Nuclear Policy
I've been waiting for a while to use this image and now i have my chance.
I've just read a letter in the observer. The origins of said letter can only be ascribed to its author hitting the crack pipe particularly hard one evening. It reads
Why does Blair want to build nuclear power stations? Because the American people hate nuclear power so much that the Bush administration cannot build new power stations. So they have a problem with obtaining weapons-grade plutonium. So Blair wants us to provide it instead. Hence the false choices between wind power or anything else.
Michael Brett
London N13
This man is clearly a paranoid conspiraloon. I know some people think we're already the 51st state in all but name but this contention must surely be acknowledged as the demented ravings of an unsound mind. Does the author seriously ask us to believe that the most important and critical decision in Britians energy policy, a policy the effects of which will reverberate for the next fifty to a hundred years, is dictated by the needs of the U.S. atomic weapons programme?
Well yes, it would appear so.
I could just leave it there but having pointed out the sheer lunacy i feel compelled to factually debunk it. Ordinarily since he has made the contention the onus would be on Mr Brett to provide evidence for its accuracy. But i guess he can't really do that so i'll go straight to the refutation.
If the U.S. really needed that plutonium so badly, now and in the future, why has the Bush administration not reneged on the 1999 Clinton administration deal with Russia to sharply reduce their high yield plutonium stockpiles?
Also, taking into consideration its already mighty nuclear arsenal, the only reason the US would need more plutonium 239 (the admittedly cool sounding "weapons grade" stuff) is if it were to be considering developing new generations of nuclear weaponry. Something that has now been dropped from the agenda.
Perhaps most damaging for Mr Brett, the only really practical way of producing plutonium 239 is in research plants designed for just that purpose. As opposed to the commercial power reactors Blair proposes, whose most common byproduct is Plutonium 240.
I can only make one concession to the letter writers case. While it is possible to create a nuclear weapon from the reactor grade plutonium 240 that commercial power plants produce it is much more dangerous, much less cost effective, and much less likely to go critical. Hence it is unlikely to be of use to the US military unless it is in dire straits. Furthermore there is so much plutonium 240 littered around the worlds various reactors and reprocessing plants (including the more than 100 plants the US operates) that were that situation to come to pass it would not even be necessary for the US to be operating a single plant within its borders to get its hands on some.
Sorry Mr Brett, must try harder (and maybe ease up on the crack a little bit).
The real argument should not be obscured by these kind of fantasies. Whether Britain should go ahead with a renewed civil nuclear power policy or not is a critically important issue, and one that i have not yet made my mind up on. However if i may lapse into a paranoid moment of my own (one which you will hopefully concede is justified) i cannot help but think that the matter has already been decided upon within the inner circles of whitehall.
Now where did i put my tinfoil beanie?
I've been waiting for a while to use this image and now i have my chance.
I've just read a letter in the observer. The origins of said letter can only be ascribed to its author hitting the crack pipe particularly hard one evening. It reads
Why does Blair want to build nuclear power stations? Because the American people hate nuclear power so much that the Bush administration cannot build new power stations. So they have a problem with obtaining weapons-grade plutonium. So Blair wants us to provide it instead. Hence the false choices between wind power or anything else.
Michael Brett
London N13
This man is clearly a paranoid conspiraloon. I know some people think we're already the 51st state in all but name but this contention must surely be acknowledged as the demented ravings of an unsound mind. Does the author seriously ask us to believe that the most important and critical decision in Britians energy policy, a policy the effects of which will reverberate for the next fifty to a hundred years, is dictated by the needs of the U.S. atomic weapons programme?
Well yes, it would appear so.
I could just leave it there but having pointed out the sheer lunacy i feel compelled to factually debunk it. Ordinarily since he has made the contention the onus would be on Mr Brett to provide evidence for its accuracy. But i guess he can't really do that so i'll go straight to the refutation.
If the U.S. really needed that plutonium so badly, now and in the future, why has the Bush administration not reneged on the 1999 Clinton administration deal with Russia to sharply reduce their high yield plutonium stockpiles?
Also, taking into consideration its already mighty nuclear arsenal, the only reason the US would need more plutonium 239 (the admittedly cool sounding "weapons grade" stuff) is if it were to be considering developing new generations of nuclear weaponry. Something that has now been dropped from the agenda.
Perhaps most damaging for Mr Brett, the only really practical way of producing plutonium 239 is in research plants designed for just that purpose. As opposed to the commercial power reactors Blair proposes, whose most common byproduct is Plutonium 240.
I can only make one concession to the letter writers case. While it is possible to create a nuclear weapon from the reactor grade plutonium 240 that commercial power plants produce it is much more dangerous, much less cost effective, and much less likely to go critical. Hence it is unlikely to be of use to the US military unless it is in dire straits. Furthermore there is so much plutonium 240 littered around the worlds various reactors and reprocessing plants (including the more than 100 plants the US operates) that were that situation to come to pass it would not even be necessary for the US to be operating a single plant within its borders to get its hands on some.
Sorry Mr Brett, must try harder (and maybe ease up on the crack a little bit).
The real argument should not be obscured by these kind of fantasies. Whether Britain should go ahead with a renewed civil nuclear power policy or not is a critically important issue, and one that i have not yet made my mind up on. However if i may lapse into a paranoid moment of my own (one which you will hopefully concede is justified) i cannot help but think that the matter has already been decided upon within the inner circles of whitehall.
Now where did i put my tinfoil beanie?
3 Comments:
While this involves activities across the pond in America, you might be interested to know there is a new techno-thriller novel about the American nuclear power industry, written by a longtime nuclear engineer (me, and available at no cost on the net. This book provides an entertaining and accurate portrait of the nuclear industry today and how a nuclear accident would be handled. It is called “Rad Decision”, and is currently at RadDecision.blogspot.com.
"I'd like to see Rad Decision widely read." - Stewart Brand, founder, The Whole Earth Catalog, noted futurist, tech icon.
I hope it's not the Dr Michael Brett who lectures at the London School Of Anti-Semitism (SOAS aka Oriental and African Studies)
Interesting that you mention that Laban but in this case i don't think it is the doctor, just a namesake.
A brief Google search came up with this chap, who looks a very likely candidate judging by the Kaffiyeh.
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