The problem being that with energy being a political football, the most likely outcome is either the status quo of approximately 78% coal, 20 % nuclear, +some renewable persists, or that the phase out happens and the faction of coal in the German energy mix actually goes up.
Either outcome is hideously bad for the planet. Better outcomes would be to turn the tables on the SDP + greens and start arguing in terms of a coal phaseout, trying to win the public debate or alternatively, just throw in the towel and build the reactors across the border..
I would call it being pro-business overriding market ideology :-)
Coal has to go
Agreed.
trying to power the Ruhr and the rest of German industry with renewable energy is just blatantly not workable
Says who? I mean, beyond coal and nuclear lobbyists?
the phase out happens and the faction of coal in the German energy mix actually goes up.
Even the current environment ministry sees renewables at 40% (the limit they set for nuclear phaseout) by 2022. There is a reason that mnost of the CDU abandoned the "renewables can't do it" rhetoric and switched to "bridge technology".
start arguing in terms of a coal phaseout
Yet, it's only the Greens who are talking about a coal phaseout. The reasons should be clear: coal and nuclear are run by the same companies, who see those as alternatives to securing long-term market domination. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Re: says who: Germany is energy intensive, and population dense, so "logic and physical constraints"? - German energy consumption exceeds one watt/square meter of German soil. Solar in Germany yields 5 watts/square meter, so that would mean paving over more than one fifth of Germany, which is a:not going to happen, b:an intensely undesirable outcome. Nor is there sufficient good wind sites in germany for full energy supply.
How many times do pro-nuclear people have to repeat this canard? As it happens, those protesting coal and nuclear are usually the same.
more gas, more coal
More gas: likely, until various other ways to mitigate intermittency aren't developed more. More coal? Only in the dreams of energy giants, but not even in the latest scenarios of the German nuclear lobby (see first diagram in my latest diary).
Every single time someone argues against nuclear in a debate, they should simply parrot the argument back, while doing a "search and replace" where "nuclear" is replaced with "coal".
That would be fun to hear. Of course, those serving business interests won't speak up against both main modes of baseload production.
German energy consumption exceeds one watt/square meter of German soil. Solar in Germany yields 5 watts/square meter
Those are strange figures...
That needs to be put into your calculations too.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Then you moved the goalposts rather far from supplying electricity to the Ruhr area industry :-)
electrifying nearly all energy use
As JakeS said, such electrifying can improve energy efficiency greatly, lowering the generating capacity needed. I add that solar thermal (which is spreading rapidly in Germany) and geothermal (which I see as significant by 2030) can give heat energy without electrifying.
Yield per-square-of panel is not the same as yield per - square of plant.
Correct, you need North-South separation (for Sun-following plants, East-West too). However, just because that, not all the surface you contemplated is 'covered'. For rooftop plants, separation is provided by North-facing roof sides, courtyards, gardens and streets (the latter also for plants installed on highway noise barriers). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
- This is also a major reason I favor nukes over other green generation tech. If we are to have any hope of cleaning up transport, industry and all the other myriad sources of CO2 industrial society is responsible for, it is a dire and absolute necessity that the price of a KWH be both low, and constant.
Demand management is just fancy words for "The price of a kwh hour will depend on the wind, sun and phase of the moon, have fun figuring out what your electric car will cost you this month!"
The French and Swedish experience demonstrates that the nuclear path can fully replace carbon based generation of electricity in 15 years if it is considered a priority to clean up generation. Rapidly expanding demand for electrons may add time to this, but it must be done, regardless, or we are screwed.
How is this different from using petrochemicals where the price varies day by day? People have seldom known how much their car is going to cost.
When demand is high you increase the cost to discourage unnecesary usage. What is the problem?
It will not be a practical option for people to not charge their car before they go to work.
Prices matter.
