In American folk history there is a character called “Johnny Appleseed" who is reputed to have crossed the North American continent planting appleseeds and thus, in the space of a few years, bringing apple trees to America. A cartoon in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists borrowed the idea of Johnny Appleseed to portray American nuclear policy since the Atoms for Peace programme launched in 1953. The new character was Johnny Mushroomseed who disseminated civil nuclear reactors throughout the world and in doing so created the possibility of future nuclear weapon states. This is because any nuclear reactor — Magnox, AGR, PWR or Candu — produces plutonium even though its principal function is power generation. Plutonium, or rather the plutonium isotope 239, is bomb-making material and as little as 4kgs are required to manufacture a nuclear bomb; therefore, the expanded production of plutonium resulting from civil nuclear reactors poses a serious proliferation threat. The central problem of nuclear non-proliferation has been how to have one — nuclear power — without the other — nuclear bombs. America has never been able to reconcile the interest of its nuclear industry with those of non-proliferation; in other words, profits come before the prevention of nuclear weapons proliferation.
The Atoms for Peace programme was a contrast to the first eight years of American nuclear history, when the MacMahon Act prohibited the disclosure of nuclear secrets and the transfer of nuclear materials. The fledgling American nuclear industry feared that it was in danger of being excluded from a highly lucrative market by the more advanced British state controlled nuclear industry, and it was this which contributed to the change in policy. However, there was no assessment of the political implications of selling nuclear reactors since the risks of proliferation from a civil nuclear fuel cycle were not considered relevant. The uranium route to the bomb was reckoned to be too technologically sophisticated for most states, and since plutonium produced by a civil reactor was thought to be of no military use on account of the existence of the heavier plutonium isotopes, plutonium 240 in particular (weapons grade plutonium constitutes ideally 93 per cent Pu-239) the sale of nuclear reactors did not constitute a proliferation risk.
The Atoms for Peace programme, however, let loose an avalanche of nuclear hardware and knowledge; for example, over 11.000 technical papers on plutonium were de-classified. This has, in effect, enabled such states as Brazil to produce their own nuclear weapons. In fact Brazil, according to a report in the International Herald Tribune 4 February 1983, has taken a significant step towards developing a nuclear weapons potential by producing its own plutonium in a US supplied research reactor. The plutonium was produced in the 5-megawatt Babcock and Wilcox reactor at Brazil’s leading atomic research centre on the outskirts of Sao Paolo. South Africa’s research reactor, SAFARI-1 — South African Fundamental Atomic Research reactor — was also provided by the US. and according to Dan Smith, “the aid South Africa has received under the Atoms for Peace programme has had a central role in the development of a military potential'' (South Africa’s Nuclear Capability, Dan Smith. World Campaign against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa, London, 1980, p!4). SAFARI-1 is a light water reactor which uses highly enriched uranium and was provided by the Allis Chalmers Corporation. For years the Americans rationalised their continued sale of nuclear reactors and provision of nuclear fuel on the grounds that this allowed the US to exert leverage over the recipient states and thereby prevent them from developing their own nuclear weapons.
This was to change. Although the French and German nuclear industries were based on American technologies, the light water reactor, Framatome and Kraftwerk Union began to challenge the Americans for a share of the world nuclear reactor market. Furthermore, the development of uranium enrichment plants in Western Europe by Urenco (West Germany, Britain and the Netherlands) and Eurodif (France, Spain, Belgium and Italy) threatened the American monopoly for the supply of enriched uranium. The ensuing competition undermined the already flimsy international safeguards system. In 1975 West Germany agreed to supply Brazil with a complete nuclear fuel cycle which would, theoretically, lay the basis for Brazilian nuclear self-sufficiency. Not to be outdone the American company Bechtel offered to build Brazil a uranium enrichment plant, even though official US policy sought to prevent Brazil from obtaining such a facility.
In contrast to the Atoms for Peace era of American nuclear policy, the US government was now more proliferation conscious. However, the attempts of the State Department to dissuade the West Germans from going ahead with the deal were regarded as little more than a thinly veiled attempt to protect US commercial interests rather than an expression of proliferation concern. But since the German nuclear industry has come to depend on the export market, American non-proliferation policies were unlikely to be well received. The nuclear market favours the buyer who is more likely, therefore, to prefer suppliers who are less insistent on full scope safeguards for the transferred nuclear plant and material. The recent French decision to supply enriched uranium to India might not have been reached if the French had insisted on stricter safeguards. Indeed French eagerness to conclude the nuclear fuel deal was not unrelated to the fact that:
The French were understood to be eager to resolve the Tarapur dispute quickly so that they can cultivate the government of Prime Minister Gandhi for lucrative arms contracts and deals for transfer of technology to compensate for tight Western markets. International Herald Tribune, 24 November 1982, p3.
The Americans were powerless to stop this deal going ahead.
