Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists PUBLIC INTEREST REPORT Volume 69, Number 2 STAFF TABLE OF CONTENTS CHARLES D. FERGUSON Humanitarian Consequences of Editor-in-Chief Nuclear Accidents and Detonations 1 by Charles D. Ferguson FRANKIE GUARINI Managing Editor, Layout Designer FAS in 2016: Year in Review 2 PIA ULRICH Copy Editor Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — U.S. Leaders Reject Nuclear Winter Studies 4 CONTRIBUTORS by Steven Starr CHARLES D. FERGUSON pp. 1, 16 President, Federation of American Scientists Chernobyl and Trinity —Counting STEVEN STARR p. 4 the Curies 12 Director, Clinical Laboratory Science Program, by B. Cameron Reed University of Missouri-Columbia Revisiting Chernobyl 16 B. CAMERON REED p. 12 Chair and Professor of Physics, Alma College by Charles D. Ferguson EDWARD A. FRIEDMAN p. 17 Calculating the Uncountable Deaths Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of from Chernobyl 17 Technology by Edward A. Friedman LETTER TO THE EDITOR Cover Photo The Federation of American Scientists “Third Angel Statue” in Pripyat, Ukraine, a nuclear welcomes letters to the editor for the PIR. city that served the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant until its evacuation following the Chernobyl disaster Letters should not exceed 500 words and may on April 26, 1986. It is now part of an exclusion zone be edited for clarity, length, and compliance formed after the Chernobyl accident in response to with FAS’s editorial standards before the resulting radiation. It is based on the Bible verse: publication on fas.org (pending the author’s “The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, approval and at FAS’s discretion). blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many To submit a letter, email it to [email protected] or people died from the waters that had become bitter.” send it by mail to: Revelation 8:10-11 Attn: Public Interest Report A complete archive of the PIR is available at: Federation of American Scientists fas.org/publications/public-interest-reports. 1725 DeSales Street NW, Suite 600 © 2016 Federation of American Scientists. Washington, DC 20036 All rights reserved. i Winter 2016/2017 fas.org level of less than a few dozen. Above this threshold, nu- President’s Message clear winter could be triggered if these warheads were detonated on targets that could result in massive amounts of soot and particulate matter being lofted into the upper Humanitarian atmosphere. Political and military leaders could dismiss this concern by believing that there is too much uncer- tainty in the calculations or by convincing themselves that a relatively large number of weapons is still necessary for Consequences political and military power projection. The increasing global attention about the humanitarian of Nuclear consequences of nuclear war has paralleled the ongoing massive cleanup of contamination around the Fukushi- ma Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. Several tens of Accidents and thousands of people are still displaced from their homes, though no one has died in the past near-six years since the Fukushima accident as a result of radiation exposure. The Detonations long-term health effects from radiation, however, have yet Charles D. Ferguson to be seen, but arguably the number of cancers developed President, Federation of American Scientists from this exposure should be small because of the rela- tively quick evacuation of the population from the affected n the past three years, more and more nations have ex- region. pressed a growing concern about the humanitarian im- pact of the use of nuclear weapons. Since spring 2013, Chernobyl’s radiation effects dwarf Fukushima’s because a few international conferences and forums have brought of the roughly ten times greater land contamination in I Belarus, Ukraine, and some other parts of Europe as com- together experts to examine the potential impacts. For example, Hans Kristensen, Director of the FAS Nuclear pared to Japan, and because the evacuation of most of the Information Project, presented at a Vienna conference in population affected by this Chernobyl-caused contami- December 2014. As negotiations on a proposed treaty to nation was delayed by days due to the Soviet authorities ban nuclear weapons are set to start in spring 2017, FAS hiding the fact of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear will continue to analyze the science of nuclear effects and Power Station on April 26, 1986. In this Public Interest Re- policy implications of a world without nuclear weapons. port, professor emeritus Edward Friedman tries to find an answer to the question: What is the order of magnitude In this issue of the Public Interest Report, Steven Starr calls number of deaths in the past 30 years due to radiation for national and global leadership in taking action to avert exposure? He is not even asking for the exact number of the potential triggering of nuclear winter by