Review the literature on nuclear anti-proliferation, and you get the impression that used fuel from civilian power reactors is a major proliferation threat. Henry Sokolski, a prominent anti-proliferation expert, recently told Nucleonics Week that U.S. loan guarantees for nuclear plants…
Category: Nuclear diplomacy
Public opinion and nuclear power: the democratic disconnect
For students of politics, public opinion, and democracy, regulatory hearings on nuclear energy are a rich mother lode of data. Take the CNSC hearing on Bruce Power’s plan to ship 16 used nuclear steam generators across the Atlantic to Sweden…
Nuclear fuel recycling: a refresher on the virtue of the Three Rs
A recent report from MIT, apparently intended to influence the U.S. president’s Blue Ribbon Commission on nuclear energy, recommends yet another round of inquiry into whether used nuclear fuel is a waste or a resource. Though the report also contains…
Poisoned rats aren’t ham: a new look at anti-nuclear propaganda
Normally I’m in favour of nuclear recycling. When it means re-using the material in used nuclear fuel, I’m all for it. After all, I support the Three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. But when it means recycling tired propaganda, my favour declines. For…
Countdown proceeding, but not noticed: a review of Countdown to Zero
Reading the line-up of interviewees in the new documentary Countdown to Zero, I was not at first encouraged. Tony Blair was one, but he was the only interviewee who was an out-front advocate of the Iraq invasion. I suspected a typical anti-Bush pile…