The dark side of nuclear energy, its ability to enable weapons proliferation, will continue to contribute to its inability to grow.
Nuclear weapons programs globally have been enabled by civilian nuclear power. This inherently limits nuclear energy's growth and is yet again why renewables will dominate the future energy landscape.
‘Without civilian nuclear energy there is no military use of this technology – and without military use there is no civilian nuclear energy’
Emmanuel Macron, President of France: with one of the largest nuclear power fleets and the 4th largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, in a speech delivered to the Le Creusot Forge, 2020.
I can right now go to Amazon and buy a solar panel. Nobody other than Amazon and the postman will know. The vast surveillance state won’t care, and I would be hard pressed to harm someone with it unless it was thrown at them very hard or something. My possession of it will not cause enemies of my country to consider it a threat to them.
The reason for the lack of controls is the simplicity of the object, it possesses zero threat to anyone.
Now lets attempt to buy a gun, or a large amount of ammonium nitrate. The majority of jurisdictions would put some roadblocks in your way, either via paperwork or outright bans due to capacity for harm. On the nation state level, geopolitical rivals have always attempted to control their adversaries access to armaments and resources, as easily exemplified by pretty much anything on the US ITAR (International Trade in Arms Regulations) list.
ITAR covers everything from guns and tanks, to certain types of turbines and the uniting thing between things on this list, is that preventing their rivals from obtaining those things can lead to a geopolitical advantage to the US.
However what about items where their mere existence can irrevocably alter international geopolitical order? Nuclear weapons. Wars have been fought, scientists recruited or assassinated and all manner of espionage conducted either to gain this tech, or prevent geopolitical rivals from gaining this tech.
Why does this matter, and what does this have to do with investing? First, this is both a blessing, and a curse. It means there are a few companies in the nuclear industry that are ‘too geopolitically relevant to fail”, (posts on these coming later) but the inherent military links will prevent the spread of this tech.
However the current inorganic nuclear energy growth hype cycle is not based in reality, and those betting on a large expansion of nuclear energy, such as uranium investors, will be left as bag holders.
Lets dig in.
First, the common refrain of many nuclear energy supporters is that while 33 countries have nuclear power plants only 9 countries possesses nuclear weapons. Therefore, more often than not nuclear power and weapons are uncorrelated.
We are going to demolish this myth over the next few articles.
Our thesis is thus: nuclear power generation is inherently linked to weapons programs. The nature of the world in which powerful countries will not want possible rivals to gain nuclear weapons technology will inherently contribute to the lack of growth in nuclear energy. Wind and solar, without these issues, make a far better growth investment.
The first group of countries are those that have both nuclear weapons and power. The interrelation of these industries within those 9 countries will be covered in a subsequent post. For today, we will focus on the countries which have nuclear power, but no weapons currently.
These countries with nuclear power (33) are listed below:
Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, UAE, UK, USA.
Removing the nuclear weapons states from the above list we are left with (26) countries.
Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Swiss, Taiwan, Ukraine, UAE.
Now, if we are focusing on the countries in which nuclear power has been allegedly developed independently of nuclear weapons, we need to remove the former Soviet Union and their satellite states, as the period in which they obtained nuclear power they were not independent, and rather were under the control of a nuclear weapons state. Therefore, their motivations can be considered as equivalent to that of the USSR, as that is who controlled them. They will be the subject of a latter post.
Removing the FSU and associated satellite states from the above list, we get the countries (17) which have nuclear power and do not have nuclear weapons.
Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Germany, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Swiss, Taiwan, UAE.
These are apparently the poster children of the nuclear industry, as they have energy, but not weapons. “Therefore, look how unrelated to nuclear energy weapons are!” their supporters claim.
However numerous of these countries only established nuclear power as part of a weapons program, which was later abandoned. Lets dig into each example individually. Yes this will be long.
Argentina:
Argentina has two nuclear power plants, Atucha and Embalse, the construction of which was started in 1968 and 1974 respectfully, while Argentina was under a military dictatorship. They are both pressurized heavy water reactors, purchased from Canada and Germany, after its first research (non-power generating) reactor from the US in the 50s. In the 1970s, Argentina built a non-IAEA safeguarded plutonium processing plant. Their reactors ran on non-enriched uranium so plutonium extraction was unneeded for civil purposes. In 1983 the Argentinian Junta reported they had been running a secret gaseous diffusion plant for the preparation of enriched uranium which could be used in weapons and was not necessary in their power sector. The United States considered Argentina at the time to have nuclear weapons capability, however after US pressure and the collapse of the military dictatorship and replacement with democracy, the nuclear facilities were placed under IAEA safeguards. The plutonium processing facilities were abandoned soon after. It is also interesting to note, that the reactors constructed during military dictatorship were constructed in 6 and 10 years for Atucha I and Embalse respectively. A new reactor was started in 1981 near the end of the dictatorship, but took 33 years until 2014 to be completed. It is clear the driving force of Argentina’s nuclear program was militarily driven based on its collapse after the end of the military dictatorship and resultant ending of the plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment programs.
