Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 3: Fukushima, Nonproliferation and Nuclear Energy

AGA 3.1: Hauptvortrag

Donnerstag, 29. März 2012, 14:00–15:00, A 151

The Current Perspectives of Nuclear Energy and Non-proliferation — •Victor Gilinsky — United States, Santa Monica/California

The main reason given nowadays for supporting nuclear plant construction around the world is that the plants do not produce CO2. The negative aspects are costs so high as to require subsidies, the possible connection with proliferation, and since the Fukushima accident, a renewed concern about nuclear safety. To make a dent on global climate, we would need many power reactors, perhaps a thousand worldwide, perhaps more. Such a scale-up is not likely in view of nuclear power's high cost. Fukushima demonstrated that LWRs are capable of large accidental releases of radioactivity, roughly comparable to that at Chernobyl. While effective evacuation can protect people, the evacuees may never be able to return. The half life of cesium 137, the main contaminant, is about 30 years, and it may take several half lives to make an area acceptable for rehabitation. In Fukushima about 100,000 persons were evacuated from an area of about 1000 square kilometer. When it comes to proliferation, there are strong arguments over whether we can have nuclear power without nuclear weapons. The 1946 US Acheson-Lilienthal Report argued that gaining nuclear energy`s benefits without proliferation required strict international control. Inspection alone couldn't afford any reasonable security against the diversion of such materials to the purposes of war. The authors view is that the connection between technologies for nuclear power and nuclear weapons is still so close that you cant get the benefits of power without increasing the risks of weapons spread. Up to now we have allowed our interest in nuclear power to trump our bomb worries. It is time to rethink the proliferation risk of a large increase in nuclear power capacity.