Benchmark 2.

Kopytova Irina

Form 11A

Municipal School №112

The Teacher-Advisor: Olga Nevolina

The Teacher of English

School №112

2008

Objective 1.

When the question of world’s nuclear control was really acute, the IAEA was organised.The “IAEA is the world´s center of cooperation in the nuclear field. It was set up as the world´s "Atoms for Peace" organization in 1957 within the United Nations family. The Agency works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies.

The IAEA Secretariat is headquartered at the Vienna International Centre in Vienna, Austria. Operational liaison and regional offices are located in Geneva, Switzerland; New York, USA; Toronto, Canada; and Tokyo, Japan. The IAEA runs or supports research centers and scientific laboratories in Vienna and Seibersdorf, Austria; Monaco; and Trieste, Italy.” www.iaea.org/About/index.html

The IAEA Secretariat is a team of 2200 multi-disciplinary professional and support staff from more than 90 countries. The Agency is led by Director General Mohamed El Baradei and six Deputy Directors General who head the major departments

In 1970 it was decided to ratify the non-Proliferation Treaty. It’s still the main Low to prevent proliferation in the world. Nowadays 189 countries has joined this treaty, that was made open ended in 1995 and determined the character of the world’ nonproliferation regime.

In Russia in the year 1992 a state corporation to regulate nuclear complex was organized. It’s called Rosatom and is headquartered in Moscow. It is comparable in function to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Ministry for Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation (Russian: Министерство по атомной энергии Российской Федерации), or MinAtom (МинАтом), was established on January 29, 1992 as a successor of the Ministry of Nuclear Engineering and Industry of the USSR. It was reorganized as the Federal Agency on Atomic Energy on March 9, 2004. According to the law adopted by the Russian parliament in November 2007 and signed by the President Putin in early December, the agency was reorganized to Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation.^[1]

Rosatom controls nuclear power holding Atomenergoprom, nuclear weapons companies, research institutes and nuclear and radiation safety agencies. It also represents Russia in the world in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy and protection of the nonproliferation regime.

Rosatom was directed by Yevgeny Adamov until he was ousted by President Vladimir Putin in 2001. He was replaced by Alexander Rumyantsev (2001–2005). The current head of Rosatom is Sergei Kiriyenko.[1]

In 1995 the federal law “About the use of the nuclear energy” was ratified and that allowed to control and regulate nuclear materials and the relationships that appear in this process.

This law determines the authorities in the field of the nuclear energy use. So we can mark out:

· The president of Russia

· The Federal Assembly

· The Russian Government

· Agencies of State Power

· Agencies of Local Power

So, this is how the federal law regulates nuclear activities in the country. Some of the regulations are obligatory; they are physical protection, and nuclear materials control.

Pshakin G. M. in his book( it’s only in Russian) marks out four levels of the national system of export control.

The first level includes president and government of Russia. President determines the basic directions in the development of state politics of export control, the government organizes its realization.

The second level is the Export control Agency. It provides the realization of these politics, coordinates Agencies of State Power and Agencies of Local Power.

The third level is a special federal agency that provides technical and informational of the Export control Agency and organizes its work.

And finally the last level are the enterprises that export these controlled technologies and goods.[2]

Of course, there are organizations all over the world, which monitor nuclear movements. Partly they manage to control these movements and when they are together and unite in one whole, it’s much more effective to regulate. So Now I want to dwell upon these organizations.

European Organization for Nuclear Research

European Atomic Energy Community

International Atomic Energy Agency

International Commission on Radiological Protection

International Nuclear Information System

Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization

Nuclear Energy Agency

World Association of Nuclear Operators[3] I’ve listed not all of the organizations, but from the list above I understand that each organization has its own goals but together in cooperation they have better possibilities to control the nuclear energy. That’s why different countries try to be in the know and sign different treaties.

