutonium. Just blowing a chunk of plutonium to
smithereens with dynamite in some city center would be sufficient
to contaminate a large area, essentially permanently. Such an
attack would strike dread into the hearts of local people, who
would never know whether they had inhaled a lethal dose of
plutonium. The real weapon in this scenario would be fear, and a
permanent sense of insecurity throughout the city.
Even without terrorism, nuclear safety is impossible to assure.
In the U.S. –thought to be a model of stability and technical
prowess –nuclear stockpiles are subject to human foibles.
** In December 1992, the U.S. Army mistakenly shipped a kilogram
of plutonium by Federal Express, which transported it on an
airplane. [12]
** In late 1994 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee,
U.S. officials discovered that 2 kilograms of bomb-grade uranium
–enough to make a small nuclear bomb –had leaked from a defunct
Oak Ridge reactor. The uranium had escaped by turning into a gas
“through an unexpected chemical reaction” and was found
accumulating in a drain pipe. Officials expressed concern that
if water entered the pipe, a nuclear chain reaction could ensue,
showering radioactive material over a wide area. [13]
** On Dec. 6, 1994, the Department of Energy reported that U.S.
plutonium inventories were being held at 35 locations in
containers that were subject to leaks and ruptures. More than
64,000 plutonium containers included plastic bags, glass bottles,
and metal canisters, “some of which were unlabeled and unmarked.
Many of the containers were ruptured or broken; consequently
plutonium was reported to have contaminated floors, walls,
piping, and doors at several facilities. In all, the report
characterized the nationwide network of weapons complexes as a
dilapidated and hazardous system.” In sum, even the wealthiest,
most technically advanced nation in the world evidently does not
have what it takes to manage these materials safely.
Plutonium is among the most toxic materials every discovered.
When a small piece of it gets into a human lung, it is supremely
efficient at causing cancer. Somewhere between 28 and 80
micrograms is thought to cause cancer in a human “with
certainty.” If we use 80 micrograms as a lethal dose, we can
calculate that one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of plutonium contains
12.5 million deadly cancer doses.
Worse, recent scientific studies reveal that plutonium causes
genetic damage to humans, but it’s a new kind of damage which may
not become evident for several generations. In other words,
infinitesimal amounts of plutonium breathed today may not harm
you, but may harm your grandchildren or great-grandchildren. The
mechanism for this delayed genetic effect is poorly understood,
but is the subject of numerous scientific papers confirming its
existence. [14] Thus plutonium’s toxicity is worse than
scientists thought even five years ago.
Yes, this genie of death is out of the bottle. And every time we
look, this genie is bigger and more full of diabolical surprises.
It is time we put a cork in it. Stop making plutonium. Even
more fundamentally: Stop mining uranium.
Happy New Year!
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague
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[1] William J. Broad, “Iraqi Atom Effort Exposes Weakness in
World Controls,” NEW YORK TIMES July 15, 1991, pgs. 1, 6.
[3] Reuters, “Pakistani Is Rebuked on A-Bomb Remark,” NEW YORK
TIMES August 25, 1994, pg. A7.
[12] “Plutonium Shipping Rules Violated,” FACTS ON FILE WORLD
NEWS DIGEST Dec. 22, 1994, pg. 958A2.
[13] “Uranium Leak Found at Tennessee Lab,” FACTS ON FILE WORLD
DIGEST Dec. 1, 1994, pg. 895G1.
Descriptor terms: nuclear power; nuclear weapons; nuclear
proliferation; terrorism; soviet union; germany; organized crime;
russian mafia; russia; fission; plutonium; uranium; smuggling;
lung cancer; delayed genetic damage; mining;