NCI's 20th Anniversary Conference

Nuclear Control Institute's 20th Anniversary Conference -> NUCLEAR POWER & THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: CAN WE HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER ? <- Monday, April 9, 2001

Nuclear Power and the Spread of Nuclear
Weapons---Can We Have One without the Other?
NCI's new book, edited by Paul Leventhal, Sharon Tanzer and Steven
Dolley, based on presentations made by world class experts at NCI's
20th anniversary conference, and published by Brassey's, Inc. Nov. 14

Purpose

Conference Program & Papers

.... For the past two decades, the Nuclear Control Institute has been dedicated to de-linking nuclear power and nuclear weapons by seeking a halt in commerce in plutonium and bomb-grade uranium.

To mark its 20th anniversary year,
NCI convened a one-day conference to explore the need for nuclear power and its linkage with the proliferation
of nuclear weapons.

A group of leading experts was ....

See whole page.

See complete program .

Video interviews & Speakers' Bio, Papers

Paul LEVENTHAL, President,
Nuclear Control Institute (NCI)

video & bio

overview

closing remarks

Representative
Edward MARKEY
(D-MA)

video & bio
paper

Ambassador
Robert GALLUCCI
Dean, Georgetown
University
video & bio
paper

Amory LOVINS
CEO, Rocky
Mountain Institute
video & bio
transcript
paper (GIFs)

Richard RHODES
Author, "The
Making of the
Atomic Bomb"
video & bio
paper

Richard GARWIN
IBM Fellow
Emeritus

video & bio
paper

Robert WILLIAMS
Princeton
University

video & bio
paper (PDF)

Click on photos or names to see video interviews and full biographies of experts
(you need to watch movies)

Other Speakers' Bio and Papers

Zachary DAVIS bio, paper	Harold FEIVESON bio, paper
James HASSBERGER bio, paper (powerpoint)	Edwin LYMAN bio, paper
Marvin MILLER bio, paper	George PERKOVICH bio
Lawrence SCHEINMAN bio, paper	Bertram WOLFE bio, paper
William LANOUETTE bio, paper

Conference Videotapes

You can order conference videotapes.

Welcome & Overview by Paul Leventhal
(left & middle-right); First half of morning
panel: "How Essential is Nuclear Power?"
Richard Rhodes (right), Amory Lovins (left) .
Duration: one hour & 40 minutes, Price $39

Second half of morning panel: "How
Essential is Nuclear Power?" Robert Williams (far left) and Richard Garwin (far right).
Duration: one hour & 30 minutes, Price $39

Luncheon Program: "The Continuing
Relevance of Nuclear Power to the Problem
of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation."
intro by Rep.Edward Markey (left)
and Amb. Robert Gallucci (right).
Duration: one hour & 30 minutes, Price $39

Panel 2: "How Realistic Are the Technical
Fixes for Making Nuclear Power Proliferation
Resistant and Free of Long-Lived Wastes?"
Edwin Lyman (left), Marvin Miller (middle)
and James Hassberger (right).
Duration: one hour & 30 minutes, Price $39

Panel 3: "Nuclear Power and Nuclear
Weapons" George Perkovich, Zachary
Davis, Lawrence Scheinman (from left to
right) and Paul Leventhal (not on photo).
Duration: one hour & 30 minutes, Price $39

Roundtable: William Lanouette, Harold
Feiveson, Paul Leventhal, Bertram
Wolfe (from left to right).
Duration: one hour, Price $39

Each videotape: $39, complete set of 6 videos: $200,
CD-ROM: $399 (CD includes all videos and papers,
indexed by panel, speaker, and Q&A sessions).

Click here to order.

Press Releases

March 28, 2001

April 9, 2001

WASHINGTON, DC, March 28, 2001 --

A dozen top international experts on nuclear power, energy alternatives, and the spread of nuclear weapons will speak at an April 9 conference in Washington sponsored by the Nuclear Control Institute. The conference marks NCI's 20th anniversary and will take place at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C.).