Multilateral treaties

1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty

It is a treaty that prohibits all test detonations of nuclear weapons except underground. It was developed both to slow the arms race (nuclear testing is necessary for continued nuclear weapon advancements), and to stop the excessive release of nuclear fallout into the planet's atmosphere.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was opened for signature on August 5, 1963, and entered into force on October 10, 1963.This treaty was signed by 113 countries such as Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of China, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Fiji, Finland, Gabon, The Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, South Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Samoa, San Marino, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Soviet Union, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Zambia.Also there are some countries that have signed, but not yet ratified - (17) Algeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chile, Ethiopia, Haiti, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Paraguay, Portugal, Somalia, Tanzania, Uruguay, Vietnam, Yemen A total of 116 countries have signed this, and China, who had not signed, did testing in 1992 that violated the treaty's guidelines. [4]

1967 Outer Space Treaty

An agreement between the US, USSR, and UK which banned placing weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on the moon, or in any other location in outerspace for military purposes. Eighty-six nations have signed this agreement.

1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

An agreement among the US, USSR, UK, and 133 non nuclear weapon countries which prevented the spread of nuclear weapons. It made sure that non-nuclear-weapon countries did not start weapons production. This treaty was made permanent in May 1995.

1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty I ABM treaty

A Treaty between the US and USSR which limited the anti-ballistic missle systems to a maximum of 100 ABMS launchers and missles. It also prohibits the testing and application of any of these components

1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty I Interim Agreement

An agreement between the US and USSR keeping the number of strategic ballistic missles at the same level for 5 years. The construction of more ICBM silos was restricted, but SLBM launcher amounts could increase if there was a reduction in ICBM or SLBM.

1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II

An agreement between the US and USSR which put a limit on offensive weapons systems and strategic systems. A 2,400 limit was put on amount of strategic nuclear weapon delivery vehicles, and a max of 1,320 was put on MIRVed ballistic missles. The U.S. voided the treaty in 1986.

1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)

A treaty between the US and USSR which bans all intermediate range missiles (IRMs), short range missles, and all associated facilities and equipment. On-site inspection is used to make sure that both countries are following the treaty.

1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

An agreement between the US and USSR which limited the number of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles to 1,600. It also limited the number of warheads per country to 6,000; this treaty reduced the U.S.'s and Soviet's warheads by 15% and 25% respectively.

1993 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II

This treaty is an agreement between the US and Russia which will further reduce the number of warheads by 5,000. Both sides must reduce their warheads by this amount by December 4, 2001.

1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)

An agreement signed by the US, CIS, UK, and 90 other countries which banned all nuclear tests above and below the Earth's surface. A worldwide monitoring system including 170 seismic stations checked for any signs of nuclear explosion. India was the only nuclear country that didn't sign; it has conducted five nuclear tests recently. [5]

As we can see the whole world understands deeply the threats from nuclear disasters, that’s why they cooperate. But still there are countries that pursue nuclear energy but the motives are not clear. It concerns the countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Objective 2.

Why did some countries begin the development of nuclear technologies and the use of nuclear energy?

1. Gulf States.

"Six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman) have announced that the Council is commissioning a study on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In February 2007 they agreed with the IAEA to cooperate on a feasibility study for a regional nuclear power and desalination program, which according to Saudi Arabia may emerge about 2009." [6]

Increasing of prices of gas is the main reason of super profit for Gulf States that are primary exporter of petroleum. But with this, the demand for the fuel is ever-growing. So now the Gulf States are thinking about replacing gas and mineral oil for cheaper more available fuel such as nuclear energy.

"For Arab states it is very advantageous to use nuclear energy, - Giackomo Lichiani the director of Gulf Research Center Foundation says. – When oil was cheaper and more available, use of it was really profitable. But now with the level of prices and the reserves its use is irrational” [7]

It is a hundred percent true, because a huge amount of dollars (due to oil) are going into treasury. Analytics says that for such countries it will be very profitable to buy reactors than try to develop their own nuclear technologies, broadcasts Reuters.

"Technologies are available. In my view, Gulf States will be able to start the production of nuclear energy without any problems. They have a huge capital and all opportunities for this.", - Malcolm Grimstone the representative of Chatham House notices. " [7]

France promotes Arab states, this country have already signed the double agreements for peaceful uses of nuclear energy. And French president Nicola Sarcosi says that he will do his best for the development of this industry in the Near East.