You're making the assumption that practices based on the assumption that you can be profligate with cheap energy will carry over into a situation with expensive energy.
yeah some energy valhalla, where we're all wearing electric suits and roaring through megawatts till sparks are flying out our fingers.
there seems to be no awareness that we don't actually need to be permanently plugged in to some grid the whole time.
this is a blind spot, and is very culture-centric, as we argue here in yurp about how many teras we 'need', and apparently will never be glutted by the use of, while millions of people could already be using a couple of panels in places like nigeria and running a clinic fridge and some lights with.
instead they will probably have some corrupt bureaucrats negotiating a nuke plant for them with some 'western' company!
and all this with the planet temperature rising, and water shortages looming. solar and wind don't gobble water, once they're up and running..
it's effing lunatic, and what's especially distressing is how many intelligent people can't see this for what it is: a last ditch, extremely well-financed effort to keep the public dependent and ignorant, about something that we have the tech to give everyone some of, and that could be useful in so many ways. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
There is also the basic fact that if the choice the public is offered is one between costly energy and frying the planet, most likely the planet will fry. Maybe not. Maybe the current generation is more righteous than mankind has been so far. But is that really something you want to bet the world on?
Re: Water. Two words: Nuclear desalinization.
You should know that India is a wind power pioneer, too, with almost 11 GW installed (nuclear: 4.12 GW). Suzlon even bought majority in a top German manufacturer (REpower). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
what can you say?
they're teaching grandmothers in india to install solar, maybe they can moonlight at westinghouse!
the bit about how inefficient it would be to harvest energy from the countryside too...
obviously a grid for their nuke nirvana would be worth installing, but empowering them off the grid, not so much.
concern trolling, poor planet, it's dying of coal fumes, what it surely needs now is to be bathed in radioactive rays, while declaiming how solar energy will pave the world with cement.
it beggars belief...like most topdown -is there any other kind?- capitalism. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
No one will adopt the electric car if gas is flat out cheaper than electrons.
Even if we were to magically conjure up enough petroleum reserves for that scenario, it's nothing a 2000 % gasoline tax can't solve.
If people are dumb enough to use cars for bulk transport in an all-electric grid, then I really have a hard time taking their whining about price risk seriously. Cars are specialised vehicles with a sharply limited sphere of use within which they make economic and engineering sense. Bulk transportation is not one of them.
The price of per kwh right now here in Sweden depends on freezing cold, nuclear plants offline, low rain levels last summer and mothballed oil plants coming online. Yet my price stays the same, as I - like most swedish consumers - has a fixed price level. Big industry may run with variable prices and exchange the highs for the lows (and adopt usage) but for a consumer a fixed price contract is more sensible. This does not change with the number of appliances I plug in, so I see no reason it would change if I got an electric scooter. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Using gas for peak power is much less CO2 than using coal for both peak and baseload. You burn the hydrogen, too. In addition, the bulk of the gas is used for heating today anyway, so combined plants mean increased efficiency and again less CO2. Either way, it is an improvement relative to as-is, and phasing them out by 2050 is still phasing them out.
Others dealt with your strange views on prices, but this:
The French and Swedish experience demonstrates that the nuclear path can fully replace carbon based generation of electricity in 15 years
re 3: It looks like it would increase the cost of nuclear electricity by 25-30 %, due to lower utilization of capital in a fully nuclear grid. Likely more economic to build pumped storage and a few less nuke plants, but the savings from series build on this scale will more than make up for it. If the world builds 5-10000 reactors to solve global warming once and for all, reactor number 500 through 7825 is not going to cost as much as flamaville 3
RE: 4: well, the entire primary energy production has to be replaced with something. My attitude is exorbitant because the problem is. As far as I can tell, nuclear is the only option that really could do this if we are willing to expend enough effort on it. Wind has its selling points, but we are going to run out of good locations for it way before we get to that goal, so, not really an answer. (Might work out for the US. EU population density is just too high) Solar on a scale to match with primary energy production makes me break out in hives, because it really would entail concreting over too much of the world.
This is not under discussion. The question is, what can be built in the next 5, 10, 15 years?