In the wake of the California energy crisis, there is renewed interest in nuclear power as the solution to national and global electricity needs.  But a connection between national nuclear power programs and nuclear proliferation can be found in North Korea's nuclear missile capability, in Iraqi and Iranian nuclear-weapons potential, and in nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

Headline speakers include:

-- Ambassador Robert Gallucci, Dean of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and diplomatic troubleshooter on North Korean, Iraqi and Iranian nuclear weapons issues, will give the luncheon address: "The Continuing Relevance of Nuclear Power to the Problem of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation."

-- Former U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary will discuss the Clinton and Bush Administrations' nuclear and alternative energy policies.

-- Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," will make the case for nuclear power.

-- Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, will make the case for the "soft-energy" path: energy conservation and efficiency instead of nuclear power.

For two decades, the Nuclear Control Institute has worked to de-link nuclear power and nuclear weapons by addressing the plutonium produced in power reactors and seeking a halt in commerce in plutonium as well as bomb-grade uranium. NCI is hosting the April 9 conference to raise such questions as:

-- Can we have nuclear power without nuclear weapons? Are there good technical fixes? 
 -- How essential is nuclear power? How viable are advanced, non-nuclear alternatives?
 -- Are nuclear power plants vulnerable to attack and sabotage?
 --What role has nuclear power played in the acquisition of nuclear weapons?   Are current non-proliferation agreements effective?

Other conference participants include:

Richard Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus; James Hassberger, Senior Nuclear Scientist, Energy & Environment Directorate, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Robert Williams and Harold Feiveson, Princeton University; Marvin Miller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Lawrence Scheinman, former Assistant  Director, U.S. Arms Control & Disarmament Agency; George Perkovich, author of  "India's Nuclear Bomb"; Bertram Wolfe, past Vice-President/Nuclear, General  Electric Co.; and Zachary Davis, Livermore National Laboratory.

WASHINGTON, DC, April 9, 2001 --

The Nuclear Control Institute today called on the nuclear industry to either abandon the use of plutonium and highly enriched uranium or be prepared to phase out nuclear power altogether.

Speaking at NCIs 20th anniversary conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, NCI President Paul Leventhal said:  There may be an irreducible proliferation risk associated with nuclear power, a risk serious enough to consider abandoning our commitment to nuclear power.

Leventhal said:  If the nuclear industry refuses to end its love affair with plutonium, then the world may well be better off without nuclear power, and should look to alternative sources of energy and to energy conservation and efficiency measures.  There is an abundance of cheap, non-weapons usable uranium available, so plutonium and highly enriched uranium are unnecessary,  Leventhal said.

Leventhal said that NCIs opposition to civilian use of plutonium and highly enriched uranium does not mean that the organization is anti-nuclear.  We have worked for 20 years to de-link nuclear power and nuclear weapons by questioning the use of plutonium produced in nuclear power reactors and by seeking a halt in commerce in plutonium as well as bomb-grade uranium.  The issue is more critical today than at any time in the past 20 years.

NCI convened todays conference   Nuclear Power and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons  to underscore the connection that exists between nuclear power and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.  The conference took place amid growing concerns over the nations electricity-supply shortages, the threat of global warming and the threat of nuclear proliferation.  Some have argued that nuclear power provides an answer to the perceived energy crisis and the threat of global warning.  NCIs Leventhal took strong exception to this argument.

Among those addressing todays conference were U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA); former U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel OLeary; Ambassador Robert Gallucci, Dean of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and diplomatic troubleshooter on North Korean, Iraqi and Iranian nuclear weapons issues; Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb; and Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, advocate for the soft energy path energy of conservation and energy efficiency rather than nuclear power.

Note: this is quick preview of press releases - click on date above for full page.

