The old, shopworn slogan of the Left. "Power to the People!" has taken on a meaning the old ‘60s radicals never could have anticipated, as the graying peaceniks find out that their plasma television screens and Jacuzzis® are powered by old Soviet nuclear warheads. To make matters worse, it may be that what little remains of our tattered economy is relying on the cheap nuclear power which recycled nuclear weapons are providing.

As Andrew Kramer explains in a New York Times article:

What’s powering your home appliances?

For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones.

“It’s a great, easy source” of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the Cold War.

But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn’t secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers.

Already nervous about a supply gap, utilities operating America’s 104 nuclear reactors are paying as much attention to President Obama’s efforts to conclude a new arms treaty as the Nobel Peace Prize committee did.

In the last two decades, nuclear disarmament has become an integral part of the electricity industry, little known to most Americans.

Salvaged bomb material now generates about 10 percent of electricity in the United States — by comparison, hydropower generates about 6 percent and solar, biomass, wind and geothermal together account for 3 percent.


Yes, all of the touted “green” power sources combined do not measure up to the power of recycled nuclear warheads. Furthermore, shouldn’t such a use be commended for it’s "environmentally friendly" character? We’re supposed to recycle, right?

However, it should be obvious that further “arms control” agreements cannot allow the present recycling program to continue indefinitely. Obviously, there’s a very finite number of warheads available — if they were alive, the Left would have already demanded that they be listed as an "endangered species" and protected from further harvesting!

However, as the available supply of warheads is slowly drying up, what makes the most sense is to increase our production of fuel-grade nuclear material. Generating power by burning coal is already under attack because of its alleged “carbon footprint”— the politics of dramatically expanding our nation’s coal consumption is almost as much of a political land mine as nuclear power.

When compared to the supposedly “environmentally friendly” alternative sources of energy, one must consider the fact that the power plants needed to utilize such nuclear fuel already exist, and it has become increasingly clear that hydroelectric and wind power are not as “green” as originally imagined, considering the amount of arable land lost as dams are constructed, and the number of birds killed by wind turbines every year.

If alternatives such as solar energy prove themselves more economically viable over time due to scientific advances, then undoubtedly the market will develop those resources, as well. But despite all the fear mongering which has surrounded nuclear power, it has proven to be reliable, efficient, and relatively safe.

There is something profoundly emotionally gratifying in knowing that warheads that were once aimed at our cities now provide power to them instead. But the resource is running out — regardless of whether further disarmament takes place, or not. The question remains whether a disproportionate fear of the dangers of nuclear power will continue to drive our nation away from using this resource, or whether we will finally acknowledge the risks and benefits of this source of energy.

According to Kramer,

The program for dismantling and diluting the fuel cores of decommissioned Russian warheads — known informally as Megatons to Megawatts — is set to expire in 2013, just as the industry is trying to sell it forcefully as an alternative to coal-powered energy plants, which emit greenhouse gases.

Finding a substitute is a concern for utilities today because nuclear plants buy fuel three to five years in advance.

One potential new source is warheads that would become superfluous if the United States and Russia agree to new cuts under negotiations to renew the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires on Dec. 5.

Such negotiations revolve around the number of deployed weapons and delivery vehicles. There is no requirement in the treaty that bomb cores be destroyed. That is negotiated separately.

For the industry, that means that now, as in the past, there will be no direct correlation between the number of warheads decommissioned and the quantity of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, also used in weapons, that the two countries declare surplus.

(This summer, Mr. Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia agreed to a new limit on delivery vehicles of 500 to 1,100 and a limit on deployed warheads as low as 1,500. The United States now has about 2,200 nuclear warheads and the Russians 2,800.)

Given the rate of consumption of warheads, clearly even if such a reduction in warheads were accomplished, the available nuclear material cannot fuel our energy needs for long. What is needed is a well-reasoned discussion of continuing to produce the nuclear material we have already been consuming.

Rt. Rev. James Heiser has served as Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Malone, Texas, while maintaining his responsibilities as publisher of Repristination Press, which he established in 1993 to publish academic and popular theological books to serve the Lutheran Church. Heiser has also served since 2005 as the Dean of Missions for The Augustana Ministerium and in 2006 was called to serve as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). An advocate of manned space exploration, Heiser serves on the Steering Committee of the Mars Society. His publications include two books; The Office of the Ministry in N. Hunnius' Epitome Credendorum (1996) and A Shining City on a Higher Hill: Christianity and the Next New World (2006), as well as dozens of journal articles and book reviews.

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DDW said:

You can be pretty sure That the idiots/troublemakers of the "liberal" left will try to do something to throw a monkey wrench in the works. Quite frankly, I believe that the "liberal" left is part and parcel of the enemy. I also believe that they should set the example and have their electricity shut off (along with their gas, running water and sewer). If they think that's how others should live, let them set the example.

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November 18, 2009
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rprew said:

	... Yet ANOTHER industry left to die in a sea of regulation and environmentalism, while what is left is dependent upon outsourced material. Does the United States actually produce ANYTHING anymore? (I mean besides dollar bills.)
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November 18, 2009
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