So, we can estimate (with some work) how much new nuclear capacity can come online in the next 5, 10, 15 under various scenarios of building steel forges and training engineers (neither of which happen instantly).
And, given such estimates, you will find there is room for new windpower installations as well, even if your preference would be for all new installations to be nuclear, given that wind is preferable to coal or gas. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
Re 3: 25-30%? Could be higher, but worse is that not only does a full provision of variable power from nuclear look technically unfeasible, but such operation in general looks to bring maintenance problems. The mass-production cost decrease argument applies for all modes.
Re 4: your attitude is exorbitant because you seem to insist on a solution with one generation mode only -- and make untested to unreal assumptions for your choice mode to see it able to deliver. I don't know what's the present estimate for the exploitable wind resource in the EU, but last I looked, it was equivalent to current consumption. Population density is not that much a limit, especially not in the comparison to the resource of the USA (I think you were told about this in the past, too), the available wind is more. And this image of yours of solar needing the covering (and now even concreting!...) over of the world should not recur either after the calculations I gave you before, even less when thinking on a European rather than just German scale. Meanwhile, if HDR geothermal would become commercial technology, the exploitable resource would be several times current consuption of even primary energy (which, as said before, would be reduced if f.e. transport would be electrified the right way). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
So, really, for nukes to work as a global warming fix, breeders are necessary. - Plausible designs for rapid adoption would be the IFR and the Russian BN-800 design. - This actually has hilarious consequences in the opposite direction, since the ore requirement for a breeder reactor in operation is roughly one tonne of fertile, (not fissile!) material per year, so after the initial fuel load, the stockpile of already mined depleted uranium (1.5 million tonnes) could keep the world in power for about a thousand years..
Indeed, and it may not even be feasible: again size of supply and speed of extraction are different things. The Uranium2007 study says:
Seawater may also be regarded as a possible sourcc of uranium, due to the large volume of uranium contained (about 4 billion tU) and its almost inexhaustible nature. However, because of the low concentration of uranium in seawater (3-4 ppb), it is estimated that it would require the processing of about 350 000 tonnes of water to produce a single kg of uranium. Nonetheless, with the exception of its high recovery cost, there is no intristic reason why at least some of these significant resources could not be extracted from various coast lines at a total rate of a few hundred of tonnes annually.
So, really, for nukes to work as a global warming fix, breeders are necessary.
Yep. But, for that, one would need:
a) the design works without problems (unlike the Superphénix or the never even started Kalkar), b) the breeder plant is paired with another novelty, a flawlessly working reprocessing plant (in contrast to the dirtiest branch of the nuclear industry: Sellafield, Hanford, Mayak, Le Havre, Hanau, Tokaimura...).
So, I'm not saying it's impossible, but I don't see a breeder future any less hypothetical than a fusion future. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
For example, an almost unknown mining project in northern Sweden (Myrviken), an vanadium, uranium, molybdenum and nickel deposit, is big enough to fuel all our nukes for 20 years! And this from a country which the IAEA classifies as having "zero" uranium reserves. The uranium ore is not rich enough to mine by itself, but the other minerals make it possibly profitable. There are lots and lots and lots of big low grade deposits like this scattered all over the world.
Total known world recoverable uranium reserves are 5.5 million tonnes. In spite of this, there's 1 million tonnes of the stuff lying around in a single small Swedish mountain (Billingen) which is not included in any data because of the low grade. At what cost is this ore profitable? No one knows. Is it possible to mine it? Yes, it was mined to get uranium to our weapons program.
Oil reserve data is bad, gas reserve data is awful, coal reserve data is horrible and uranium reserve data is nonexistent. The only thing we can say about uranium reserves with any measure of safety is that there's really plenty of the stuff around, and whenever people head out and look for it they find a lot more than is consumed any given year. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
So, in just these two areas there's as much uranium as in the official numbers for the entire world. Think about that for a while. On the other hand, the low concentrations and the thin deposits (3 metres) means that most of these deposits would have to be mined in a way which looks a lot like open pit coal mining. Myrviken is an exception, because here the alum shale is not 3 metres thick, it's 200 metres. Myrviken would look very much like and have about the same dimensions as the Aitik copper mine in northern Sweden.
Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
There is
Which is ahem cough problematic from a public relations standpoint in the west
It may also be problematic considering the power sector safety culture there, especially considering the liquid sodium pool. I shudder at the thought of a commerical-scale Chinese fast breeder reactor operated with the same care coal plants or indeed photovoltaic factories are. The same goes for large-scale reprocessing.
Anyhow, though I think that my 10 year minimum applies, for purposes of a timescale, it is wholly uncertain when Beloyarsk-5 (or a Chinese equivalent) will be up and running (I haven't found any officially stated concrete dates). But looking further East, here is a timescale:
Mitsubishi to develop Japan's next fast breeder reactor
Mitsubishi to develop Japan's next fast breeder reactor 18 April 2007 The Japanese government has selected Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) as the core company to develop a new generation of fast breeder reactors, in an initiative promoted by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). ...The company plans to establish a new unit by March 2008 to orchestrate engineering activities and carry out development, looking towards construction of a demonstration FBR by 2025 and a commercial reactor for introduction by 2050...
The Japanese government has selected Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) as the core company to develop a new generation of fast breeder reactors, in an initiative promoted by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA).
...The company plans to establish a new unit by March 2008 to orchestrate engineering activities and carry out development, looking towards construction of a demonstration FBR by 2025 and a commercial reactor for introduction by 2050...
The concern here is one of proliferation, but that is political. If the answer to our global energy needs were thorium-fuelled breeder reactors the motivation would be there to get serious about non-proliferation. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
RE: 4: well, the entire primary energy production has to be replaced with something. My attitude is exorbitant because the problem is. As far as I can tell, nuclear is the only option that really could do this if we are willing to expend enough effort on it. Wind has its selling points, but we are going to run out of good locations for it way before we get to that goal, so, not really an answer. (Might work out for the US. EU population density is just too high)
I do not agree that it is realistic with an all nuclear approach. Two years ago I wrote a rather fun poll: European Tribune - How many reactors should we have?
As seen from that drawing and comments there are all kinds of pro- and anti-nuclear stances. So just to make things interesting I would like to know: How many reactors do you think we (as in all the world) should have around 2030? Some premises. While accounts appear to differ, nuclear power is about 1/15 of the worlds energy supply, and about 13/15 being made up by fossile fuels. And we have today around 450 reactors with a bunch in production. Say 500 for good measure. Of course reactors can be of different effect, but assuming around todays values, replacing todays fossile fuels with fission reactors would demand some 6500 new reactors, bringing the total to 7000. Then perhaps there should be some more for all new electrical gadgets.
As seen from that drawing and comments there are all kinds of pro- and anti-nuclear stances. So just to make things interesting I would like to know: How many reactors do you think we (as in all the world) should have around 2030?
Some premises. While accounts appear to differ, nuclear power is about 1/15 of the worlds energy supply, and about 13/15 being made up by fossile fuels. And we have today around 450 reactors with a bunch in production. Say 500 for good measure.
Of course reactors can be of different effect, but assuming around todays values, replacing todays fossile fuels with fission reactors would demand some 6500 new reactors, bringing the total to 7000. Then perhaps there should be some more for all new electrical gadgets.
Solar on a scale to match with primary energy production makes me break out in hives, because it really would entail concreting over too much of the world.
How much of the planet? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
what about rooves? are you including those?
you can have solar panels in fields too, there's no need for this grim cement vision you keep describing.
as if nukes don't cover real estate!
weak part of your argument...
the strong part is the coal factor, no disagreements here on that, but DoDo is right, there is the possibility to solve the problem without nukes, but it will take more work (countering the pronuke propaganda) and a lot of nega-watting, something conspicuously absent from your posts.
