American experts say that US nuclear might depends crucially on the civilian use of atomic energy, and believe the country will lose its place as the world’s nuclear superpower if it does not support its nuclear industry. The link between the civil nuclear industry and the military’s ability to maintain its nuclear weapons capability is spelt out in a report by experts close to the Pentagon. It states openly that tritium, an essential component of nuclear weapons, is manufactured in civilian reactors for military use. It also says that civilian reactors are needed to produce highly enriched uranium. The Washington-based Energy Futures Initiative report, says that Russia and China, which are both building civil nuclear stations outside their national borders, will overtake America both in influence and ability to deliver a nuclear threat unless steps are taken to prop up the civil nuclear programme at home. The Oxford Research Group (ORG), a UK think tank, published a two-part report, entitled Sustainable Security. Both parts examined the prospects of the UK’s Trident nuclear programme influencing its energy policy. The ORG concluded that the government realised it could not sustain its own nuclear weapons programme, or more particularly its nuclear-propelled submarine fleet, without a large and complementary civilian nuclear industry. Commenting on the release of the American report on the military crisis being caused by the lack of civilian power projects, Andrew Stirling, professor of science and technology policy at the School of Business, University of Sussex, UK, said: “With renewable costs tumbling and the international nuclear industry in growing crisis, it is becoming ever more difficult to carry on concealing this key underlying military reason for attachment to civil nuclear power.”
Climate News Network 23rd August 2017 read more »
