From HANS BLIX
William Bown seems to be amazed that I should be confident about the
future of nuclear power and claims that such confidence is at odds with
reality. I feel that it is Bown who is at odds with reality (‘A realist
at odds with reality’, Forum, 23 February).
He claims that in five years ‘almost no one has bought the idea’ that
continued and greater use of nuclear power might help to contain the greenhouse
effect. The summit of the largest industrial countries in Paris (1989) stated:
‘We recognise that nuclear power also plays an important role in limiting
the output of greenhouse gases.’ A similar statement was made at the Houston
summit last year. Is this ‘almost no one’?
Bown says that in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change in the summer of 1989 the value of nuclear power to restrain the
emission of carbon dioxide ‘appears almost as an afterthought’. It is true
that the panel-headed by an antinuclear scientist-has so far not said a
positive word about nuclear power. But it is equally true that all the most
successful reduction scenarios presented to the IPCC’s subgroup for energy
and industry contain a major nuclear component.
He claims that ‘prospects for a new non-proliferation treaty, needed
by the time the current one runs out in 1995, are dim’ because the 1990
review conference ended without an agreed declaration. Any judgment about
the diplomatic situation in 1995 is uncertain. In my view there is room
for some optimism. At present we are seeing Argentina, Brazil and South
Africa moving to verified non-proliferation pledges and there is talk about
a zone free of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
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Bown claims that ‘Blix’s inspectors visited Iraq and gave it a clean
bill of health. The US then revealed its true regard for the (International
Atomic Energy Agency) by repeating its claim that Iraq was on the verge
of making a nuclear bomb.’ The reality is more complicated that Bown has
discovered. The agency has not given Iraq ‘a clean bill of health’. Its
inspectors verified in November 1990 that there had been no change in the
status of the nuclear material under safeguards in Iraq since the previous
inspection in April 1990, at which time it was concluded that all such nuclear
material was accounted for. This finding has not been questioned by the
US or any other government.
Finally, Bown complains that I think it is ‘too early’ to say whether
Eastern Europe’s nuclear power ‘can be saved’. I think the debate might
be more enlightened once major international technical inquiries which are
currently underway into the safety of some Eastern European reactors are
on the table.
Hans Blix, Director General International Atomic Energy Agency Vienna,
Austria
