Accidents Happen?

"Accidents happen. That's what they say."
-- Grover

My two year-old daughter is in full potty training mode, and right now her favorite video is Sesame Street's "Elmo's Potty Time." Unfortunately this means that the soundtrack plays over and over in my head. One of the catchiest songs is "Accidents Happen" (quoted above). The conclusion of the song is that accidents happen, and that's ok.

The other world in which I reside, where I work every day for the abolition of nuclear weapons, is full of examples where accidents are not ok. One such example is the Palomares accident, which happened on this day in 1966.

On this day in the middle of the Cold War, a U.S. B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons collided in mid-air with a KC-135 refueling tanker plane, causing both planes to crash. One of the B-52's nuclear weapons was recovered on the ground and another was found after a months-long search in the sea. The other two nuclear weapons have never been found.

Another Reason to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Links between nuclear security and climate change demonstrated by wildfires in Russia

by Rob van Riet*

From massive landslides caused by torrential rain in China, to unprecedented floods affecting over 14 million people (and counting) in Pakistan, to rampant wildfires spreading through parts of Russia; the Northern hemisphere has been experiencing some extreme weather conditions this summer. Although one should be careful in proving (or disproving) climate change by pointing to such incidents, these episodes give a taste of some of the expected effects of global warming.

A concern that has been growing in my mind for some time is how nuclear security fits into this increasingly unstable picture (all three abovementioned countries have nuclear arsenals).

The wildfires that have been besieging Russia for over two weeks now have deepened this worry. With western and central parts of Russia suffering the worst heat wave since records began 130 years ago, wildfires have been ravaging the countryside. They have destroyed more than a third of cultivable land, claimed over 50 lives, clouded Moscow in smoke and damaged several military sites. Another threat surfaced last week when blazes were on their way to engulfing key nuclear sites.

New START vs. FY2011 Budget

In his Prague speech, President Obama proclaimed in order for the world to be free of nuclear weapons, the U.S. must spearhead a reduction of its nuclear arsenal. He won the hearts of many in the non-proliferation field when he stated that the U.S. would begin reducing its stockpile under his administration. How disheartening to us all, then, when we learned that his FY2011 budget reflected exactly the opposite. Far from committing funds for disarmament, he actually slashed the dismantlement program by 40%. By caving to conservative demands of modernization, Obama not only breaks his Prague promise, but acts against the spirit of New START.

New START is a follow-on to an agreement originally made between the U.S. and USSR to dismantle the relics of the Cold War, in order to build relations between the two adversaries, as well as reduce the risk of a nuclear accident. How strange then, that as the U.S. agrees to dismantle several hundred weapons with one hand, it funds the construction of weapons fuel facilities and Life Extension Programs (LEP) for aging arsenals with the other.

Scenarios For Nuclear Catastrophe

In a recent article that I wrote, “British Petroleum, Imagination and Nuclear Catastrophe,” I argued we should use the occasion of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to imagine scenarios in which a nuclear catastrophe could take place. The reason for imagining such scenarios should be obvious: to keep them from occurring.

Here is a proposition: Continued offshore oil drilling runs the risk of future offshore oil leak catastrophes that will destroy large aquatic and shoreline habitats. Applied to nuclear weapons, the proposition could be restated in this way: Continued reliance on nuclear weapons runs the risk of future nuclear catastrophes that will destroy cities, countries and civilization.

In my article, I proposed four of many possible scenarios that could be envisioned. These scenarios involved a terrorist bomb on a major city somewhere in the world; an Indo-Pakistan nuclear war; an accidental nuclear launch by Russia, leading to a nuclear exchange with the US; and a nuclear attack by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il on Japan and South Korea.

Small Leak at Chinese Nuclear Plant Reported

According to the New York Times, China reported a small leak from one of their nuclear power plants. The Chinese government claims that sometime last month, trace amounts of radioactive iodine and noble gases leaked into cooling fluid. According to the utility company which reported the leak, international standards do not require the report of such small quantities.

Claims of a government cover-up abound. The nuclear plant, located on Daya Bay in Shenzhen—50km from Hong Kong, is a state-owned facility. The Chinese government was forced to admit to the leak following reports on Radio Free Asia—a month after the leak occurred on May 23, 2010.

Since the incident, the Hong Kong Observatory has tracked radiation levels at the plant, and has reported no abnormal readings.