The oil crisis of 1973 had a major impact on the energy policies of Western Europe, North America and Japan. The desire to avoid external dependence for energy supplies was instrumental in confirming the need for nuclear power largely because it appeared to offer the best road to energy independence. In terms of energy independence reactors based on plutonium were considered, even from the early days of nuclear power in the years after 1945, to be the best option; the fast breeder reactor produces more fuel than it consumes. In order to establish a fast reactor programme it is essential to reprocess the spent fuels from the earlier thermal reactors to provide the initial load of plutonium fuel. Even without commitment to the fast reactor reprocessing was, and remains, desirable because it makes more efficient use of the original uranium fuel, and when doubts exist about the future availability of uranium supplies the attractions of a fast reactor seem obvious. There is, however, a major proliferation risk associated with expanded use and production of plutonium since there is nothing to stop such material from being diverted from ostensibly civil stocks to military programmes. Accounting of plutonium is very imprecise and even a one per cent loss in the “statistical noise” would release enough plutonium to build several atomic bombs. For example, India has had a long standing commitment to reprocessing and fast reactor technology since it corresponds to a national policy of nuclear self-sufficiency. India commenced large scale reprocessing at the end of 1982. When we consider that India’s nuclear test (107m down a shaft at Pokharan in the Rajasthan desert on 18 May 1974) used about 15kgs of plutonium derived from the Canadian supplied CIRIUS reactor, the proliferation risk associated with large quantities of separable plutonium is only too apparent.
The Americans, beginning with the Ford Administration and carried on by its successor, concluded that moves toward undue reliance on reprocessing and the “plutonium economy” were events to be avoided; therefore. Carter’s nonproliferation initiative deferred American commitment to reprocessing, and the fast reactor project at Clinch River, Tennessee, was indefinitely postponed. This was done in the hope that such self-sacrifice would persuade others, primarily the Europeans and the Japanese, to do likewise. They were, however, unimpressed primarily because they had extensive plutonium projects which they regarded, especially the French, as vital to their energy security and hence political independence. Moreover, they suspected that concern with proliferation was yet another attempt by the US to regain its nuclear monopoly since the Americans were lagging behind the Europeans in reprocessing and fast reactor technology. In fact it was doubts about the reliability of the US as a supplier of nuclear materials that had provided the impetus for the development of indigenous nuclear facilities, such as reprocessing and uranium enrichment, in Europe and the developing world. In short, American opportunities to influence the behaviour of states through relationships of dependence were disappearing fast.
Profit first
Although non-proliferation was ostensibly a major issue for the Carter Administration, reflected in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, the interests of profitability came first; for example, the US continued to supply India with uranium fuel notwithstanding India’s refusal to sign the NPT and submit all her nuclear plants to international inspection. In Hazards of the International Energy Crisis (eds. I). Carlton & C. Schaerf, Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1982, p 11) it is argued that “the export of reactors is now vital to the economic viability of national nuclear industries and has a higher priority than the overall main goal of preventing nuclear weapons proliferation”. Even a Commissioner with the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Victor Gilinsky, was able to remark that:
despite international safeguards, the NPT and various international co-operative arrangements, the history of the past 25 years suggests that in reality commercial considerations have tended to dominate security concerns, complicating and even undermining efforts at control. (“‘Plutonium, Proliferation and the Price of Reprocessing", Foreign Affairs, Winter 1978/9 No.2, Vol.57, p376.)
In an attempt to forestall the dissemination of “sensitive” nuclear technology the supplier states, including America, came together in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. The object was to restrain the spread of proliferation sensitive technology and impose stricter safeguards on all exports. Items on the list included isotopic separation plants, reactors, reactor control rods, fuel fabrication plants, heavy water manufacturing equipment and spent fuel reprocessing facilities. However, states in the developing world have no time for what they see as the technological colonialism of this nuclear cartel. In any case, as has been shown, commercial imperatives tend to outweigh any notional commitments to non-proliferation. Furthermore, those states on the nuclear weapons threshold can no longer be denied the expertise and hardware since they already possess them; moreover, such states as India and Argentina, both of whom are outside the NPT. can now export their own nuclear materials and know-how.
According to the Reagan Administration nuclear proliferation was not really a problem. Mahlon Gates, Assistant Secretary for Energy, informed the Senate Appropriations Committee that he was "pleased to announce that the Department had embarked on a course of action intended to reverse the deterioration of our nuclear industry and restore us to a position of leadership in the international community”. Moreover, the earlier decision to deter reprocessing and the Clinch River reactor was revoked. But the principal threat to the non-proliferation regime comes from US military policy. Although there is a shortage of plutonium and tritium (necessary for thermonuclear bombs) the US military expansion requires an increase in the number of nuclear warheads. Previously fissile material from older warheads was re-cycled, but with an expansion of 15,000 warheads planned, existing plutonium stocks will be insufficient. This shortage is generating pressures to reprocess spent fuel from commercial pow'er stations, which will, as The Guardian notes (10 March 1982, Reagan atomic plan ‘breaks rules’), violate the principle laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency — and incorporated into the NPT — that civilian facilities should never become involved in military programmes. The most likely consequence of this development will be the further weakening of the already fragile non-proliferation regime. The technical relationship between civil and military technology is again proving to be the undoing of non-proliferation policies.
After almost forty years the nuclear arms race continues unabated. Civil nuclear technology figures prominently in the energy policies of many states in the developing world, and despite their assurances that such programmes are purely for peaceful purposes, bomb manufacture is within their grasp. It has been said that the nuclear genie is very definitely out of its bottle; therefore, the main aim of policy must be to put it back; however, the chances of achieving a successful non-proliferation policy, whether American or international, within the confines of capitalism are as great as finding the Lost Dutchman Mine.
John Walker
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