"Certainly, we cannot say with confidence that use of nuclear energy will be much more advantageous than natural gas. But this is worth attempting.", - says the vice-president of the consulting company "Wood Mackenzie" Rainish.[7]

2. Africa

"In November, 2006 six of Arab States — Algeria, Egypt , Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates — said that they are going to develop nuclear energy. But in fact it’s connected with the Teheran’s nuclear ambitions and this threatens its neighbors of Iran and North African countries.

"The head of IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei notifies African countries thatall possible decisions that concern nuclear energy” shouldn’t be light minded? Because the border between the civil and the military nuclear programs is very relative…” [8]

The south Africa is in danger of the deficit of energy. Global warming and an endless increasing of prices of oil give up for lost on all plans of development of fossil fuel and utilization of hydra energy. For the avoidance of the worst scenario South African Republic is said to build up new nuclear stations and even start to enrich uranium.

Lack of electric power threatens to the continent decreasing of rates of economic growth and slowing down international capital flows.

The world nuclear Renaissance is not going to bypass Africa, but meanwhile the Black continent is gong to have a role of the supplier of raw material. In Africa about 30 known uranium stocks are concentrated, and the growing demand for sharing materials causes steadfast attention of large foreign corporations to such countries, as Niger and Namibia. Extraction of uranium can begin also in Tanzania, Mozambique , Zimbabwe , Zambia , and also Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria, ЦАР, Uganda and Algeria. The overwhelming majority from the listed states suffers from shortage of electricity, and this problem could be solved, if they have created national programs on enrichment of uranium and construction of the atomic power station.

However economic gains from sale of uranium outweigh any possible ecological difficulties in opinion of the African governments, and ability of the atomic power station to work without dependence from seasonal conditions forces authorities серьёзно to reflect and on own atomic engineering.

"Firstly, why do we need to nuclear energy? The basic answer is that there is an energy deficit that will be increasing after a number of years. But are we sure that we've considered all accessible ways of discharge of this deficit at the expense of other energy sources?" – ask Dr Nambe the consultant of the department of fishery and sea recourses (Namibia)." [9]

Objective 3.

When there is a problem not the only one is guilty, psychologists say. I believe it may be applied to our question of proliferation nuclear energy. There are always pros and cons.

First I’ll try to speak about pros. Nuclear energy is a great source of energy that will be able to supply the whole planet for a very long period of time, and the humanity won’t need to cut out the woods, to mine oil, coal and to smoke the sky, to destroy the ozone layer. Everything will work on nuclear energy. And the new medical equipment will appear and cure the diseases. We won’t use the sun energy and will be able to grow everything we want and no one will be hungry. It’s a great economic perspective to have NPS. But if the country doesn’t have its own uranium or plutonium reserves it becomes a big deal to have such a station. And here we come to the next point: cons.

Bernard L. Cohen, Sc.D. Professor at the University of Pittsburgh in his article says that “The principal risks associated with nuclear power arise from health effects of radiation. They can penetrate deep inside the human body where they can damage biological cells and thereby initiate a cancer. If they strike sex cells, they can cause genetic diseases in progeny...Nuclear power technology produces materials that are active in emitting radiation and are therefore called "radioactive". … The genetic risks of nuclear power are equivalent to delaying parenthood by 2.5 days, or of men wearing pants an extra 8 hours per year. Much can be done to avert genetic diseases utilizing currently available technology; if 1% of the taxes paid by the nuclear industry were used to further implement this technology, 80 cases of genetic disease would be averted for each case caused by the nuclear industry. …The nuclear power plant design strategy for preventing accidents and mitigating their potential effects is "defense in depth"--- if something fails, there is a back-up system to limit the harm done, if that system should also fail there is another back-up system for it, etc., etc. Of course it is possible that each system in this series of back-ups might fail one after the other, but the probability for that is exceedingly small. The Media often publicize a failure of some particular system in some plant, implying that it was a close call" on disaster; they completely miss the point of defense in depth which easily takes care of such failures. Even in the Three Mile Island accident where at least two equipment failures were severely compounded by human errors, two lines of defense were still not breached--- essentially all of the radioactivity remained sealed in the thick steel reactor vessel, and that vessel was sealed inside the heavily reinforced concrete and steel lined "containment" building which was never even challenged. It was clearly not a close call on disaster to the surrounding population. The Soviet Chernobyl reactor, built on a much less safe design concept, did not have such a containment structure; if it did, that disaster would have been averted.”