Speeches

Welcome & Overview
by Paul Leventhal, President, Nuclear Control Institute
Good morning, I am Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, and I want to welcome you to NCIs 20th anniversary conference, Nuclear Power and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons---Can We Have One Without the Other? NCI got started 20 years ago on a spring day like today when I landed a $7,500 contribution from an anonymous member of the Rockefeller family. Wade Greene, the Rockefeller program officer who has been so helpful to a number of non-profit organizations represented here today, called it a stimulative grant to encourage giving by other foundations. But I had just lost my job on Capitol Hill, when the majority of the Senate switched to the party other than the one my boss and subcommittee chairman, Gary Hart, belonged to. So, I wasted no time and applied the Rockefeller check to renting a desk in the corridor of a small law firm located in a town house a block away from here, on N Street. With the desk came a posh conference room, suitable for holding meetings with other NGOs with an interest in plutonium and proliferation, and NCI was born. In those days, NCI stood for The Nuclear Club Inc. The name was too clever by 5/8ths. But we used it anyway in a full-page New York Times ad, on Sunday, June 21, 1981, to launch our fledgling organization. The ad, which you will find in your folders, posed the question, Will Tomorrows Terrorist Have an Atom Bomb?---a question, unfortunately, still highly relevant today, as is the answer. NCIs name has changed, but our mission---to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons to nations, or to groups---remains the same. The ads creator was Julian Koenig, an original member and still a member of our Board. He is a Madison Avenue legend, now retired, whose credits included Volkswagens original Think Small campaign and the naming of Earth Day. At first, Mr. Koenig expressed reluctance about joining our board, but I assured him that NCI would have to solve the plutonium problem in five years, or he and I probably wouldnt survive to talk about it anyway. I was wrong on both counts. We havent solved the problem. We are still around to talk about it. To paraphrase Faulkner, NCI has endured, if not prevailed. We are all still here to talk about the role of nuclear power, plutonium and other associated proliferation risks---that is the purpose of our meeting today. Those of you familiar with NCIs work probably detect something different about todays program. When we planned this conference---and here I wish to acknowledge the contribution of Marvin Miller of MIT, a long-time technical adviser and all-around shmoozer for NCI---we discussed whether we should look at nuclear power in a broader context: Do we need nuclear power? How essential is it? This is a policy area that Nuclear Control Institute has not ventured into before. Although some in industry and bureaucracy conclude that our opposition to civilian use of plutonium and the other nuclear weapons material, highly enriched uranium (HEU), means that we are opposed to nuclear power, we are in fact not an anti-nuclear organization. We have maintained a policy of neutrality on nuclear power and steer clear of efforts to shut the industry down. We are anti-plutonium and anti-HEU, not anti-nuclear. Our purpose today in examining the need for nuclear power, and the possible alternatives to it, is the current push by industry and apparently by the Bush Administration to revive nuclear power and to expand it in response to growing concerns about electricity-supply shortages and global warming. To underscore this point, todays Washington Post quotes Vice President Cheney as saying, We need to build 65 new power plants for the next 20 years, and my own view is that some of those ought to be nuclear, and thats the environmentally sound way to go. We strongly believe that such an initiative should not go forward without first examining whether there is an irreducible proliferation risk associated with nuclear power, and whether this risk is serious enough to change current commitments to nuclear power. If the nuclear industry refuses to end its love affair with plutonium, especially now that it is widely acknowledged that plutonium is not an essential fuel because of the abundance of cheap, non-weapons usable uranium, then the world may well be better off without nuclear power. In that case, we should look to alternative sources of energy and to energy conservation and efficiency measures. Even if industry gives up plutonium, there are still severe proliferation dangers associated with the prospect of cheap, efficient enrichment technology and with potentially limitless sources of uranium. So, we will be examining two sets of questions today: Are there viable alternatives to nuclear power? Are the proliferation risks associated with nuclear power so great as to make these alternative approaches imperative? We have called on a world-class set of experts to address these questions, and we also have an expert audience representing a full range of views that should keep the speakers on their toes. NCI has always sought to be inclusive and to invite opposing viewpoints to be represented at its conferences. This approach sometimes generates heat, but also light. We ask the speakers to keep to their time limits and the questioners to be succinct and to the point. We have a number of issues to cover in one day and can only do so if concision is king. I want to highlight some of NCIs concerns about the proliferation and security risks of nuclear power and about the way these risks are now being addressed. I hope these points help to inform and to stimulate the discussions that follow. It is important to recognize the central role of fissile materials as the driving force behind proliferation. Granted, any decision to go nuclear is a political one, but the capability to execute that decision is technical. It is impossible to build nuclear weapons without plutonium or HEU. Thus, it should be straightforward that the nuclear power industry imposes a menace on the world if its insists on utilizing these explosive nuclear fuels when