Belgium:
To the best of anyone’s knowledge, Belgium never has had a nuclear weapons program, despite having nuclear power.
Brazil:
In 1964 Brazil had a coup which replaced the popular government with a military dictatorship. Soon after the military dictatorship was established, the military announced a plan to master all parts of the fuel cycle from enrichment to reprocessing, and refused to renounce to independently fabricate nuclear explosives for ‘peaceful purposes’. To quote them at the time:
"We will not call them bombs, we will call them devices that can explode”
Soon after, in 1971 Brazil started construction of their first nuclear power reactor. They planned to have two parallel programs, one under international safeguards, and a secret parallel program under the military where the Navy would pursue uranium enrichment tech and the army plutonium production. The goal was to get personnel trained under the safeguarded program, followed by transferring them to the weapons program. The weapons program was cancelled under a later civilian government. Brazil had completed one nuclear power plant, Angra 1 in 1982 (11 year construction time) Their dictatorship was replaced with civilian rule in 1985, and a reactor which was incomplete at this time, Angra 2, started in 1976, took 24 years to be completed in 2000.
Canada:
This country could also be treated like the US version of a Soviet satellite state and ignored here, but lets look at how Canada’s nuclear industry was borne out of the US weapons program. During the Manhattan project Canada was involved with the US nuclear weapons program and after the war Canada stated their desire to produce plutonium as a nuclear explosive material. Senior officials in the 50s stated that while Canada has no weapons program, they were well placed to start one if desired. Canada continued to supply materials to the USA for their weapons program for decades after WWII ended. For example, Canada’s Chalk River facility produced 252 kg of plutonium from spent reactor fuel (another common talking point is that spent reactor fuel cannot be used in nuclear weapons) which was shipped to the US to be blended with their plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. It was not until 1976 that Canada asked for guarantees that the US not use their provided fissile material for weapons purposes. By this time 15 reactors were built at 6 locations across Canada. After the US stopped shipping plutonium to the US for weapons purposes, only 10 new reactors were built, with 8/10 at two new locations and the remaining two additions of reactors to plants existing at the time Canada stopped sending plutonium for weapons to the US. There was a clear decrease in Canadian nuclear activity after they stopped being a plutonium supplier to the US.
Finland:
Finland has four operating reactors constructed between 1977 and 1980 and no known historical nuclear weapons program.
Germany:
Germany had a nuclear weapons program which was ended by losing WWII. After WWII they subsequently developed nuclear power without any weapons program. They have no known nuclear weapons program since, and have also committed to phasing out nuclear power.
Iran:
Iran obtained a research reactor fueled by highly enriched uranium from the US in 1967 and they signed the NPT(non-proliferation treaty) the day it opened for signature. However in 1974 Iran began to seek uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology. Iran was worried about nuclear threats from Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, India, and the Soviet Union and refused offers for nuclear plants which would not allow them to develop domestic enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. Iran has repeatedly used the justification of ‘civilian’ activities to attempt to purchase fuel cycle facilities which would easily be adopted for weapons purposes. The entire history of Iran and attempting to acquire nuclear weapons technology under the guise of civilian power is too large to cover here, however the IAEA has repeatedly been unable to state that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely civilian and Iran is regularly found to be not in compliance with anti-proliferation safeguards.
Iran is another example of a country where a civil nuclear power program is used as cover for a weapons program.
Japan
Japan is a unique case and is an example of a paranuclear or latent nuclear weapons state. While Japan has not had a formal nuclear weapons program since before they lost WWII, their strong nuclear industry and in particular fuel cycle facilities and plutonium recovery has led them to have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon in as little as 6 months should the decision be made to obtain nuclear weapons. Without even trying to obtain nuclear weapons, Japan has acquired the technology and material to produce them, through only operating a power reactor and reprocessing program. The Japanese latent nuclear weapon capacity and plutonium production ability has also been used as an excuse by neighboring countries to develop reprocessing tech of their own to also have the latent nuclear weapons capability. Japan is a sweetheart example for our case as not only has their focus been civil, but their entirely civilian focus enabled them to have a nuclear weapons program at will.