He also says that when a coal pollution of the air appeared some people died and now not more people has died from nuclear radiation “ for nuclear power to be as dangerous as coal burning.” [10]

We also can’t get rid of another problem it’s radioactive waste. The radioactive waste products from the nuclear industry must be isolated from contact with people for very long time periods. The bulk of the radioactivity is contained in the spent fuel, which is quite small in volume and therefore easily handled with great care. This "high level waste" will be converted to a rock-like form and emplaced in the natural habitat of rocks, deep underground. The average lifetime of a rock in that environment is one billion years. If the waste behaves like other rock, it is easily shown that the waste generated by one nuclear power plant will eventually, over millions of years (if there is no cure found for cancer), cause one death from 50 years of operation.

We can follow: Reuse! Reduce! Recycle!and do it with the used fuel. It may be reprocessed, dissolved and separated chemically into uranium, plutonium and high-level waste solutions. About 97% of the used fuel can be recycled leaving only 3% as high-level waste. The recyclable portion is mostly uranium depleted to less than 1% U-235, with some plutonium, which is most valuable.

“Arising from a year's operation of a typical l000 MWe nuclear reactor, about 230 kilograms of plutonium (1% of the spent fuel) is separated in reprocessing. This can be used in fresh mixed oxide (MOX) fuel (but not weapons, due its composition). MOX fuel fabrication occurs in Europe, with some 25 years of operating experience. The main plant is in France, and started up in 1995. Japan's slightly smaller plant is due to start up in 2012. Across Europe, over 35 reactors are licensed to load 20-50% of their cores with MOX fuel.

The separated high-level wastes - about 3% of the typical reactor's used fuel - amounts to 700 kg per year and it needs to be isolated from the environment for a very long time.

Major commercial reprocessing plants are operating in France and UK, with capacity of almost 5000 tones of spent fuel per year, - equivalent to at least one third of the world's annual output. A total of over 90,000 tonnes of spent fuel has been reprocessed at these over 40 years.” http://www.uic.com.au/wast.htm

There is one more problem- Nuclear terrorism- the use, or threat of the use, of nuclear weapons or radiological weapons in acts of terrorism, including attacks against facilities where radioactive materials are present.^[1] In legal terms, nuclear terrorism is an offense committed if a person unlawfully and intentionally “uses in any way radioactive material … with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury”, according to International conventions.[11] Two of the main dangers associated with nuclear reactors are nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Terrorism involving nuclear weapons or radioactive materials could take a variety of forms. Terrorists could:

Attack a nuclear reactor.

Disrupt critical inputs (eg., water supply) for the safe running of a nuclear reactor.

Steal nuclear fuel or waste.

Acquire fissile material and fabricate a crude nuclear bomb.

Acquire a ready-made nuclear weapon or take over a nuclear-armed submarine, plane or base. [11]

How many men, so many minds, so this is not the full list of nuclear threats.

Conclusion.

More and more countries are able to use nuclear energy. USA, Russian Federation, Europe, and more countries build their own NPS. Everyone understands commercial benefits of nuclear energy, but unfortunately, not everyone realizes all the threat that nuclear energy carries. So the world is aware of the situation and special international agencies are organized, they regulate the nuclear spread, control its use and prevent from nuclear terrorism. But will they be able to manage? Wwhat results we will have? Will all the countries “keep the rule”? What if it happens as it happened in Chernobyl in 1986? But next time it will be the “Atomic winter”! WE DON”T WANT THIS!!!

www.fallout-archives.com/pics/nuclear_blast.jpg

References.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosatom

2.Pshackin G.N . “Nuclear Nonproliferation”-Moskow,2006(in Russian)

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Association_of_Nuclear_Operators 4.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Banning_Nuclear_Weapon_Tests_in_the_Atmosphere%2C_in_Outer_Space%2C_and_Under_Water

5. http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/timeline/treaties.html

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_energy_policy#Gulf_states

7http://atomexpo.ru/ru/new_news/comment/index.php?from8=1&id8=2358)

8http://newafrica.ru/digest/0701/magate.htm

9http://www.atominfo.ru/news/air1256.htm

10. http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/np-risk.htm

11. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_terrorism]