Special Reports

Commercial nuclear power plants around the world harness nuclear fission to produce electricity. At each plant, a fission reactor receives fresh nuclear fuel and discharges spent nuclear fuel (SNF). Although the SNF is “spent”, it contains a large amount of radioactive material. Some of that material could be released to the environment by an accident or an attack, causing harm to humans by exposing them to ionizing radiation. The potential for such harm is the “radiological risk” associated with SNF. Independent assessment of this risk could help societies to manage the risk. This report is designed as a handbook that could be used to support such independent assessment. The report has two main parts. The first part provides introductory material, and the second part sets forth a seven-step approach to assessing SNF radiological risk.

Gordon D. Thompson, Phil., is currently the executive director of Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, MA. In addition, he serves as Research Professor, George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University, Worcester, Massachussetts.

This handbook was produced for of the Institute’s Resilience and Security of Spent Fuel in East Asia project with the support of the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation.

In this report, Peter Hayes and Roger Cavazos “examine one North Korean account of the limited war it might fight to occupy Seoul, including the use of nuclear weapons or other unspecified WMD to neutralize American forces. We find that while this account makes for fine propaganda, when viewed through the lens of conventional capabilities, the plan is mainly smoke and mirrors. Nonetheless, if this account is indicative of the belief system of North Korea’s leadership, then it is truly alarming. It suggests that North Korea still adheres to military strategies and tactics that failed in the Korean War, and would fail again, only faster, should war break out in Korea. Moreover, it suggests a fantastic belief that somehow early escalation to nuclear war could make possible a conventional pre-emptive attack on Seoul.”

Peter Hayes is director of Nautilus Institute and Professor of International Relations at RMIT University in Melbourne. Roger Cavazos is an Associate of Nautilus Institute and retired US military intelligence officer.

In this report Jungmin Kang reviews the current status of and future prospects for nuclear power in the Republic of Korea. The ROK’s current nuclear capacity of 21.7 GWe will, under current plans, be approximately doubled by 2030. Given the current lack of pool storage capacity, Kang asserts that spent fuel storage in the ROK will become worse in the near future and that decisions regarding the interim storage of spent fuel will play key roles in shaping nuclear fuel cycle activities and development in South Korea.

Dr. Jungmin Kang is currently a visiting professor at Lee Byong Whi Nuclear Energy Policy Center, Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

The purpose of this report is to provide policy-makers and other interested parties with an overview of the demand for and supply of the various forms of energy used in the DPRK in six years during the last two decades:

• 1990, the year before much of the DPRK’s economic and technical support from the Soviet Union was withdrawn;
• 1996, thought by some to be one of the most meager years of the difficult economic 1990s in the DPRK; and
• 2000, a year that has been perceived by some observers as a period of modest economic “recovery” in the DPRK, as well as a marker of the period before the start, in late 2002, of a period of renewed political conflict between the DPRK, the United States, and it neighbors in Northeast Asia over the DPRK’s nuclear weapons development program; and
• 2005, also a year in which observers have again noted an upward trend in some aspects of the DPRK economy, as well as the most recent year for which any published estimates on the DPRK’s energy sector and economy are available.
• 2008, the last year in which the DPRK received heavy fuel oil from its negotiating partners in the Six-Party talks; and
• 2009, the most recent year for which we have analyzed the DPRK’s energy sector.

David von Hippel is an Associate of the Nautilus Institute. Peter Hayes is the Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute.

Richard Tanter examines Ball’s writings on these facilities, setting them in the wider context of Ball’s work on nuclear targeting, the transnational UKUSA intelligence and security community, and the possibilities and limits of self reliance in Australian defence. Reviewing developments in US-Australian “joint facilities” in Australia in the past decade, the paper examines the asymmetrical alliance cooperation involved in the technological, organisational and doctrinal integration of Australian defence forces with those of the United States. It then argues for a reconsideration of the balance of costs and benefits of the US facilities and the accompanying alliance grand bargain. The paper concludes with a re-consideration of Ball’s reluctant conclusion to the question of whether, on balance, the retention of the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap is in the Australian national interest and the wider human interest.

Richard Tanter is Senior Research Associate at the Nautilus Institute, and professor in the School of Social and Political Studies at the University of Melbourne. Email: rtanter@nautilus.org.