Verifying Nuclear Disarmament

Commentators differ on whether nuclear disarmament would be desirable, but many argue that disarmament is impractical because it could not be verified. Three reasons are often offered for such pessimism. First, nuclear weapons are small and difficult to detect, and one could not be sure that a few weapons had not been hidden away. Second, nuclear weapons are so destructive that a mere handful would confer enormous military and political advantages over non-nuclear adversaries. Finally, nuclear know-how cannot be eliminated, and any nation that had dismantled its nuclear weapons would be capable of quickly assembling a new arsenal from scratch or using civilian nuclear materials. Because of the difficulty of verifying that other states had eliminated all their weapons and providing adequate warning of their rearming, it is argued, states would not agree to disarm in the first place

Decarbonizing the Global Energy System

Invited update of my Stanford report by Annual Reviews of Energy and Environment, then rejected.To stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at an equivalent doubling, CO2 emissions must be limited to 5 PgC y–1 in 2050, compared to 8 PgC y–1 today. This will require the decarbonization of world energy supply, in which fossil fuels, which today account for 85% of energy supply, are replaced by carbon-free sources. Only five sources are capable of supplying a substantial fraction of the required carbon-free supply: biomass, fission, solar, wind, and decarbonized fossil fuels. Other sources are either too limited, too expensive, or too unproven to make a substantial contribution by 2050. Each of the major alternatives has significant economic, technical, or environmental handicaps. Biomass can supply affordable portable fuels, but would require vast areas of land, in competition with agriculture and natural ecosystems. Fission is a mature technology, but suffers from public-acceptance problems related to the risks of accidents, waste disposal, and proliferation. Solar is environmentally benign but expensive and would require massive storage or transmission. Wind is economically competitive at windy sites, but attractive sites are limited. Fossil fuels are cheap and abundant, but the cost of CO2 capture and disposal may be high and the environmental impacts unknown

Space Solar Power: An Idea Whose Time Will Never Come?

Arthur Smith laments the lack of attention to space solar power (SSP), but SSP cannot compete with solar power based on earth. The advantage of SSP is a large and constant solar flux: 1.37 kW m–2 or 12,000 kWh m–2 y–1. This is about five times higher than the average flux in sunny areas on the earth’s surface, such as the American southwest. The larger solar flux in space cannot compensate, however, for the cost of placing systems in orbit and losses in transmitting the electricity back to earth

The Future of Nuclear Arms Control

American Physical Society Centennial Symposium: History of Physics in National Defense, World Congress Center, Atlanta, 24 May 1999It’s a great privilege for me to be invited to join this very distinguished panel. As you can tell from the color of my hair, I represent the next generation of physicists involved in public policy. Rather than talk about the history of physics in national defense, I’ll talk about the future—in particular, the future of nuclear arms control

Future Directions in Nuclear Arms Control and Verification

Delivered at the 62nd meeting of the German Physical Society, Regensburg, Germany, 26 March 1998To date, nuclear arms control has focused on restricting the number and capabilities of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles— intercontinental missiles and bombers. In the future, it will become increasingly important to combine these measures with restrictions on nuclear warhead and fissile-material stockpiles and on the operation and targeting of nuclear forces. Restrictions on nuclear warheads, materials, operations, and targeting would not only help improve stability, but would also help reduce the risk of accidental, unauthorized, or erroneous use of nuclear weapons. A major challenge is verifying compliance with such restrictions. This paper outlines the technical possibilities for verifying limits on stockpiles of warheads and fissile materials, on the dismantling of nuclear warheads and the disposition of fissile materials, and on the launch-readiness of nuclear forces in the hope of stimulating further research on these topics

The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: An Essential Element of U.S. Nonproliferation Policy

CISSM Forum PresentationWe are delighted to inform you that Dean Steve Fetter will present a luncheon lecture under the auspices of the ISEP/CISSM/DC Forum on Thursday, April 6, 2006, in recognition of his receipt of the Hans Bethe Award. The lecture and luncheon will begin at 12:15 p.m. in the Atrium of Van Munching Hall. Please RSVP to Anja Kuznetsova at x57614 or [email protected]. The Federation of American Scientists has presented the Hans Bethe Award to Steve Fetter in recognition of his outstanding contributions as an advocate for arms control and nonproliferation, and for his rigorous and insightful analysis of nuclear energy, climate change, and carbon-free energy supply. It is a truly distinctive prize that brings honor to the School of Public Policy

The Effects of Nuclear Detonations and Nuclear War

Nuclear war conjures up images of mass destruction and mutilation that few are willing to contemplate in detail. This chapter reviews the effects of nuclear explosions and describes the damage that might result from various types of nuclear strikes

Climate Change and the Transformation of World Energy Supply

In December 1997, world attention turned to Kyoto, Japan, where parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) negotiated a protocol to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions of the industrialized countries by 5 percent below 1990 levels over the next ten to fifteen years. The agreement has been attacked from both sides. Environmental groups assert that much deeper reductions are urgently needed. Opponents claim that the proposed reductions are either unnecessary or premature, would curtail economic growth, or would be unfair or ineffective without similar commitments by developing countries. Both groups overstate the importance of near-term reductions in emissions. The modest reductions called for by the Kyoto agreement are a sensible first step, but only if they are part of a larger and longer-term strategy. Indeed, near-term reductions can be counterproductive if they are not implemented in a manner that is consistent with a long-term strategy to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations. The centerpiece of any long-term strategy to limit climate change is a transformation in world energy supply, in which traditional fossil fuels are replaced by energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide. This transformation must begin in earnest in the next 10 to 20 years, and must be largely complete by 2050. Today, however, all carbon-free energy sources have serious economic, technological, or environmental drawbacks. If economically competitive and environmentally attractive substitutes are not widely available in the first half of the next century, it will be impossible to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at acceptable levels.The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University

Protecting Our Military Space Systems

Over the last 25 years the United States has become increasingly dependent on space-based systems to support its military forces, and this trend is likely to continue for some time. Satellite systems have become an integral part of nuclear deterrence by providing strategic warning of an attack, tactical warning of missile launches, reliable communications between command authorities and nuclear forces, and nuclear explosion detection. Satellites also aid in conventional war-fighting by providing accurate reconnaissance, intelligence, weather, and navigation information

Tags

An agreement on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) may place numerical and geographical limits on more than 140,000 treaty-limited items (TLIs)1 in 21 countries. Monitoring limits on such huge numbers of TLIs would be extremely difficult, as well as expensive and intrusive, with human inspectors alone. This chapter examines a promising way to effectively monitor limits while reducing cost and intrusiveness: the tagging of TLIs. The use of tags transforms a numerical limit into a ban on untagged items. The result is that many of the verification advantages of a complete ban can be retained for a numerical limit. Tagging works by certifying that every TLI observed is one of those permitted under a numerical limit. A tagging system would involve the manufacture of a number of tags equal to the number of TLI, which would then be affixed to an essential part of each allowed TLI. If even one untagged TLI were ever seen—during on-site inspections (OSI), by national technical means (NTM), or even by nationals of the inspected party loyal to the treaty regime—then there would be prima facie evidence of a treaty violation. If properly designed, tags could also identify a TLI as belonging to a particular nation or as normally deployed in a particular region, which would make it easier to verify CFE sub-limits on national and regional deployments