Nuclear Issues

27 Items

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Announcement

Symposium on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Nuclear Disarmament, Non-proliferation, and Energy: Fresh Ideas for the Future

Dec. 15, 2014

The ninth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will be held at the UN Headquarters in New York from April 27-May 22, 2015. This is the fourth such conference since the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995. Participating governments will discuss nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy with a view to arriving at consensus on a number of issues.

Gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment recovered en route to Libya in 2003.

U.S. Department of Energy

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Nonproliferation Emperor Has No Clothes: The Gas Centrifuge, Supply-Side Controls, and the Future of Nuclear Proliferation

| Spring 2014

Policymakers have long focused on preventing nuclear weapons proliferation by controlling technology. Even developing countries, however, may now possess the technical ability to create nuclear weapons. The history of gas centrifuge development in twenty countries supports this perspective. To reduce the demand for nuclear weapons, policymakers will have look toward the cultural, normative, and political organization of the world.

A firefighter stands next to the radiation head of a radiation therapy machine in the village of Hueypoxtla, Mexico, Dec. 5, 2013.

Marco Ugarte, via AP

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Mexico’s Stolen Radiation Source: It Could Happen Here

| January 23, 2014

Although the truck-jacking of highly radioactive material outside Mexico City on December 1, 2013 ended without the worst case materializing, it should serve as a wakeup call, not just in Mexico but also in the United States and elsewhere. Dangerous radiation sources remain vulnerable to theft, especially when they are out on the road. There is also poorly protected radioactive material in hospitals and other facilities. Improving security requires tougher regulations and greater risk awareness in the industry. Unfortunately, the United States is no exception, so it’s time for the country to get serious about locking up its radioactive material.

Paper

Strengthening Global Approaches To Nuclear Security

| July 1, 2013

Despite substantial progress in improving nuclear security in recent years, there is more to be done.  The threats of nuclear theft and terrorism remain very real.  This paper recommends learning from the much stronger national and international efforts in nuclear safety, and in particular taking steps to build international understanding of the threat; establish effective performance objectives; assure performance; train and certify needed personnel; build security culture and exchange best practices; reduce the number of sites that need to be protected; and strengthen the international framework and continue the dialogue once leaders are no longer meeting regularly at the summit level.

Analysis & Opinions - Christian Science Monitor

Iran and the US Need a Middleman ­— or Two

| January 29, 2013

"The foundations of a Turkey-Japan negotiation with Iran have been laid in decades of dialogue with Tehran and long-established relations focused on energy supplies. Most important, Turkey and Japan continue to maintain strong trade relations with Tehran, which allows them to include economic incentives in a potential proposal. The P5+1 cannot offer such incentives unless they lift a number of sanctions, which seems highly unlikely at the first stage."

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

The Year in Numbers

| December 24, 2012

"The never-ending negotiations about the pending fiscal cliff sometimes amount to nothing more than a dizzying array of numbers. Who can count that high? The negotiations also make us think that the only stastistics that mattered in 2012, or will matter in 2013, involve dollar signs. A year in pictures may be compelling and beautiful, but the year in numbers gives a strong hint of what to anticipate in the year ahead."

Rape of the Sabine Women, 1963; Pablo Picasso (Spanish (worked in France), 1881–1973); Oil on Canvas. *Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

*Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Picasso, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Malcolm Wiener

| October 24, 2012

As visitors step through the doors of the Kennedy Memorial Library for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, they will find on display Picasso's 1963 Rape of the Sabine Women - on loan from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. The connection between Picasso's painting and what is widely accepted as the most dangerous moment in human history was brought to light for many by Malcolm Wiener, a member of the Belfer Center’s International Council and the person for whom Harvard Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy was named.

Iranian top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili smiles after Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki signed an agreement to ship most of Iran's enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal, in Tehran, Iran, May 17, 2010.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

The European Union and Future Nuclear Talks

| December 4, 2010

"The weakening of the EU's role as an independent and mediatory player in the nuclear talks, however, beyond economic losses, could bring negative strategic and political consequences for the EU's status in the entire Middle East, which could in turn damage the region's interests. The new economic sanctions will preclude the opportunity of investment by the EU in Iran's gas and oil sectors, thus decreasing trade and commerce between the two—a shift of policy that provoked a sharp rise in China's activities in those sectors."

Report - International Panel on Fissile Materials

The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Energy

    Editor:
  • Frank N. von Hippel
    Authors:
  • Anatoli Diakov
  • Ming Ding
  • Tadahiro Katsuta
  • Charles McCombie
  • M.V. Ramana
  • Tatsujiro Suzuki
  • Susan Voss
  • Suyuan Yu
| September 2010

In the 1970s, nuclear-power boosters expected that by now nuclear power would produce perhaps 80 to 90 percent of all electrical energy globally. Today, the official high-growth projection of the Organization for Economic Co‑operation and Developments (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) estimates that nuclear power plants will generate about 20 percent of all electrical energy in 2050. Thus, nuclear power could make a significant contribution to the global electricity supply. Or it could be phased out — especially if there is another accidental or a terrorist-caused Chernobyl-scale release of radioactivity. If the spread of nuclear energy cannot be decoupled from the spread of nuclear weapons, it should be phased out.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice speaks at the UN Security Council, June 9, 2010. The UNSC approved new sanctions against Iran that target the Revolutionary Guard, ballistic missiles, and nuclear-related investments.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Iranian Diplomacy

Continuing the Win-Win Game

| June 17, 2010

"When the nuclear swap proposal was initially presented by the IAEA and the West in October 2009, it was broached by the disparate political organs of Iran's power structure. The embodiment of Iran’s strategic decision was the acceptance of the Tehran Nuclear Deal in May 2010. Although Washington has rejected the Tehran Deal on the basis of its own narrow reasons i.e., Iran has increased its enriched uranium stockpile within the last few months rendering the swap deal useless, one should accept that Tehran needed some time to weigh up the Geneva Deal on the domestic political scene."