Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Eleven: Nuclear Power 167concerned” 183 about nuclear risks, it is likely that a major nuclear release willlead to irresistible demands for the shutdown of operating nuclear powerplants and, perhaps, of military nuclear plants. In view of deep-seated publicattitudes and the many ways which a democracy offers for expressing them,this is not a trivial dimension of vulnerability. It means that regardless of whatthe government or the investment community may want, a sizeable accidentor incident of sabotage anywhere in the world may lead to the loss not of oneor two giant plants but of all seventy-odd nuclear plants now operating in theUnited States. It would almost certainly spell the end of nuclear power here,to say nothing of political fallout in other countries. Already, the discovery ofdefects common to a certain type of reactor have led to the temporary shutdownof all reactors of that type throughout the U.S.; and with the emergenceof such problems as the embrittlement of steel pressure vessels, more serious“generic shutdowns” loom on the horizon. These incidents provide a precedentfor shutting down large numbers of reactors by regulatory fiat. Publicdemand could be a far more irresistible force.Thus, public attitudes may be the most important motivation for terroriststo acquire nuclear bombs or attack nuclear plants: “...the primary attractionto terrorists in going nuclear is not that nuclear weapons would enable terroriststo cause mass casualties, but rather that almost any terrorist actionassociated with the words ‘atomic’ or ‘nuclear’ would automatically generatefear in the minds of the public.” 184 This is perhaps the reason to suspect thatthe maxim “Terrorists want people watching, not people dead” 185 may notmean, as some argue, that nuclear terrorism is implausible. Nuclear targetsoffer terrorists an opportunity to achieve both ends—many people watching,some people dead—either on purpose or because what was meant to be a merespectacle gets out of control.People who mean to reassure the public sometimes argue that terrorists areunlikely to make or steal nuclear bombs because other, simpler weapons ofmass destruction are more readily available: for example, tankers of chlorine(toxic at fifteen parts per million) or pathogenic bacteria. 186 Extortionists havein fact used both of these in threats, and it is quite true that anthrax spores,mentioned in a German threat 187 are hundreds of times more lethal per ouncethan fissionable material in crude bombs 188 —assuming the bombs are not setoff near nuclear facilities. The lethality of anthrax could indeed “rival theeffects of a thermonuclear device.” 189 But it is the psychology, not the technology,of threats that explains why nuclear bomb threats have in fact outnumberedgerm warfare threats by better than twenty to one. Furthermore, theexistence of non-nuclear means of terrorism does not mean that the nuclearmeans should not be taken seriously. The existence of one vulnerability in