[Short entry] IAEA report on Iran released; much more ado about not much

Politico's 'Morning Defense' daily email column reports today that:

IN ITS LONG-AWAITED REPORT, the International Atomic Energy Agency says it "has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device." The report released Tuesday is here: http://politi.co/tgsvX9

Politico's "take":

The IAEA's report is likely to put to rest doubts about Iran's intentions that have fueled debate in the United States since 2007, when a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Tehran had abandoned efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Look for a new urgency to deal with the issue as world leaders take seriously the signals from Israel about a possible attack.

The 2007 NIE certainly did call into question Iran's bomb program. But according to David Albright, speaking at The George Washington University October 7, 2011, Iran has likely enriched enough low-enriched uranium to allow them to make enough high-enriched uranium for at least one nuclear weapon upon further enrichment within the timescale of a couple to a few years.

But writing last year in Foreign Affairs, Lindsay and Takeyh, assure us that, 'Washington can contain and mitigate the consequences of Tehran's nuclear defiance, keeping an abhorrent outcome from becoming a catastrophic one.'

I think this is the right perspective. Nuclear weapons proliferation is abhorrent in any context, as is their very existence. The central issue being that in a post-nuclear-Iran world, they have an even less useful weapon than the U.S. or its allies possess: for Iran's use of such a weapon would be attributable and the response would be swift and apocalyptic for Iran's leadership and, unfortunately, its people.

[Short entry] Switzerland to abolish nuclear power (maybe)

Switzerland Senate Endorses Nuclear Phase Out

I'm a little behind the headlines with this posting (as research and preparations for the move to New Mexico have been keeping me pretty busy) but this important news item shouldn't be overlooked.

The Federal Assembly of Switzerland or Parliament, with the September 28 vote by the Senate, has passed the law banning the development of new plants (with a stipulation to 'keep Parliament informed'), to phase-out nuclear power by 2034, and to develop renewable sources.

Of course, there's the question of replacement sources for the 40% of Switzerland's current total power use that comes from nuclear power plants and what this says about the feasibility and eventuality of putting this decision into practice.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that there will be further legislative decisions affecting the outcome of the planned 2034 phase-out.

[Short entry] Five sieverts detected at Fukushima Dai'ichi reactor one

The Sydney Morning Herald is carrying the story, "Japan to pay billions to victims of Fukushima".

Any questions of a "partial" vs. a "full" meltdown are resolved by the measurement of 5 sievert equivalent dose in the immediate proximity of reactor one. The Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered a complete meltdown consisting of the breech of both internal and external containment.

[Short entry] Iran confirms suspected missile silos

William Broad at The New York Times reports that the Iranian government has "unveiled" "deep underground" missile silos. They're capable of launching "long-range" missiles. And an Iranian general, Asghar Qelichkani, claims that the missile are "ready to hit their predetermined targets." The NYT article isn't too specific about what the General means by this. But the official press agency of the People's Republic of China, the Xinhua news service is happy to tell us:

Aerospace commander of Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said Tuesday that Iran's missiles have the range of 2,000 km and can reach U.S. bases in the region and also Israel.

Iran does not need to increase the range of its missiles since Israel is just 1,200 km away from Iran and the U.S. bases are even nearer, some 120 to 700 km away from Iran, said the commander.

With the existing missiles, Iran can hit the targets from the Iranian central cities of Semnan and Damghan, Hajizadeh said.

He dismissed the threats by the Europeans and said that Iran has designed and developed its missiles for U.S. and Israel targets.

There's a lot of smoke here but not too much fire. The existence of the silos has long been suspected, as the NYT mentions. While the existence of the silos opens the possibility that they may be used to house nuclear-tipped missiles, there is still no further, concrete evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The silos are an effective defense even if they "only" house "conventional" weapons.

Strategically speaking, even in the unlikely event that Iran announced a nuclear arsenal tomorrow, with the "long-range" delivery implied by the silos, their use of a nuclear device is necessarily, strictly, as they have declared in the silos' announcement, defensive. 'Attribution,' the forensic science of nuclear weapons would conclusively identify the source of the plutonium and/or uranium used to make the weapon. Not to mention the fact that when a missile is launched anywhere in the world, US and EU satellites know about it immediately. And the full trajectory is determined within seconds, from launch point to target. The US (and ROTW*, for that matter) response would be immediate and devastating.

The important question that needs to be asked of the US government is why it continues a policy policy of promoting proliferation. We only need look to N. Korea to see its consequences.

*ROTW=Rest of the World

[Short entry] Yucca Mountain still has legs

The excellent science policy news service FYI provided by the American Institute of Physics, a bi-weekly (or more) column on science policy developments in Washington, reports on the efforts by various interests to reinstate the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, near Yucca Flats, Nevada.

It's fact that folks in Nevada generally don't want their ground filled with hot waste. And there's some evidence of this in the candid comments of Rep. Shelley Berkeley (D-NV) who termed the Yucca Mountain Authorization Bill the "1987 screw Nevada bill."

The Big News is the FY 2012 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill prevents funding for any purpose toward the decommissioning of the repository. And Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) is trying to put money into the budget for continuing operations -- in case you didn't have enough to unsettle your stomach with the ongoing and escalating debt-ceiling battle.

A more thorough discussion on Yucca Mountain and the authorization process is forthcoming on this weblog -- with a little luck.

More on Iran's threatless nuclear program

Iran is not a threat to the U.S. or their neighbors.

Now Seymour Hersh has inside information to confirm this. Of course, Hersh provides consistent and usually accurate reporting on national security. His latest, Iran and the Bomb , is a good read, though with his characteristic unattributable sourcing. (You can also watch him on Democracy Now!) The important point to remember is that without Hersh's unnamed sources, the public record is rich in the fact that Iran is not building a nuclear weapons program.

[Short entry] Fukushima 'extensive meltdown' confirmed

The extent of the catastrophe at Fukushima Dai'ichi is only now being realized in mainstream press outlets and US academic institutions. The NY Times, for example, and the American Academy for Arts and Sciences are reporting that indicates a revision from previous characterizations of the nuclear tragedy in Fukushima prefecture. Earlier news reports, with few exceptions, characterized the state of the reactors at the Tokyo Power Company's Fukushima site as "partial meltdowns." (See the 29 March 2011 entry in this weblog.) Claims of a "partial meltdown" were suspect with the reports of plutonium contamination in the soil and water outside the reactor containment vessels.

The concept of a "partial meltdown" is, at best, an imprecise state; at worst, it's a newspeak/PR term to titrate the reaction of the public to radiation and radioactive material releases into the environment. Conventionally, a "meltdown" occurs when a reactor core gets hot enough to alter the fuel rod configurations beyond design tolerance. This increases the likelihood of radiation and/or radioactive material into the environment. Putting the word "partial" in front of "meltdown," especially before the configuration of the Fukushima reactors could be confirmed visually or otherwise was a reaction based on mitigating public perception, rather than providing the public with information.

Major, mainstream media outlets, such as the NY Times, would have been doing their job properly by informing their readers of these motivations.