it is possible to run nuclear power and research reactors without them. As will be discussed by the luncheon speakers and the afternoon non-proliferation panel, nuclear power programs have provided cover for actual or attempted weapons-making in a number of countries. In each case, closing the fuel cycle to extract plutonium, enriching uranium to weapons grade, or importing weapons-grade uranium to run research reactors were the quintessential elements of those programs. Seeking to restrict and eliminate use of these fuels was the objective of the Congressional non-proliferation initiatives of the 1970s and of the Ford and Carter administrations. But these initiatives ran into political trouble because of the fierce opposition of our European and Japanese allies, who refused to follow the U.S. example. Today, the plutonium and breeder programs in these countries are in desperate financial straits, and this situation presents the United States an opportunity to reopen these issues and to seek cooperative approaches for disposal of excess fissile materials without introducing them as fuels. Even the pro-plutonium British Nuclear Industrial Forum, in a recent analysis of prospects for the industry, made this statement: Proliferation is a major issue in the nuclear fuel cycle. Nuclear Power may become more acceptable to the public if reprocessing is shut down. Clearly, the plutonium program in Britain, as in Germany and Japan, is encountering great difficulties. I have been privileged to be the only American invited to participate in a stakeholders dialogue with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., the government-owned fuel cycle company, on its plutonium program. As a result of this dialogue, BNFL has now agreed to undertake a formal assessment of immobilizing Britains 60-plus ton stockpile of civilian plutonium as an alternative to fabricating it into MOX fuel. However, despite this and other opportunities for the United States to revisit the plutonium component of U.S. non-proliferation policy, transparency and gradualism still dominate U.S. policy today. But achieving transparency of the worlds plutonium stockpiles in no substitute for getting rid of them, while gradualism can be an excuse for not doing anything effective. The rapid growth of stocks of plutonium serves to illustrate this point. The growth has not been as rapid as we projected in 1983 when NCI commissioned David Albright to do his first study of this subject. At that time, we projected 600 tons of separated civilian plutonium by the year 2000. Today, because of large-scale cancellations of new nuclear power and fuel-cycle plant orders, and of the demise of the breeder reactor, the actual amount of separated, civilian plutonium is about 200 tons---still an awesome figure that approximates the amount of military plutonium in the world. But, by way of contrast, it should be noted that stocks of civilian highly enriched uranium exported by the United States have gone down dramatically---the result of the RERTR (Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors) program, run by the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory, with relatively strong support by the Executive Branch. In this case, there is a law in effect (the Schumer Amendment) which applies a sanctions approach and bars exports of HEU except to research reactors whose operators have agreed to convert to high-density, low-enriched uranium that cannot be used in bombs. The result: HEU exports by the United States are now virtually nil, limited to relatively small amounts to support continued operation of reactors while they are in the process of conversion. Plutonium is a different story, however. Provisions in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act 1978, which were intended to restrict commerce in plutonium derived from U.S.-supplied nuclear fuel, have been circumvented by the Executive Branch. It is important to note the pivotal role of Japan in all of this. Those of you familiar with the activities of NCI know that we focus attention on the Japanese plutonium program. We are sometimes criticized for doing so. Questions have been raised as to why we are so concerned about plutonium in Japan, given Japans adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to IAEA safeguards. The answer is that Japan strongly resisted U.S. efforts to avoid commercial use of plutonium and is now the lynchpin for world plutonium commerce. Japan is the most important customer today of the European reprocessing and MOX industries. Without Japan, these industries might well be forced to shut down. The Japanese plutonium program is losing domestic public acceptance as a consequence of a succession of nuclear accidents in Japan, as well as a scandal that developed when BNFL workers deliberately falsified quality-control data for plutonium-uranium, mixed oxide (MOX) fuel that was shipped to Japan for use in light-water reactors. Outside Japan, there is a considerable suspicion in the East Asian region as to why Japan wants to accumulate so much weapons-usable plutonium when there is a clear alternative in the form of low-enriched uranium fuel. NCI has pointed out in a detailed economic analysis that Japan could ensure its energy security by building a strategic reserve of non-weapons-usable uranium at a fraction of the cost of its plutonium and breeder programs. NCI regards Japan as a special case, too, because, of all the civil plutonium-consuming countries, Japan refuses to acknowledge the weapons utility of reactor-grade plutonium despite many briefings on the subject by the U.S. Government. NCI commissioned the late Carson Mark, former head of weapons design at Los Alamos National Laboratory, to do an analysis of the weapons utility of reactor grade plutonium. This study eventually convinced the IAEA that reactor-grade plutonium was suitable for weapons, but unfortunately the Japanese government and industry continue to refuse to do so. The Japanese plutonium program has also prompted strong protests from many states that are alarmed by the regular transports of MOX fuel and highly radioactive reprocessing waste that now pass close to their coastlines, en route