Hiroshima, 62 years on.

“This is a problem that has to be solved anyway. You don’t solve it by trying to stop the development of any particular form of nuclear energy.” - Glenn Seaborg

“The people of this world must unite or they will perish. This war that has ravaged so much of the earth, has written these words. The atomic bomb has spelled them out for all men to understand. Other men have spoken them in other times, and of other wars, of other weapons. They have not prevailed. There are some misled by a false sense of human history, who hold that they will not prevail today. It is not for us to believe that. By our minds we are committed, committed to a world united, before the common peril, in law and in humanity.” - Robert Oppenheimer

“Namely, the thing that I refer to is this: To have security against atomic bombs and against the other biological weapons, we have to prevent war, for if we cannot prevent war every nation will use every means that is at their disposal; and in spite of all promises they make, they will do it. At the same time, so long as war is not prevented, all the governments of the nations have to prepare for war, and if you have to prepare for war, then you are in a state where you cannot abolish war.This is really the cornerstone of our situation. Now, I believe what we should try to bring about is the general conviction that the first thing you have to abolish is war at all costs, and every other point of view must be of secondary importance. ” - Albert Einstein

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As you all know, Monday marked the 62nd anniversary of the destruction of the city of Hiroshima with a nuclear fission weapon, the first such attack in history.

I think we all understand the importance of nuclear weapons non-proliferation, and respect it. I do. And we recognise the positive implications of engineering peaceful nuclear technology such that it is of less relevance to nuclear proliferation concerns.

The nuclear attacks on Japan are a defining historical symbol of this great, terrible war that ravaged so much of the earth, and created so much misery. But, fundamentally, this problem, of people wanting to kill people, is independent of whatever technology is used to facilitate it. Even in the age of nuclear weapons, people still hurl rocks at their enemies.

It’s a people problem. It needs to be solved through human means. You don’t solve it by saying that we need to have this type of technology, or that we must eliminate that type of technology.

“If you think technology will solve your security problems, you don’t understand the problems, and you don’t understand the technology.” - Bruce Schneier

“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” - Albert Einstein

That last quote is an especially concerning one, if you think about it. If we got to that unthinkable stage, reduced to the technology of sticks and stones, would we learn from it? Or would war continue, even with sticks and stones?
Anyway. Each year, the Hiroshima anniversary is marked by activists calling for peace, disarmament, international cooperation, and harmony.

And that’s great, I respect that.
But for every bit of activism directed at these noble causes, there’s the other side of the activism that August 6th is used as the pedestal for.

Nuclear this, radioactive waste that. Reactors this, Uranium mining that.

Big scary trefoil symbols abound on placards and posters everywhere.

Coal fired power plants kill people. Many thousands of people, everywhere, all the time, quite reliably. Anything that lets us close that down is an instrument of peace.

Nuclear medicine and imaging saves many lives, and improves quality of life, and quality of treatment. Even in a nation with no nuclear weapons, or no nuclear energy, this technology, among other things, produces low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. And the responsible, sensible plan for dealing with that waste involves building a secure national centralised repository to handle it. The alternative is a less organised, less secure, localised storage of such wastes, which is possibly more of a safety or security concern. The other alternative is to stop using nuclear medicine, or other nuclear technology. And that kills people.

A nuclear fission power reactor is not a nuclear weapon.
A nuclear fission power reactor cannot be turned into a nuclear weapon.

Fissioning actinide nuclei in a power reactor takes material that can potentially work in a nuclear weapon - and indeed, often takes material from nuclear weapons - and turns it into material that can never, ever be used to make a nuclear weapon work. And it generates clean, safe energy for society, too.

Large scale sources of reliable energy for society which are not dependant on increasingly scare fossil fuels are a boon for international security, stability and peace.

There is enough Uranium and Thorium in the ground worldwide for everybody to be confident of access to all that they’ll need for many, many decades into the future. We don’t go to war over Thorium or Uranium. We don’t need to, and won’t need to.

We do go to war over oil. By rights, we shouldn’t need to, either.

A critique of “Nuclear Power is not the Answer…”

Some of you will have already seen my little essay/thesis or whatever you want to call it, here.

I’ve been doing some more work on this recently, and it’s considerably further along and more polished than it has been before.

There are some factual claims being made by the anti-nuclear movement that I just don’t think are informed by good attention to science, and this is my main effort at standing up and attempting to address this.

It’s a very long piece of writing, I know. I never thought that it could get that long, but I guess I just refuse to gloss over scientific issues in a half arsed way.

It’s still not complete, there will be typos, bits that need to be edited, and so forth. It’s a work in progress.

Please check it out, and tell me what you think. (Please don’t be impolite, though.)

Peer review, proofreading, “peer review”, checking or critiquing of the science and factual content, and so forth is all very welcome and appreciated.

Ridiculous.

http://www.asen.org.au/OpportunitiesToWaste/

It seems somebody’s started to notice that there are an awful lot of independent scientists and academics - especially physicists - out there who are starting to speak out against anti-nuclear nonsense, so they’re trying to run defence by implying that these academics and scientists must clearly be shills of some sort.

“It is possible for Australian universities to divest and resist new funding and declare institutions nuclear-free.”

I have a sneaking suspicion that these people wouldn’t accept that a university was “nuclear-free” until such time as they abolish any Nuclear Engineering teaching or research, any nuclear or atomic physics teaching or research, and any teaching or research involving the use of radioisotopes.

In other words, the vast majority of all serious physical science.

They better get rid of the smoke detectors and radioluminescent exit signs while they’re at it.

“Assoc Prof Sevior, along with the other academics from the University of Melbourne, paints a picture of a department in favour of nuclear power, whilst it is claimed that they have “no particular vested interest”. “

They don’t have any particular vested interest. If they do, why don’t the critics put forward the evidence? Put up, or shut up.

On blogging, and activism.

There are some anti-nuclear activists out there whose passion, determination and belief in what they do is an inspiration to everybody, everywhere, who’s ever contemplated any type of activism, on any level.

Take Dr. Helen Caldicott as an example. Caldicott is somewhat famous, across the world, not for being any kind of an authority on nuclear engineering, but primarily thanks to her unwavering, steadfast unwillingness to shut up and go away, even though she’s no stranger to criticism. When it comes to any type of activism, you’ve got to respect and admire that.

Caldicott, and others in the anti-nuclear movement, is a somewhat incredible person. She really does have spine, and she’ll (sometimes) give you a (reasonably) fair debate, face to face.

You can’t say the same for everybody in the anti-nuclear activism community.

Am I going to shut up and go away? Not any time soon.

I think DARPA let that incredible cat out of the bag, over 30 years ago. You can not stop the information.

Ultimately, the truth will always come out.

I’ll leave with you with an extract from a very famous speech by a very famous physicist. The anti-nuclear crowd probably won’t like it, but as a scientist, I believe in it.

There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as we are free to ask what we must, free to say what we think, free to think what we will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.