Mexico
Mexico has a nuclear power program and through their nuclear power program in the 1970s created highly-enriched uranium capable of being used in a nuclear weapon. Mexico later signed the Treaty of Tlatelolco, banning nuclear weapons in South America and the Caribbean, and in 2010 they turned over their highly-enriched uranium to the US for downblending to non-weapons grade.
The Netherlands
The Netherlands has no known nuclear weapons programs and its first and only NPP came online in 1973.
South Africa
South Africa’s nuclear power program was initially civilian, however the civilian program was used to enable their weapons program. SA’s nuclear program began in 1959 with the goal to create an indigenous reactor fueled by natural uranium, but they curiously began an uranium enrichment program at the same time. In 1967 they also began a program to create a ‘peaceful’ nuclear explosive, using the expertise gained during their reactor and enrichment programs. By the end of the 1980s, SA had produced 500kg of highly enriched uranium capable of weapons use and by 1982 they had their first bomb. A main enabling factor allowing proliferation in South Africa was the uranium enrichment capability. South Africa later gave up their nuclear weapons, and no nuclear power plant has been initiated since their nuclear weapons program.
South Korea
South Korea began a nuclear weapons program at the same time it began its power reactor program, based on spent fuel reprocessing and plutonium production. It was initially abandoned on US pressure, but at multiple times since reprocessing efforts have been initiated, and then cancelled after either pressure from the US or obtaining support in other areas from the US. It is clear that reprocessing technology is viewed as a proliferation threat to the USA. Despite the challenges to their reprocessing efforts, South Korea is also considered as a latent nuclear power state, and it is expected they could have a bomb within 1-3 years if they desired to based on the advanced state of their nuclear industry. So yet again, an example of a country where nuclear power was developed alongside weapons, and that an advanced nuclear industry enables potential proliferation.
Spain
Spain under dictator Franco was revealed to have pursued a secret nuclear weapons program known as “Proyecto Islero”. The program began in 1963 and was cancelled in 1981 when Spain signed the NPT treaty.
The program was planned in phases, where a nuclear power plant would be constructed as well as a fuel fabrication facility. The spent fuel would be covertly reprocessed at the Vandellòs nuclear power plant into plutonium and the plutonium used for the bomb effort. This effort is notable as it was planned to reprocess spent fuel from a power reactor into weapons grade plutonium which nuclear energy advocates like to draw attention away from.
All of Spain’s nuclear plants had construction initiated during the weapons program. Since joining the NPT and the end of the weapons program Spain has never began another nuclear plant. (See the trend yet?)
Sweden
The Swedish nuclear weapons program was an integrated program with nuclear energy, based around plutonium production in heavy water power reactors fueled by natural uranium without enrichment. The Swedes considered nuclear energy in the USA to be a spin off of their weapons program and the Swedish proposal in 1945 was to structure the nuclear power industry around enabling a weapons industry
In December 1945, the head of Department 1 at FOA, Gustaf Ljunggren,
presented a proposal that led the way for the entire Swedish nuclear weapons
program. In Ljunggren’s opinion, Sweden should do the same as the United
States—but the other way around. In the United States, civilian exploitation of
nuclear energy was a “spin-off ” of the nuclear weapons program, in which plu-
tonium production held a central position. Ljunggren’s view took the opposite
approach and argued that the main aim should be the generation of nuclear
energy, with plutonium production, which would make possible the manufac-
ture of nuclear weapons as a side-effect. What Ljunggren was suggesting was
to try and accommodate nuclear weapons production in the framework of civil-
ian nuclear power.
Furthermore, they offered this graphic on how the civil nuclear power sector would enable the production of weapons grade plutonium.
Technical aside: It is often stated that spent reactor fuel contains plutonium in the wrong isotopic ratio (too much Pu-240) to produce a weapon. This is incorrect. Reactor grade plutonium can be used in a weapon and the fuel can always be removed from the reactor earlier to reduce the amount of 240.
In 1968 Sweden joined the NPT and the weapons program was abandoned, however it does exemplify how a civil program can enable a weapons program.