from Europe to Japan. Japan has not been responsive to the safety and security concerns about these shipments that have been raised by the en-route states, or to their demands for environmental impact assessments, advance consultation on emergency planning, and guarantees of salvage of lost cargoes and indemnification against catastrophic consequences of accidents or attacks. The consequence of all this is that the Japanese plutonium program is mired in controversy, both domestically and internationally. In NCIs view, it should be regarded as a special case and of special concern. If Japan should eventually decide against further use of plutonium fuel and the European plutonium industry collapsed as a result, it might then be possible to build an international consensus to eliminate commerce in plutonium as well as bomb-grade uranium. We think Japan and the other big plutonium-producing and consuming countries do count because they set an example and a standard for the rest of the world. I will return to this subject this afternoon during the non-proliferation panel. I also want to highlight NCIs concerns about the possibility of reactors as radiological weaponsthat is, the risk of sabotage of nuclear power plants. This is not just a Russian problem. It is an American problem, as well. Half the nuclear power plants in the United States have failed to repel mock attacks---so-called force-on-force exercises supervised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC refuses to take enforcement action in response to the failures, and is in the process of weakening the rules of the game in response to industry complaints. The agency even refuses to officially acknowledge the pass-fail nature of the exercises when the mock attackers reach and destroy a complete set of redundant core cooling systems. Perhaps the NRC is right. Its not pass-fail. Its pass-melt. NCIs Scientific Director, Edwin Lyman, will have more to say on this subject at this afternoons technical fixes panel. There is a curious historical context to this issue. It goes back to 1913, when H.G. Wells wrote a book entitled The World Set Free. In 1933, the Hungarian physicist, Leo Szilard, was thinking about this book, which he had read the year before, at the historic moment when, as he crossed Southhampton Row in the Bloomsbury section of London, he figured out the nuclear chain reaction. Wells, in this book, depicted a future nuclear war that began after atomic energy had been harnessed for peaceful purposes. But it was warfare that involved not exploding atomic bombs, but machines that spewed forth radiological poisons---the equivalent of a modern reactor meltdown. My concern is that sobotage of nuclear power plants may be the greatest domestic vulnerability in the United States today. Many plants are not protected adequately, industry operators seem not prepared to pay the cost of doing so, and the NRC seems ill-disposed to require them to do so. It is not even certain that security of nuclear power plants against attack and sabotage can be assured by conventional, private means. This is a subject worth taking a hard look at. It also raises the larger question of the adequacy of nuclear regulation today. It is essential to maintain strong, independent nuclear regulation free of undue industry influence. When I got into this business as a U.S. Senate staffer more than 25 years ago, my first responsibility was to handle the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. This act fissioned the Atomic Energy Commission into separate regulatory and promotional agencies, and thus transformed a weak regulatory division of the AEC into a strong, independent NRC. As I observe the NRC today, I am concerned that it is looking more and more like the old AEC regulatory division, subject to undue influence by industry and particularly by industrys powerful friends on Capitol Hill. This is also a matter deserving of close scrutiny. When I started out, I was very much influenced by the thinking of two leading nuclear contrarians. One was David Lilienthal, who had served as both the first head of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. His Congressional testimony in 1976 in opposition to U.S. nuclear exports and in support of non-proliferation legislation caused a furor among his former colleagues. He once said to me, If we assume nuclear proliferation to be inevitable, of course it will be. That made a lot of sense to me then, and still does today. Ted Taylor, Americas most creative fission bomb designer and a member of NCIs Board, also made a concise and compelling point: Nuclear is different, he said. And to illustrate the point, he noted that the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki set off an instant of explosive energy equivalent to a pile of dynamite as big as the White House that was contained in a sphere of plutonium no bigger than a baseball. That was a first-generation bomb, a technological feat now within the grasp of terrorists or radical states if they manage to get their hands on the material. Ultimately it comes down to a test of reasonableness. Is it reasonable to assume, over time, that millions of kilograms of plutonium can be sequestered down to the less than 8 kilograms needed for such a bomb? This question, in my view, must be answered before giving any further comfort to and support of an industry that remains officially committed to utilizing plutonium as a fuel---and surely before supporting an extension and expansion of that industry in response to electricity-supply shortages and global warming. I close with a reminder from one of NCIs original Board members, the historian Barbara Tuchman, who in her book of the same title gave a sobering description of the march of folly that drives nations to destruction. She identified this phenomenon, one repeated throughout recorded history, as pervasive persistence in a policy demonstrably unworkable or counterproductive. To qualify as folly, she said, it must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight,(and) a feasible alternative course of action must have been available. On that note, let us move on to the subject of nuclear power and the alternatives.

