Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons: What’s the Connection?

ByHenry Sokolski

Executive DirectorThe Nonproliferation Policy Education Center

www.npolicy.org

A Presentation Made before a Boell Foundation/CSIS – Sponsored EventChallenging the Myths: A Trans Atlantic Debate on Nuclear Power and the Civil-Military Dilemma

October 5, 2010Washington DC

States or Regions With Operating Nuclear Power Plants Currently is Pretty

Limited

Number of Additional Power Reactors States by 2030 May Not Be

Power Reactors Past and Present Links to Weapons Program

USA – Richland dual use, TVA LWRsRussia – RMBKsUK – Calder Hall Magnox France – GCR plants, Phenix PlantsIndia – CIRUS, unsafeguarded PHWRsJapan, Turkey considered LWR options,

Pakistan PHWR, Sweden HWRs,

Even the Most Proliferation Resistant: Estimated Yields for Different Bomb

Technologies Using LWR Pu (Hubbard)

02468

101214161820

TrinityShot

TrinityWGandLWRPu

Trintiyx2

Trinityx3

Trinity Shot, super-grade Pu, 1% 240content

Weapons Grade, 6%240 Pu content

One-cycle LWR Pu,14% Pu 240 content

5

Bushehr: A Proliferation Portal

• Surrender and Prasad, Indian Tritium extraction Technology

• Russian implosion expert visit to Iran • Russian high speed cameras• Russian HWR fuel fabrication technology• IAEA assistance on UF production• WMD Commission NPAS concerns

How Mid-East Nexus Between Large Reactors and Bombs Has Been Handled Since 1980

12 Military Strikes against IAEA member states’ large reactors since 1980

11 against IAEA safeguarded reactors in NPT since 19801980 Iran against Osirak1981 Israel against Osirak1980-1985 Six Iraqi strikes against

Bushehr1990 US strike against Osirak and invasion2003 US against Osirak and invasion2007 Israeli against Syrian reactor

1 more1991 1 Iraqi Scud attack attempted against

Diamona

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What the IAEA Has Missed

9

Small, Covert Reprocessing Plant Can Make 20 or More Bombs/Month (e.g., Ferguson-

Culler) from Spent Fuel <10-day startup, 1 bomb’s-worth-a-day production rate

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SILEX: The Shape (and Size) of Things to Come?

Select States with LISIran, Brazil RoK, China Argentina, Japan, India, Russia, Pakistan, S. Africa, Britain, France, Israel Germany, Spain,Italy, Switz. Sweden, Iraq, and at least 5 more

Problem: Minimum Time to Make A Bomb Is Shorter than the Period between

InspectionsMATERIAL Official IAEA

Conversion Times

Official IAEA TimelinessDetection Goals

NRDC Conversion Estimates

Pu, HEU, U233 in metal form

7 to 10 days One month days

Pu In fresh MOX

1 to 3 weeks 1 month 7 to 10 days

PU in irradiated spent fuel

1 to 3 months 3 months 7 to 10 days if covert recycle

Low enriched uranium

3 to 12 months 1 year 1 to 30 days if covert enrichment

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IAEA Monitoring: More Remote than Real • Of IAEA’s ~1,200 remote nuclear inspection cameras, nearly 800

still have no near-real-time feedback. Virtually all of the countries of concern have no near-real-time feedback

• IAEA internal review of May 2005 found in that “Over the past 6 years, there have been 12 occasions when facility lights were turned off for a period greater than 30 hours” See http://www.npec- web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single&PDFFile=20070731-NPEC- ReportOnIaeaSafeguardsSystem&PDFFolder=Reports (included a non-NPT weapons state)

• Of those ~ 400 IAEA cameras that have near-time feedback today, many depend on internet connections that can be interrupted

• US State Dept. officials requested NPEC self-censor 2 scenarios for spent fuel rod diversions that could evade IAEA detection entirely. Similar scenarios, it turns out, were described elsewhere on the web by IAEA’s own Safeguards advisory group chairman. See http://www.npec- web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single&PDFFile=20041022- GilinskyEtAl-LWR&PDFFolder=Essays

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States US Has Tried to Persuade Not to Make Nucelar Fuel

BrazilArgentina RoK?Japan Saudi Arabia?India Jordan?Pakistan Egypt?Iran Algeria?Israel Vietnam?Germany

Current Proliferation Seems Manageable (With DPRK Disarming and Iran Nonnuclear)

With More Nuclear-Ready States: Ramp Up to a Nuclear 1914?

What Might Help

• Get US and others to assess what the IAEA can and cannot safeguard

• Leverage other nuclear suppliers eager to expand business in US to uphold UAE standards and to stop subsidizing nucelar exports

• Get G-20 to adopt common energy accounting rules to determine how to reduce carbon quickest cheapest

• Stop insisting NPT promotion of peaceful nuclear energy provides a perse right to specific nuclear technologies

• Implement existing law on Timely Warning, Title V, Hyde Act