..and a lot less wasting huge sums on fusion and fission, both which, like gas and coal, preserve the centralised grid, to the exclusive benefit of privatised bizniz interests, and the continued disempowerment of citizens all over.
corporate offshore wind could save britain's energy problems, but the recurrent chimera of nukes has probably done more to slow that solution down than anything else.
also conspicuously absent from your case is any reference to the amount of civic repression that will be needed to convince the public of its value, especially as the cat's out of the bag as regards the eco-supremacy of wind and sun.
there will be no repeat of the myths that were peddled by the media about solar 'not working' for decades, even as people were seeing them emerge everywhere, from on space vehicles, to emergency stop- and street-lights in their towns.
your arguments smack of the same propaganda, and the reference to looking at people as if they were slime, says more about you than the people you so confidently judge.
still, it's nice to have opposing viewpoints hashed out here, so cheers! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
secondly; No you cannot place a solar panel in a field. Wind, yes. the practical footprint of a mill is small, since they are vertical and spaced out by necessity. Solar power uses up sunlight. Nothing can grow where it is deployed.
Third; Net Negawatts will not happen in any society that is seriously trying to combat global warming. Vast amounts of power can, and will be saved by superior design of electronics, the substitution of heat pumps for furnaces and so on. I can easily see a world where our total energy consumption goes down, a lot, through increased efficiency. Our electricity consumption, however, will rise. A lot. The more seriously we take global warming as a problem, the higher its going to go. Cars -> electric cars and rail = Net fall in power use as gasoline burning free falls, but an increase in electricity used by at least a third. More likely half, and I could see it outright doubling demand in the US (Sufficiently good batteries, and people will build great big "electron waster" cars..) Industrial use of gas and coal ended? that means vast demand for industrial heat, and electrochemical processes to replace thermo chemical ones. And so on, and so forth.
yes, no one is arguing for that here, you do realise, yes?
No you cannot place a solar panel in a field.
have you ever seen them on rotating columns? they're not vertical, but they aren't flat either, unless on rooves.
Nothing can grow where it is deployed.
obviously putting panels under shade trees is inefficient, but in the areas of europe most begging for them, shade is a plus. there's no reason why they can't be designed into beautiful landscaping or gardening projects, unless you're talking about huge mega arrays, for light industry.
you make it sound like nature will be paved over with cement and silicon. this is emotive reasoning, to carry your point further by imbuing PV tech with some anti-green vibe. planet-hating folks, those solar fanboys.
Net Negawatts will not happen in any society that is seriously trying to combat global warming. Vast amounts of power can, and will be saved by superior design of electronics, the substitution of heat pumps for furnaces and so on. I can easily see a world where our total energy consumption goes down, a lot, through increased efficiency. Our electricity consumption, however, will rise. A lot. The more seriously we take global warming as a problem, the higher its going to go.
i apologise for not being more precise. by 'negawatts' i intended to refer to the negation of the need for so many watts used, whether by your excellent points about heat pumps, electronics, and i'd definitely add better insulation and passive solar architecture being mandated, not a diminuition of watts productively used.
the waste right now is staggering, light bulbs and standby are the least of it, but as symbols of how tiny household changes, scaled up to countries and unions of countries, they make a tidy little example of 'small is beautiful'.
reducing the waste in all energy dynamics, and scaling down our concepts of what is 'normal' energy use, so to be less extravagant in relation to the poorer 4/5ths of the world, will cut our carbon footprint so significantly that we will be able to phase through to a non fossil fuel economy by 2050, globally.
i expect some large industries will relocate, not for cheap labour so much any more, as for cheap energy, so i'd expect more desert projects, and in europe more use of the scrubbety southern zones, where there isn't enough soil or conditions for much flora anyway. with the deserts growing, i doubt too many will complain too bitterly about some acres of solar panels helping them avoid more oil wars, or 3 mile island episodes.
i have no problem with upping electricity use by a third, or even more, as long as it's distributed more fairly to the poor countries, who get much more bang for the solar buck with small installations anyway, than us with our BMW lifestyles. plenty of sunshine to be 'used', as you put it, though i see it more as 'transformed'.