Luncheon Remarks	Luncheon Speech
by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA)	by Amb. Robert L. Gallucci

Participant List

Conference participants at Carnegie Endowment - Monday, April 9, 2001

Zamir Akram            Embassy of Pakistan
 Bob Alvarez            Institute for Policy Studies
 Justin Anderson        Carnegie Endowment
 Andy Arnold            Defense Cleanup News
 Brian Baenig           Office of Sen. Wellstone
 Harold Bengelsdorf     Bengelsdorf Associates
 Sofia Blake            Informa Group
 Matthew Bunn           Belfer Center, Harvard
 Luther Carter          Freelance Journalist
 Ganapathy Chandrasekar United News of India
 Chul Ho Choi           Seoul Shinmun
 C.K. Chou              Department of Energy
 Christy Clark          Office of Sen. Kyl
 Thomas Clements        Nuclear Control Institute
 Thomas Cochran         Natural Resources Defense Council
 Avner Cohen            National Security Archives
 Mort Cohen             Consultant
 Stephen Cohen          Brookings Institution
 Thomas Cotton          JK Research Associates
 Kathy Crandall         Disarmament Clearinghouse
 Zachary Davis          Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
 Mary Byrd Davis        Yggdrasil Institute/Earth Island Institute
 Steven Dolley          Nuclear Control Institute
 Joseph Egan            Non-Proliferation Trust
 Anthony Fainberg       Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Dep. of Def.
 Toni Feder             Physics Today
 Ed Fei                 Department of Energy
 Harold Feiveson        Princeton University
 Marvin Fertel          Nuclear Energy Institute
 Skip Fischer           Office of Sen. Kyl
 Herb Fontecilla        Dominion
 Robert Gallucci        Georgetown School of Foreign Service
 Richard Garwin         IBM Fellow Emeritus, Thomas J.Watson Res.Ce.
 Seth Grae              Radkowsky Thorium Power Corp.
 Eldon Greenberg        Garvey, Schubert & Barer
 Lisa Gue               Public Citizen/Critical Mass
 Paul Guinnessy         Physics Today
 Linda Gunter           Safe Energy Communication Council
 Paul Gunter            Nuclear Information and Resource Service
 Dan Guttman            Attorney
 Joshua Handler         Princeton University
 Tom Harrison           McGraw-Hill Publications
 James Hassberger       Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
 Corey Hinderstein      Institute for Science & Inter. Security
 Matthew Mark Horn      Office of Rep. Benjamin Gilman
 Daniel Horner
 Sara Horner            Department of Energy
 Jeffrey Hughes         Sandia National Laboratory
 Andrew Hyman           Attorney
 Young-Sik Jang         SUNY Plattsburgh
 Andrea Jennetta        New York Nuclear Corporation
 Judith Johnsrud        Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Power
 Jofi Joseph            Senate Foreign Relations Committee
 Joseph Kahn            New York Times
 Henry Kelly            Federation of American Scientists
 Terrence Kelly         Office of Science & Tech. Policy, White House
 Masood Khan            Embassy of Pakistan
 Chung Kung Kim         University of Delaware
 Grace Kim              Nuclear Regulatory Commission
 Wilfrid Kohl           Johns Hopkins SAIS
 Sridhar Krishnaswami   The Hindu
 Kiyon Kuk              Segye Times
 Alan Kuperman          Kennedy School of Gov,, Harvard University
 William Lanouette      General Accounting Office
