A Crisis Wrapped in a Disaster by risa
this mystery writer, Foggy B, keeps coming back to OpenJ with well-researched stuff and challenging but interesting things to say. So as of now he’s our first official anonymous contributor. welcome aboard, Foggy Bottom, wherever you are.
by Foggy Bottom
The international community has recently been racked by a string of nuclear crises: Iraq, North Korea, India, Pakistan, Iraq again, Libya, and Iran. So far, the US has characterized the problem of nuclear proliferation through the lens of “rogue states.” Rogue states are reckless and tyrannical regimes shun the rules of the international community to amass power and weaponry. The case of Iran is just another chapter in this tragic story. However, the recent crises in nuclear diplomacy may only be a prelude a greater disaster. We will soon witness the collision of two of the great dilemmas of our time: nuclear proliferation and energy security.
The nuclear proliferation quandary is relatively straightforward. Nuclear weapons are considered dangerous and immoral. The international community agrees that nuclear weapons must be abolished, or at a minimum controlled, at all costs. Nuclear weapons states, paradoxically, also agree that nuclear weapons must be controlled, since nuclear proliferation would reduce their relative clout. However, the same technologies that are used to produce the core elements of a nuclear weapon are also used for peaceful nuclear energy. Therefore the international community has needed to find a way to allow for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy while avoiding the diversion of nuclear technology for the development of nuclear weapons. Up until now, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has served the role of the world’s nuclear watchdog, by monitoring international nuclear facilities to ensure that civilian nuclear means are not diverted to military ends. This system seemed to work relatively well until the 1990s. Following the 1991 Gulf War, it was discovered that Saddam Hussein’s regime had developed a sophisticated nuclear weapons program under the disguise of a legitimate civilian nuclear program. This discovery triggered a crisis of confidence in the IAEA and the set of international laws, treaties, and safeguards that form the so-called nonproliferation regime. The international community reacted by strengthening the monitoring of nuclear facilities. The recent events in Iran, however, sparked a second crisis of confidence in the nonproliferation regime. A seemingly bellicose Iran was seen as developing all the infrastructure needed to develop nuclear weapons, legally, right under the nose of the international community. All that Iran would need to do is too pull out of the Nonproliferation Treaty, within months of developing a nuclear weapons capacity. In response to this second crisis, several states, including the IAEA have suggested curtailing the right to nuclear power. Noting that the capability to produce nuclear fuel could be used to produce nuclear weapons, some have suggested centralizing the production of nuclear fuel in a few trustworthy countries.
Such ways to address nuclear proliferation fly in the face of another great dilemma: energy security. Energy security refers to the secure access to energy supply. Energy security has become a growing concern for the international community, particularly with regards to carbon-based fuels such as oil and gas. Ever since the 1973 oil shocks, oil has been increasingly seen as a strategic vulnerability. The problem with oil can be boiled down to two concerns: security and supply. Western states are increasingly uncomfortable depending on unstable and ideologically hostile Middle East for such a critical resource. Dependence on oil has forced many a democracy to cozy up to unpalatable regimes, and get involved in nasty and distant conflicts. Terrorist organizations, well aware of the West’s dependence on oil have begun targeting oil facilities. However, like two old ladies complaining at their Catskills resort: “The food is so bad…. and the portions are so small;” if dependence on oil is not bad enough, it is also a limited resource. Global energy consumption is expected to double by 2035 and triple by 2055, particularly as the mammoth economies of China and India get on-line. Furthermore, while there is enough oil to last the world for several more decades, the real oil crisis won’t occur when companies extract the last drop from the ground. The crisis in oil will occur when increases in oil production will not be able to keep up with increases in demand (see Chart). There is a lot of controversy and propaganda regarding when exactly peak oil production will occur, but suffices to say that it will happen before the end of the century. At that point, the price of oil will steadily increase, competition for what oil is left will intensify, and wise countries will start looking elsewhere to satisfy their energy needs. Otherwise, concerns over global warming and the associated obligations under the Kyoto Protocol will push certain countries to develop non-carbon based energy sources.
At this point, countries will have a number of options including gas power, coal, hydrogen, renewables such as hydroelectric, wind, solar, and biomass and nuclear power. Gas power suffers many of the same faults as oil. It is a non-renewable resource, which although cleaner than oil, is not evenly spread out in the world. As the recent experiences of Russia turning off the tap of natural gas to Ukraine and Western Europe in the midst of a cold snap vividly illustrated, natural gas is not always in reliable supply. Coal power, even so-called clean coal which reduces acid rain, still produces greenhouse gases and can be fairly expensive. Hydrogen power, oft stated by President Bush in his speeches, is a clean burning fuel, but needs to be produced. This production takes energy. If the energy needed to produce hydrogen comes from non-renewables, then we are back at square one. Wind and solar power are relatively expensive and/or unreliable on a massive scale, and biomass requires an amount of land that simply is not sustainable for most states.
Faced with these difficult choices, many countries are taking another look at nuclear power. Despite the living memory of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, nuclear energy is making a big comeback. Argentina, Brazil, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, India, Finland, France, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and the US have all begun to plan, at times massive, construction of nuclear power plants. China, for example, will have 26 nuclear power plants by 2025. Indeed many states are starting to see the environmental risks associated with nuclear energy as manageable in comparison with the environmental and political costs associated with oil. For example, the world’s two largest uranium producers are Canada and Australia, which seem appealingly benign in comparison to Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world’s two largest producers of oil. Nuclear power does not emit carbon dioxide. Nuclear plants can be built in large numbers close to the populations they serve. Nuclear reactors could be used to produce hydrogen, which could then be distributed in clean fuel-efficient vehicles and utilities. Certain types of nuclear reactors, known as “fast breeders” even produce plutonium fuel as a byproduct to be used in another reactor.
As a growing number of nations come to see nuclear power as a sustainable power source, they will seek to develop so-called fuel cycles of their own. States will become weary of relying on other states for their nuclear fuel, since they understand this would only recreate the strategic liabilities posed by carbon-based energy sources. Therefore, there will be a greater number of states that will develop the necessary infrastructure to manufacture nuclear fuel. Of course, this same technology could be used to develop nuclear weapons, should the state’s security situation demand it. Indeed, in a world where a new nuclear power plant will be built every month, we can expect several more crises regarding the peaceful intentions of states. Today it is only Iran and North Korea, yet tomorrow it could be Syria, Brazil, Nigeria, Poland, or Indonesia. The IAEA, swamped with a ballooning number of facilities to inspect, may become a less reliable tool to prevent nuclear proliferation.
The diplomatic crisis in Iran is therefore only the tip of the iceberg of the coming disaster. How the international community handles this tough case has implications that will reach much further than the Middle East.
March 16th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
oh foggy,
you are dead on with certain facts but astray with others… These false expectations of more oil and gas (hydrocarbons) and the idea that peak oil is years in the future is wrong.
We are at, or past peak oil, and now the real race begins, the race where the rest of the oil/gas is secured.
Sure, technology will increase our ability to extract resources from depleated wells that are not producing what they used to, and yes technology can bring us power from every less productive locations, think albertan tar sands, but technology cannot give us new hydrocarbon resources.
Scramble your armies, circle central asia, and hope for the best if you want what little that is left, that is what the US, Canada, UK and others are up to in southwest asia.
Fusion power is good, but there is that nasty nature that makes this technology dual use. 1 nuke power planet = potential for one bomb.
- nook of the north