i note you haven't addressed the social repression angle, unless i missed it.
do you really think the public will go along cheerfully with these nuclear tidings of great joy?
the last time i was looked at as if i were slime, was by a uniformed thug, the kind whose numbers i would expect to blossom like vile weeds around nuclear installations, the transport routes for materiel, the 'disposal' arrangements etc. are those costs factored in, or will they be more of the famous 'externalities', so easy to forget during the planning phase?
because when i mention the word 'cost', the economics of all those 'security' services is the tip of the iceberg. what about the paranoia, the jackboot, the reconditioning of social fabric. are they airbrushed out of your vision? france has avoided the worst of this, but can you really believe other countries will hold to that kind of standard, especially seeing recent events in germany and finland regarding the engineering?
public trust is important, who do you think the public trusts to tell us the truth more, the nuclear industry or the crazy horse gang?
i think the nuke biz had its day in the sun, and that era proved we as humans are not up to the challenge of controlling such a nasty beast with any real consistency, and that was when the public was still very innocent and believed the 'too cheap to meter' propaganda unconditionally.
so we agree to disagree, we both sense the other's position as unwise and dangerous. time will tell. thanks for playing. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Real estate: As a matter of fact, the land use of nukes, including mining, enrichment and disposal is lower per kwh than anything else. By a lot.
And solar not working being a myth.. Do me a favor. look up how much of German electricity, never mind total energy use, is currently supplied by solar, and what the feed in tariff is set at. Then do the same for wind.
And as good spies have always known, the risk of a security penetration goes up faster than linearly with the number of people in the loop.
India tested a nuclear device in 1974 (code-named "Smiling Buddha"), which it called a "peaceful nuclear explosive." The test used plutonium produced in the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor, and raised concerns that nuclear technology supplied for peaceful purposes could be diverted to weapons purposes.
A look at the key personnel involved indicates that the nuclear expertise came from the civilian nuclear side. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
9. Apartheid's nuclear arsenal: Deviation from development: Centre de recherches pour le développement international
To illustrate the extent of the programme, it is necessary to link it to the entire nuclear project in South Africa. Each piece of the project added extra impetus to the development of a weapons programme... The programme had three prongs: research on uranium and other fissile materials, research on radio-isotopes and radiation, and research on the establishment of a power reactor. To house its research, the AEB moved from its suite in a Pretoria office block to secretly purchased farmland west of Pretoria. This site became known as Pelindaba (`The talking is over'), and became the new home of the South African National Nuclear Research Centre. Construction began and the first buildings were occupied in 1963.One of the buildings was designed to house a research reactor. Under the `Atoms for Peace' programme (Ambrose, 1984:147-51), the United States agreed to make available a reactor with a capacity of 20 megawatts (MW), running on highly enriched weapons-grade uranium. The United States was also willing to supply the enriched uranium on condition that South Africa signed a safeguards agreement allowing international inspection of the facility. This condition was accepted by South Africa. Named SAFARI-I, the South African Fundamental Atomic Research Reactor was first commissioned on 18 March 1965.1Scientific trainingThe `Atoms for Peace' initiative included the forging of a secret treaty: the US-South African Agreement for Co-operation Concerning Civil Uses of Atomic Energy.2 This co-operation enabled a cadre of South African scientists to be trained in reactor physics in the United States. Training occurred at the Argonne National Laboratories outside Chicago, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and other venues. On their return to South Africa, this group was to form the active nucleus of an increasingly powerful nuclear bureaucracy.The early seeding by the United States of South Africa's nuclear research facilities was crucial. By the mid-1960s, South African universities were running their own nuclear research departments. The AEB was able to recruit 75 scientists to staff Pelindaba. With the inauguration of SAFARI-I, thanks to United States collaboration, South Africa's nuclear research effort had reached its critical mass. From the late 1940s onward, South African scientists were also given access to British facilities. However, by the late 1960s, it had become