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China’s Nuclear Energy Development and Spent Fuel Management Plans

Liu Xuegang writes, “Experience with spent fuel management is limited in China. No authorized roadmap or clear decision on the back end of nuclear fuel cycle has yet been developed and approved. Thanks to the present relatively small quantity of spent fuel in storage at China’s nuclear plants, it appears that there will be no critical pressure on the development of spent fuel transportation, interim storage, large-scale reprocessing and final disposal infrastructure for a number of years. The difficulty and uncertainty of development of nuclear power and nuclear fuel cycle facilities, however, have been well-proved worldwide in the past. China’s strategy of spent fuel management policy should be determined soon, and should be based on a comprehensive and scientific planning process that allows consideration of all reasonable options, issues, and points of view.”

Xuegang Liu is a Doctor at the Nuclear Chemistry and Technology Division at the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. China.

South Korea Joins The Big Boy League

South Korea Joins The Big Boy League

by Peter Hayes – Deterrence Contributor
If we try to figure out what the post-2010 ROK “pro-active deterrence” concept articulated and pushed hard by former Blue House national security advisor…

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly – 11 October 2012

See this week’s blog from our Governance and Civil Society contributor, Yi Kiho.

Tactical Employment of Atomic Weapons

By 1951 it was apparent that the Soviet nuclear explosion in 1949 had already cut short the era of U.S. nuclear omnipotence and in Korea,  the U.S. military’s began to worry about nuclear attack. “In the problem of defense,” advises this March 1951 Johns Hopkins report by to General MacArthur, “there is the question as to whether one’s own forces and installations are so disposed as to be vulnerable and, if so, what more suitable dispositions and defenses are possible.”

To answer this question, the report analyzes whether UN Command field troops, army and air force headquarters at Taegu, and UN airfields would have been lucrative nuclear targets; and whether Pusan, the logistical port through which poured 80 percent of the supplies to fight the war, was vulnerable.

The report shows that each of these targets was indeed vulnerable. Each target was sufficiently valuable to justify using nuclear weapons; each target could be identified; and none of them could assuredly stop a nuclear attack.

This report was released to the Nautilus Institute under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly – 4 October 2012

See this week’s blog from our Austral Peace and Security contributor, Richard Tanter.

Standing upright there: the New Zealand path to a nuclear-free world

Richard Tanter writes that the recent rapprochement between New Zealand and the United States is born of both shared concerns about the rise of China and American recognition “that the Lange Labour Government’s 1984 policy of banning the entry of nuclear-armed ships is not incompatible with an alliance with the United States.” Tanter concludes that the morale of the story remains that “passage to a nuclear free world will require surely require more New Zealands.

United States Air Force Pacific Bases in the 70’s

This 1971 case study by Colonel William Roche explores the future role of U.S. air bases in the Pacific with regards to relations with the Republic of Korea, China, Japan (with emphasis on Okinawa) and the Philippines.

Roche states, “The current trend in the pacific, as elsewhere, is to reduce forces, economize and encourage other nations to assume a greater share of the defense burden.  This is being accomplished by withdrawal of some units and consolidation of other units, utilizing the same facilities. It also requires continued military assistance to certain Asian allies for a number of years.” (page 10)

This report was released to the Nautilus Institute under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly – 27 September 2012