even a “small- deaths from this exposure, which we will never know. The scale” nuclear war, which would be a major humanitari- order of magnitude effect is still important to know from an consequence on agriculture as well as the huge blast a policy perspective. But the answer is not so easy to find effects. As Mr. Starr argues, political and military leaders out as explained in his essay. Dr. Friedman calls for an in- should not ignore the non-blast effects of nuclear weap- dependent body of experts to study this question. ons. As Lynn Eden has examined in her path-breaking book, Whole World on Fire (2004), the military has not Dr. Cameron Reed’s article examines a scientific question taken into account the massive firestorms that would be in the middle ground between the issues addressed by Dr. created by detonation of nuclear weapons on cities. The Friedman and Mr. Starr. That is, Dr. Reed estimates, via cal- military was only giving “credit” to blast damage; thus, in culations and a literature survey, the radioactivity released effect, thinking of nuclear weapons as just very big con- by the first fission bomb, which was named Trinity. Like ventional weapons and thereby dismissing the tremen- the other two articles, Dr. Reed’s article is relevant for bet- dous harm from firestorms on buildings and other urban ter public policy in consideration of the effects of even just infrastructure. Mr. Starr cites relatively recent computer one nuclear explosion. Fortunately, it has been more than simulation studies of “small” nuclear wars involving dozens 71 years since nuclear weapons were detonated in war. of nuclear detonations in India and Pakistan. These simu- lations indicate that potentially one billion or more people Almost all people alive today have no memory of those in and outside these countries could starve to death due to events and thus might discount their reality. However, sci- the massive cooling effects on food production. entists must not allow any of us to forget the effects by educating the public and political leaders through scien- Highly competent scientists have performed these calcu- tific analysis. As FAS ventures into its next 71 years, we will lations, which sound the alarm of potentially catastrophic work diligently to bring people with diverse expertise to- damage, while non-scientists in leadership positions have gether to apply the best scientific, political, social, and le- chosen not to act on this warning. Of course, the implica- gal thinking, as appropriate, to make the world safer from tion for the leaders is that they should drastically reduce catastrophic risks, such as nuclear war or severe nuclear the number of nuclear warheads to under the threshold accidents. 1 Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004). 1 Public Interest Report Federation of American Scientists Federation of American Scientists 70 YEARS OF SCIENCE In September, FAS hosted its 70th an- niversary symposium and awards cere- mony on Capitol Hill to discuss issues of science and policy and honor three scientists who have contributed signifi- cantly to the world at large: M. Granger Morgan, Maxine Singer, and Ted Pos- tol. Other guests included: Congress- man Bill Foster, Senator Ed Markey, and President Obama’s senior science and technology advisor, John Holdren. SCIENTISTS’ NETWORK Throughout 2016, FAS has engaged dozens of expert scientists and poli- cymakers to write original content for FAS publications, to become members of FAS task forces, and even to provide a platform for young to mid-career scientists to showcase their exempla- ry work and start a dialogue with the hundreds of FAS-affiliated scientists, policymakers, and thinkers alike. 60 MINUTES ADVISORY Hans Kristensen, Director of the FAS Nuclear Information Project, appeared on two episodes of 60 Minutes, in- cluding the episode, “Risk of nuclear attack rises.” Kristensen also advised CBS News journalists who produced the 60 Minutes episodes and provided an on-air demonstration to 60 Minutes correspondent David Martin detailing Russian bomber travel routes. 2 Winter 2016/2017 fas.org 2016: Year in Review IRAN DEAL EXPERTISE Christopher A. Bidwell, Senior Fellow for Nonproliferation Policy and Law at FAS, appeared on both Voice of Ameri- ca and Sky News Arabia as a key expert to discuss the ramifications and out- look of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — the Iran nuclear agreement. Bidwell also is a member of the FAS task force on Iran and has published an analysis on the future of the deal, available on fas.org. TASK FORCE REPORT Through the FAS Task Force Mod- el, which unites several scientists and policymakers with FAS experts to pro- vide an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems, Alain Tournyol du Clos, a lead architect of France’s naval nuclear propulsion program, authored an FAS-sponsored special report ad- dressing France’s decision to use low-enriched uranium in its naval nu- clear propulsion program.