 Milton Leitenberg      CISSM, University of Maryland
 Paul Leventhal         Nuclear Control Institute
 Enere H. Levi          House International Relations Committee
 David Lochbaum         Union of Concerned Scientists
 Amory Lovins           Rocky Mountain Institute
 Edwin Lyman            Nuclear Control Institute
 Allison Macfarlane     Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Arjun Makhijani        Institute for Energy and Environ. Research
 Rep. Ed Markey         Member of Congress
 Shigekazu Matsuura     Government of Japan
 Fred McGoldrick        Bengelsdorf Associates
 Stanley Michalak       Franklin & Marshall College
 Marvin Miller          Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Steven Miller          IEEE Spectrum
 Catherine Mitchell     Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League
 Damon Moglen           Greenpeace International
 Richard L. Moss
 Jim Mulkey             Department of Energy
 Jack Mulligan          Korean Energy Development Organization
 Yu-Mi Mun              University of Delaware
 Robert Norris          Natural Resources Defense Council
 Sergey Novikov         Embassy of Russia
 Hazel R. O'Leary       Blaylock & Partners, L.P.
 Neil Pareikh           News India-Times
 George Perkovich       W. Alton Jones Foundation
 John Phillips          Department of Energy
 Brendan Plapp          Office of Rep. Ed Markey
 Marc Pollak            Argonne National Laboratory
 Daniel Poneman         Hogan, Hartson
 Matthew Quint          Embassy of Australia
 Richard Rhodes         Author
 Kimberly Roberts       Physicians for Social Responsibility
 Robert Robinson        General Accounting Office
 John Rood              Office of Sen. Kyl
 William Sailor         Los Alamos National Laboratory
 Gary Samore            State Department
 Adam Scheinman         Department of Energy
 Lawrence Scheinman     Monterey Institute of International Studies
 Douglas Schneider      Office of Rep. Berkeley
 Howard Shapar
 Christopher Sherry     Safe Energy Communication Council
 Leonard Spector        Monterey Institute of International Studies
 Douglas Stewart        Turner Foundation
 William Sutcliffe      Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
 Sharon Tanzer          Nuclear Control Institute
 Jonathan Temple        British Embassy
 Jaya Tiwari            Physicians for Social Responsibility
 Terry Tyborowski       Department of Energy
 Francis Vaz            Embassy of India
 Richard Wegman         Garvey, Schubert & Barer
 James Wells            General Accounting Office
 James Werner
 Eric Wieser            Nuclear Waste News
 Robert Williams        Princeton University
 Bertram Wolfe          General Electric Co. (Retired)
 Karl Wollin            Embassy of Germany
 Howard Wolpe           Former Member of Congress
 Terry Wood             Government of Canada
 Won-Young Yang         Korean Federation for Environment Movement
 Charles Yulish         United States Enrichment Corporation

NCI in 20 years

1981-2001: NCI History and Accomplishments

(*) Nuclear Control Institute was established in 1981 by its president, Paul Leventhal, as an independent oversight organization to continue the work he began on U.S. Senate staff to strengthen controls over U.S. nuclear exports and over U.S.-origin fissile materials.  His work culminated in enactment of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978.