more difficult to sustain open nuclear collaboration. As the AEB turned its attention towards developing enrichment technologies, the relationship with its West German counterpart began to flourish. South Africa was keen to understand the jet-nozzle enrichment process pioneered by West German Professor Erwin Becker. Brokered by Franz-Josef Strauss, right-wing Bavarian politician, friend of apartheid, and minister in the West German coalition cabinet, South African scientists became interns at the Karlsruhe headquarters of the GfK, the federal Nuclear Research Centre. One of these scientists was Dr Waldo Stumpf, currently chief executive of South Africa's Atomic Energy Corporation (successor to the AEB). The similarities between the Becker method and the final enrichment technique adopted by South Africa led to speculation about the close levels of collaboration (Cervenka & Rogers, 1978:43, 73-8). ...On 20 July 1970, the then prime minister, B.J. Vorster, stood up in the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town and, for the first time, revealed information about South Africa's enrichment plans. He announced that the main motive was based on the fact that South Africa, as a major uranium exporter, could derive more foreign exchange exporting uranium in its enriched form. A further motive was the immense cost of importing enriched uranium to fuel South Africa's nuclear power programme, envisaged as having a capacity of 20 000 MW by the year 2000 (more than 20 Koeberg-sized reactors). At no stage was there mention of a military application of uranium enrichment. Vorster emphasised the peaceful intention of the programme three times during his speech, and offered to collaborate with any non-communist countries in the exploitation of the process. Vorster also set in train the creation of a separate parastatal entity charged with uranium enrichment. Within a month of his speech, legislation had been signed creating the Uranium Enrichment Corporation of South Africa (UCOR). UCOR attempted to draw on the West German connection to create an international partnership in which its activities would be adequately financed and its product marketed globally. The calculation still held that such a partnership was a vital component of any commercial enrichment plant. For six years it entertained potential West German partners, embarking on discussions and negotiations with a view to securing a joint venture. The German company STEAG, which the GfK had entrusted with licensing the jet-nozzle process, signed a memorandum of understanding with UCOR in August 1973. STEAG aimed to sub-license UCOR. However, there was no unanimity in the West German cabinet, which had to approve the deal, and STEAG withdrew its formal application for federal government approval. Although the official deal fell through, a joint `feasibility study' was conducted comparing the South African and German enrichment processes. Many saw this study as a smokescreen for continued collaboration.
The programme had three prongs: research on uranium and other fissile materials, research on radio-isotopes and radiation, and research on the establishment of a power reactor. To house its research, the AEB moved from its suite in a Pretoria office block to secretly purchased farmland west of Pretoria. This site became known as Pelindaba (`The talking is over'), and became the new home of the South African National Nuclear Research Centre. Construction began and the first buildings were occupied in 1963.
One of the buildings was designed to house a research reactor. Under the `Atoms for Peace' programme (Ambrose, 1984:147-51), the United States agreed to make available a reactor with a capacity of 20 megawatts (MW), running on highly enriched weapons-grade uranium. The United States was also willing to supply the enriched uranium on condition that South Africa signed a safeguards agreement allowing international inspection of the facility. This condition was accepted by South Africa. Named SAFARI-I, the South African Fundamental Atomic Research Reactor was first commissioned on 18 March 1965.1Scientific training
The `Atoms for Peace' initiative included the forging of a secret treaty: the US-South African Agreement for Co-operation Concerning Civil Uses of Atomic Energy.2 This co-operation enabled a cadre of South African scientists to be trained in reactor physics in the United States. Training occurred at the Argonne National Laboratories outside Chicago, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and other venues. On their return to South Africa, this group was to form the active nucleus of an increasingly powerful nuclear bureaucracy.
The early seeding by the United States of South Africa's nuclear research facilities was crucial. By the mid-1960s, South African universities were running their own nuclear research departments. The AEB was able to recruit 75 scientists to staff Pelindaba. With the inauguration of SAFARI-I, thanks to United States collaboration, South Africa's nuclear research effort had reached its critical mass.