Switzerland
Shortly after WWII, Switzerland began a nuclear weapons program. The program continued until 1988 when it was cancelled and during this time Switzerland obtained a stockpile of enriched uranium, and attempted to purchase plutonium. The Swiss had a plan to create up to 400 nuclear weapons, and its heavy water research reactor led to the reprocessing of 20kg of plutonium. The heavy water research reactor was justified based on civil uses and from 1962 to 1974, Switzerland built 5 nuclear power plants. After the abandonment of their nuclear weapons program in 1988, no new reactor was ever initiated. In 2011 they decided to phase out their remaining nuclear plants.
Taiwan
In 1953 when the USA launched the ‘Atoms for Peace’ program, aimed at providing info to other countries in the ‘peaceful’ use of nuclear technology, Taiwan decided to begin a secret nuclear weapons program under the guise of a civil program. (contrast this to current nuclear industry talking points that power does not enable weapons). Taiwain sent military officers to study nuclear engineering in the USA under the Atoms For Peace program. They then obtained a US-supplied research reactor which was placed at Tsing-hua University. Initially all the students studying nuclear engineering at Tsing-hua were all military officers. The Ministry of Defense drew up a plan called ‘Plan Hsin Chu’ which was a 5-7 year plan to obtain a heavy water reactor, plutonium processing facilities to prepare them for a weapons effort while saying they were for civil purposes.
By 1970 Taiwan had devised a program for producing plutonium from heavy water reactors, while their power reactors constructed during the 70s provided legitimacy for their nuclear purchasing. The US took issues with Taiwan’s attempted purchase of a reprocessing plant from Europe. Taiwan in 1973 presented a nuclear fuel management strategy to the US
Their nuclear weapon program was officially revealed in 1987 by a defector. At this time Taiwan was only 1-2 years away from a bomb, but under massive US pressure they ceased the program. Taiwan’s 3 operating nuclear power power plants were constructed during their weapons program period. One was shut down in 2018, another in 2021, and their only reactor attempted to be constructed after the end of their weapons programs has been cancelled. It is clear their desire for new nuclear plants has decreased since the end of their weapons program.
UAE.
The UAE opened a nuclear power plant in 2020. It is too soon to know if there is a proliferation motive behind it, although the UAE has signed the gold standard of nonproliferation, a 123 agreement, with the USA and does not intend to pursue reprocessing. The cost has been $32B USD, and it currently outputs 8.9TWh of power per year. This is less electricity generated than if the money was instead invested in other electricity options and some experts question why the UAE would be pursuing this as economics does not appear to be the driving force.
Special Mention: Yugoslavia
Its not a country anymore, but Yugoslavia had a secret nuclear weapons program concealed by their civil program. Their plan relied on plutonium produced in civil reactors with low burnup rates, followed by reprocessing. A reprocessing plant was purchased from Norway under the guise of civil activities. Yugoslavia had two interrelated programs, known as Program A and Program B, Program A was the dedicated nuclear weapons program, and program B was their civil program which focused on creation of a plutonium producing reactor and reprocessing facilities, heavy water production, and a fast reactor. Program A document show that they expected program B to provide them with fissile material and discussions were held on which civil activities would best conceal weapons program. It was during this time that the Krsko NPP was initiated.
The next important meeting about which we are aware was held at Mo-
rovic, one of Tito’s retreats in Vojvodina, between December 23 and De-
cember 28, 1974. At this slightly larger gathering, participants were once
again told that Yugoslavia planned to develop nuclear weapons. Much of the
discussion was devoted to determining which civilian energy programs could
best conceal military activities. At that time, the most substantial nuclear pro-
ject involved the construction of a nuclear power plant by Westinghouse in
Krsko, Slovenia.
Conclusion:
So the 17 states which have nuclear power, and their nuclear power was not a byproduct of a weapons program in the US or the FSU, 12 of them either have had a weapons program at some time, or their nuclear programs have led them to be a latent nuclear weapons state able to generate a weapon quickly if they so desire.
There are a remaining 5 countries which their nuclear power program is not mixed with weapons and has not enabled latent proliferation. The UAE is included here although arguably their nuclear history is too short to determine what will happen, but its here for charitable conservatism.
33 Nuclear power countries. 4-5 which their intentions were pure. 12-15% historical probability a nuclear program is entirely civil and not a proliferation threat.
Numerous examples above of countries who slow down or cease power reactor programs after abandoning a weapons proliferation. Civil power reactor programs have provided cover for weapons programs, for training personnel, and obtaining materials for weapons. Some cases of weapons grade material being produced in civil power reactors.
I am not the only person capable of noticing this, and you can be sure the USA will want to avoid proliferation. This inherently will limit the growth of nuclear technology globally, and is another reason renewables will dominate the future electricity grids.
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