(*) NCI was the first non-profit organized to work exclusively on the problem of nuclear proliferation.  NCIs focus was then and remains today prevention, not simply management, of the spread of nuclear weapons by working to eliminate civilian uses of atom bomb materials and by calling attention to the dangers these programs pose.  NCI also seeks to break the linkages between civilian and military nuclear applications and to promote linkages between nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation.

(*) In a policy environment that often puts diplomatic and trade interests ahead of long-term security concerns, NCI works to promote bilateral and multi-lateral initiatives that will make the world safe from plutonium, not for plutonium.

(*) In 1982, NCI proposed and won enactment of a ban on the use of U.S. civilian spent fuel as a source of plutonium for weapons (the Hart-Simpson-Mitchell Amendment).

(*) In 1983, NCI commissioned a study, World Inventories of Civilian Plutonium and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons by David Albright, the first definitive analysis of the amounts of civilian plutonium accumulating in the world.

(*) In 1985, NCI convened an international conference on the threat of nuclear terrorism, and then established the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism. The findings in 1986 contributed to enactment of a law to combat nuclear terrorism (the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1986).  Two books that emerged from that project remain the definitive, non-classified work on the subject.

(*) In 1987, NCI helped win enactment of the Murkowski Amendment, which blocked  air shipments of plutonium from Europe to Japan after NCI disclosed the secret failure of a test to prove a crash-worthy plutonium shipping cask.

(*) In 1988, NCI assembled a group of world-class scientists to promote the "Tritium Factor" approach to nuclear disarmament, using tritium's relatively fast decay to pace U.S.-Soviet arms reductions and thereby facilitate the shutdown of all military production reactors---the situation that effectively prevails in the United States today.

(*) In 1989, NCI convened a Montevideo conference of Argentine, Brazilian and U.S. nuclear officials and experts that developed proposals which were incorporated into the treaty signed the following year to end the Argentine-Brazilian nuclear arms race.

(*) In 1990, NCI commissioned a study by a former U.S. nuclear-weapons designer (the late Carson Mark) that resulted in the first formal acknowledgement by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency that nuclear weapons could be made from civilian "reactor-grade plutonium.

(*) In 1991, NCI correctly predicted that Iraq would violate IAEA safeguards and divert civilian nuclear research reactor fuel for the purpose of making nuclear weapons.

(*) In 1992, NCI helped win enactment of export controls (the Schumer Amendment) barring U.S. transfers of highly enriched, bomb-grade uranium (HEU) to research reactors that could make use of newly developed, low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel unsuitable for weapons. As a result, U.S. exports of HEU have been nearly eliminated, and hold-out reactors in Europe have agreed to convert to LEU fuel.

(*) In 1993, NCI, in collaboration with the California-based Committee to Bridge the Gap, succeeded in a 10-year effort to persuade the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to promulgate a rule to protect nuclear power plants against truck bombs.  The truck-bomb rule took effect the following year, and NCI has since been petitioning NRC to upgrade this rule as well as upgrade protection against terrorist attack and sabotage.

(*) In 1994, NCI forced a $100 million cleanout and audit of a plutonium fuel fabrication plant in Japan after disclosing a 70-kilogram discrepancy, equivalent to a dozen nuclear weapons.  NCI also prepared a detailed economic analysis showing that Japan could guarantee its energy security by establishing a strategic reserve of non-weapons-usable uranium at a fraction of the cost of their plutonium fuel and breeder program.

(*) In 1996, NCI was invited to make expert technical and legal presentations before the International Maritime Organization in London on safety and security shortcomings in the sea transport of radioactive materials. Since then, NCI has worked closely with coastal states in opposition to plutonium and radioactive waste shipments from Europe to Japan.

(*) Also in 1996, NCI uncovered a secret dispute within the U.S. Executive Branch over the Department of Energys plan to turn most surplus military plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for nuclear power plants and drew nationwide attention to this dangerous program.

(*) Today, NCI continues to advocate disposal of military plutonium directly as waste and to oppose its use as civilian reactor fuel.  NCI also continues to advocate stronger security over transport, storage and use of civilian plutonium and bomb-grade uranium, while pressing for elimination of these dangerous civilian nuclear programs.

1981 NCI Ad


Original NCI Ad, New York Times, June 21, 1981


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