From the late 1940s onward, South African scientists were also given access to British facilities. However, by the late 1960s, it had become more difficult to sustain open nuclear collaboration. As the AEB turned its attention towards developing enrichment technologies, the relationship with its West German counterpart began to flourish. South Africa was keen to understand the jet-nozzle enrichment process pioneered by West German Professor Erwin Becker. Brokered by Franz-Josef Strauss, right-wing Bavarian politician, friend of apartheid, and minister in the West German coalition cabinet, South African scientists became interns at the Karlsruhe headquarters of the GfK, the federal Nuclear Research Centre. One of these scientists was Dr Waldo Stumpf, currently chief executive of South Africa's Atomic Energy Corporation (successor to the AEB).
The similarities between the Becker method and the final enrichment technique adopted by South Africa led to speculation about the close levels of collaboration (Cervenka & Rogers, 1978:43, 73-8).
...On 20 July 1970, the then prime minister, B.J. Vorster, stood up in the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town and, for the first time, revealed information about South Africa's enrichment plans. He announced that the main motive was based on the fact that South Africa, as a major uranium exporter, could derive more foreign exchange exporting uranium in its enriched form. A further motive was the immense cost of importing enriched uranium to fuel South Africa's nuclear power programme, envisaged as having a capacity of 20 000 MW by the year 2000 (more than 20 Koeberg-sized reactors). At no stage was there mention of a military application of uranium enrichment. Vorster emphasised the peaceful intention of the programme three times during his speech, and offered to collaborate with any non-communist countries in the exploitation of the process. Vorster also set in train the creation of a separate parastatal entity charged with uranium enrichment. Within a month of his speech, legislation had been signed creating the Uranium Enrichment Corporation of South Africa (UCOR).
UCOR attempted to draw on the West German connection to create an international partnership in which its activities would be adequately financed and its product marketed globally. The calculation still held that such a partnership was a vital component of any commercial enrichment plant. For six years it entertained potential West German partners, embarking on discussions and negotiations with a view to securing a joint venture. The German company STEAG, which the GfK had entrusted with licensing the jet-nozzle process, signed a memorandum of understanding with UCOR in August 1973. STEAG aimed to sub-license UCOR.
However, there was no unanimity in the West German cabinet, which had to approve the deal, and STEAG withdrew its formal application for federal government approval. Although the official deal fell through, a joint `feasibility study' was conducted comparing the South African and German enrichment processes. Many saw this study as a smokescreen for continued collaboration.
Nuclear Weapons Programs - Brazil
Brazil made a radical change in 1975, when it opted for nuclear technology from West Germany, despite strong protests from the United States. The agreement, signed on June 27, called for West Germany to transfer eight nuclear reactors (each of which could produce 1,300 megawatts), a commercial-scale uranium enrichment facility, a pilot-scale plutonium reprocessing plant, and Becker "jet nozzle" enrichment technology. West Germany's Kraftwerk Union, an affiliate of Siemens, was hired to construct the power plants. The projected cost of the program was US$4 billion, to be paid over a fifteen-year period. The most important element of the agreement was that it called for the first-ever transfer of technology for a complete nuclear fuel cycle, including enrichment and reprocessing. The United States government opposed the accord vigorously. Although it was unable to revoke the agreement, the United States convinced West Germany to enact stringent safeguards. ...West Germany did not require IAEA safeguards, and following the 1975 agreement Brazil transferred technology from its power plant projects to a secret program to develop an atom bomb. Code-named "Solimões," after a river in the Amazon, the secret program was started in 1975 and eventually came to be known publicly as the Parallel Program.
...West Germany did not require IAEA safeguards, and following the 1975 agreement Brazil transferred technology from its power plant projects to a secret program to develop an atom bomb. Code-named "Solimões," after a river in the Amazon, the secret program was started in 1975 and eventually came to be known publicly as the Parallel Program.
