There are two aspects of nuclear power development. The first aspect is the supply of massive amount of energy at a low cost to develop human civilization, the peaceful atom. The second aspect is the supply of, the military atom, massive amount of weapons to destroy the human civilization. This book is about understanding the relationship between developments of these two aspects of nuclear power in three perspectives: past, present, and future.
The development of nuclear energy to gain national competitive advantage started at the beginning of twentieth century and particularly during the two world wars: the World War I (WW1) and the World War II (WW2). The intensive research has been developing during the prewar years in Germany and Russia, and after revolution in 1917 in the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics, the USSR. Later the research activities with the greatest scope and focus continued in the United States, particularly in view the fact many prominent European scientists, who migrated to the United States before and during war period, were involved in the research. Thus, it is important to note that the development of research on nuclear energy began with the creation of nuclear weapons, the impetus for the development of which was served by two world wars: the WW1 and the WW2.
The history of the expansion of nuclear power development focused on the development of the research on the creation of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. That work was carried out simultaneously worldwide by the scientists of the opposing sides—Nazi Germany under Hitler’s leadership, as well as England’s scientists led by Churchill, the United States under Roosevelt, and then Truman, and the USSR under Stalin. The research focusing on the first aspect of nuclear power development on peaceful atom to supply the massive amount of energy at a low cost to develop human civilization first in history started and successfully accomplished in the USSR under Stalin, with the creation on June 27, 1954, the fist in history of humankind, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) to generate electricity from nuclear energy. Thus, based on historical facts it is obvious that Russia is the pioneer of development of peaceful atom, the first aspect of nuclear power development. The USA, the UK, Germany are the pioneers of the development of the military atom, the second aspect of nuclear power development.
The idea of creating nuclear weapons as source of national competitive advantage grew out in the West in developing the concept of “air war.” As early as 1914, the famous English writer H. G. Wells in his science fiction novel “The World Set Free” (Wells 1914) predicted attack using atomic bombs. In 1918 the Italian military theorist General Giulio Douay argued that in the future war defeat to the enemy can be inflicted by strategic bombing called “carpet bombing” carried out from a safe distance for the attacking side aiming total destruction of enemy and enemy’s infrastructure.
Using these theoretical suggestions, in WW2 the German air force destroyed in 1937 the entire city of Guernica in Spain and repeated that in Stalingrad, Russia during the devastating four days August 23–27 in 1942. However, during the WW2 the idea was to create a bomb that will allow winning the war at a lower cost. Thus, the development of the super bomb, the atomic bomb, has been intensified, particularly in the UK, the USA, and Germany.
Since then, the development of the air forces has been proceeding in two directions. First: the development of air defense from perspective to increase in the range and carrying capacity of bombers, which culminated in the creation in the 1940s of strategic aviation. Second: the increase in the power of aircraft warheads capable of hitting the enemy’s strategic potential. The logical result of the second trend was the creation and testing of nuclear weapons in 1945 in the United States with dual purposes: the defeat of the Nazi Germany and Japan; the destruction of Russia, the USSR.
The United States successfully tested nuclear bomb in Japan by bombing two Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. However, the United States abandoned the idea according to the “Unthinkable” plan proposed by Churchill of launching a nuclear strike against the Soviet Russia immediately after the end of WW2 in 1945 when the retaliatory forces of the USSR were destroyed during the war, and again in the early 1950s, the most dangerous period of the Cold War. A decade later, Washington and Moscow again did not use the “window of vulnerability” to attack China, which was approaching the creation of nuclear weapons with the help of France.
It is believed, that in each case, the major world powers refused to use their military nuclear superiority, not because of fear of the nuclear retaliation, but because of the moral responsibility. For example, in his speech to parliament on March 1, 2019, President of Russia Vladimir Putin highlighted the fact that development of several new nuclear weapon systems is successfully completed with the intension to demonstrate to the world that nuclear forces are indispensable for Russia’s security. The development of latest defense system, for example, the creation of S-500, which can protect Russia from hypersonic missiles and the corresponding weapons systems in the Unites States, shows the direction of the technology. However, according to top leader of Russia, the development of strategic nuclear weapons is Russia’s only tool to inflict “predetermined damage” from potential enemy. However, Russian military doctrine never included a preventive nuclear strike or testing nuclear weapons on other countries. For the United States the situation is different, due to the presence of not only nuclear weapons, but also forward-based systems in Eurasia, nuclear allies in Europe and superiority in non-nuclear precision weapons.
The growth of world fuel and energy needs along with the substantial resource and environmental limitations of traditional energy necessitates the timely preparation of new energy technologies that can take on a substantial part of the energy requirements and stabilize the consumption of fossil fuels. Due to the accident in the Japanese nuclear power plant, the Fukushima Daiichi, confidence in the feasibility of using nuclear energy has been significantly shaken. However, despite the refusal of a number of countries of further exploitation of NPPs, a positive view in the development of world nuclear energy is noticeable, surprisingly in Japan.
Indeed, the forecasts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global center for nuclear power cooperation, say that by 2030, up to 600 new NPPs will be built on the planet, while there are more than 436 today. The installed capacity of the global nuclear power industry currently is 390 gigawatts. If all this power were generated from coal and gas sources, then an additional 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) would be emitted annually into the atmosphere. However, according to estimates of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, all boreal forests (for example, the taiga forests located in Russia in the northern hemisphere of the planet) annually absorb only about 1 billion tons of CO2, while all the forests of the planet can absorb about 2.5 billion tons of CO2.
Reference
- Wells, H. G. (1914). The World Set Free. London: Macmillan.