When I first began researching nuclear power, I read a few things that led me to believe that the link between civil nuclear power and nuclear proliferation was a manageable risk. Discounting that risk, I soon became convinced that nuclear power was awesome. I was recovering from the delusion that we could decarbonize the power grid through wind, solar, and batteries, in addition to hydroelectric and geothermal power. Soon thereafter, I realized that India had surreptitiously developed nuclear weapons using civil nuclear technology provided by Canada and the U.S. This realization gave me pause, and it pushed me off my idea to dedicate much of my free time to advocating for greater use of nuclear power in the U.S. and abroad.
I have since concluded that the threat of climate change to human well-being in a future dominated by combined-cycle natural gas plants is considerably lower than the threat of nuclear proliferation associated with increased civil nuclear power generation. However, I still believe that countries who already have nuclear weapons should continue to expand their civil nuclear programs, to the extent that their programs are monitored internationally. The proliferation concern in this context pertains mainly to countries that would not be willing to submit to international scrutiny of their civil nuclear programs.
The history of India’s nuclear weapons program is probably the best example of the proliferation risk from civil nuclear power. The Nuclear Threat Initiative’s website provides a great summary of this history. The following bullets quickly summarize that history borrowing from this and a few other sources:
- Beginning in 1955, Canada provided nuclear reactor technology to India and the U.S. provided heavy water for the reactor under the “Atoms for Peace” Program.
- India began theoretical work on the Subterranean Nuclear Explosion for Peaceful Purposes (SNEPP) project in 1964.
- The SNEPP project developed the technical capacity for a nuclear explosion in the late 1960s, but India held off on the political decision to carry out a test.
- India conducted its first test of a fission device in 1974, which it described as a “Peaceful Nuclear Explosion.”
- India temporarily ceased testing and did not weaponize the device design it had tested, because of international alarm about the military implications of its original test.
- India began weaponization in the late 1980s in response to oblique nuclear threats from Pakistan.
Vipin Narang groups countries’ development of a nuclear weapons program into four categories:
- Sprinters – big countries with the ability to make nuclear weapons independently (U.S., Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, China, and India).
- Hedgers – countries that have potential to develop nuclear weapons but haven’t because their citizens don’t want them to or for geopolitical reasons (Germany, Japan, and South Korea). These countries rely on deterrence from the U.S. and avoid some risk of being targeted by nuclear-powered countries. If U.S. support decreases, they might develop their own nuclear weapons programs.
- Hiders – countries that cannot get help from a superpower are most likely to work in secret (Libya, Syria, Iraq, South Africa).
- Those benefitting from sheltered pursuit – countries that use their alliances with superpowers to develop nuclear weapons with partial, tacit support (Israel, North Korea).
Narang further divides hedgers into three subcategories:
- Insurance hedgers are cautious about being abandoned by U.S (Japan and Germany).
- Hard hedgers are not as close to the U.S., but still decided not to develop nuclear weapons (Sweden or Switzerland).
- Technical hedgers have the technological pieces for a weapons program but have not weaponized (Argentina and Brazil).
The history with India provides a stark example of the link between civil nuclear power and nuclear weapons program, and several other notable examples exist (e.g., South Africa, North Korea). The above information summarized from Dr. Vipin Narang’s book Seeking the Bomb illustrates the diversity of paths to nuclear weapons, and the careful thinking involved in nonproliferation planning efforts. The fact remains that making choices that steer populations away from civil nuclear power reduces nuclear weapons proliferation risk, and such risks must be balanced against the benefits of nuclear power. However, expanding nuclear capacity in countries like the U.S. and its allies is unlikely to increase the proliferation risk.