Arms Control Wonk Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is wrapping up his blog trilogy on the Iranian nuclear threat. And he’s doing it with a bang. Or, rather, a series of precision-guided bangs. The last post is on whether the U.S. (or its allies) could take out Tehran’s atomic program, if they needed to.
Conventional wisdom states that Irans facilities are too dispersed to permit a strike like the one Israel conducted against Iraqs Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981…
Irans facilities are more dispersed, but some key assets are probably quite vulnerable to an airstrike… Overall, I think the prospects for a strike are mixed a properly timed strike might delay Irans program by a few years, although there are good reasons to think that the long-term result of a strike would be to worsen Americas security…
There is certainly no reason to launch a strike now, with Irans program several years off and many facilities not yet complete. As the cases of Natanz and Esfahan illustrate, a strike now would be conducted with more uncertainty than I would like.
That might buy some additional time but for what?
The result will likely be an Iranian nuclear program outside of IAEA safeguards. An Iranian bomb is not, yet, a foregone conclusion. The degree to which Irans nuclear program has become an element of the countrys domestic politics suggests that fissures exist within Iranian elites that create space for negotiations… If thats true, an airstrike now would probably unite Iranians, galvanizing support for a bomb program… Newsweek reports that participants have not been pleased with the outcome of airstrikes in IC sponsored wargames. An Air Force source told Newsweek that The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating…
All and all, at least for now, I think its best to keep talking.
Good Morning Folks,
This AM with threats of $131.00 per bl. oil if the west keeps the pressure on Iran rises a questio or two.
The U.S. “offically” gets no oil from Iran and Europe claims to get only about %5 from Iran. How do the oil companies justify this predication?
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Because they are part of the world oil supply. If Iran stopped shipping oil, then their buyers would have to go elsewhere, raising the GLOBAL price of oil.
If we would utilize new environmentaly safe forms of energy, then what power would they have over us. I’m not an environmental nut, but why, if we have the ability and knowledge, can’t we work towards full independance from oil countries? Wer’e America for crying out loud. We should be leading the way. Thank you.
Why can’t we just build nuke plants all over the place. France as done it with great effect.
We generate most of our electric power in the US with coal. I suggest that we use new nuke plants to generate cheap Hydrogen for running cars. Over 70% of the US oil use is for our cars and I believe that we produce about 30% of our own oil. So if we just converted all new cars to hydrogen. With the average age of cars and trucks in the US being 9 years we should be able to reduce our dependence on non-US produced oil by more than 90% in around 10 years. Add to that the use of Bio-diesel for older longer used vehicles (busses, military, big-rigs, etc) and I think we can be an oil exporter in around 15 years.
Why is everybody ignoring the obvious solution to Iran’s insistence on playing the nutty nuclear-armed crazy: play the same game back. Sure Iran may have 1–2-3–4 or even a couple more nukes. So what, the US has THOUSANDS. Why is there not even a hint that we may just blast a few Tehran’s way? What, that’s not an option? Nukes are going to be used sooner or later, better to go back to that old Cold War slogan which made the Rooskies think twice: “SUPPORT FIRST STRIKE.” If there are going to be mushroom clouds, let them sprout “over there.” The sooner the better as far as this warmonger is concered. It’s gonna happen anyway, might as well get the first punch in. Thanks for reading, more thanks if you take this even a little bit seriously. Dick Laresch, Jersey City, NJ
Correction
Notice the Ship launch capability I would assume that is also a Sub 50s style launch capability off the deck. Hmmmm From land goggle earth says Iran can do Sicily, very near if not Rome, Israel and the ME are easy even for the small stuff.“
That tail end was my comment not part of the article My apologies didnt mean to mislead.
When I was studing energy in college just maybe 8 years ago I was reading that most of our electricity in this country was produced from burning oil products. It is hard tha we have shifted to coal in that time period. We seem to be getting away from burning coal because of the polution. Hydrogen is very flamable and they have not yet found a safe way to burn Hydrogen. The problem with Bio Fuel is that it does damage to your engine and that is just turning our food into fuel.
Here are the known facts about Iran’s nuclear program:
1– Iran has a legitimate economic case for nuclear power, which the US (including some of the members of the current Bush administration) encouraged. (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3983-2005Mar26.html and http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH24Ak02.html)
2– Iran’s enrichment program was not clandestine, and was widely reported in the nuclear industry literature & on Iranian radio. Iran’s deals with countries like CHina to make the necessary plants had been reported to the IAEA, and the IAEA had even visited Iran’s uranium mines in 1992. (See Le Monde Diplomatique: “Iran Needs Nuclear Energy, Not Weapons” November 2005 — http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:Wv7d_FdiMH0J:mondediplo.com/2005/11/02iran)
3– While there were undeclared facilities in Iran, the IAEA reported in Nov 2003 that “to date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons program.” Several other countries were caught cheating much worse with nuclear experiments than Iran (S. Korea, Bulgaria, Egypt …) but they just got a slap on th e wrist & no demands were made of them to totally give up their rights to a civilian nuclear industry.
4– In Nov 2004, the IAEA reported that “all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities.“
5– In Jan 2006, the IAEA reported that “Iran has continued to facilitate access under its Safeguards Agreement as requested by the Agency … including by providing in a timely manner the requisite declarations and access to locations.“
6– Repeated offers of compromise by Iran that would have addressed the risk of proliferation of nukes were simply dismissed without any consideration. Most recently, Iran’s Jan 2006 offer to continue the suspension of enrichment for another 2 years of additional negotiations were summarily dismissed, and not even reported in the US press though it was reported in the Iranian press (see
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB07Ak01.html )
Oh yeah, there’s also a “magic laptop” which has literally fallen out of the blue sky, and conveniently provides all the evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran that no one else has found after 3 years of inspections.
So, there we have it. Draw your own conclusions. Ask yourself, are nuclear weapons really the issue here or just a pretext?
The reason to keep buying oil is because it KILLS developing nations like India and China.
Honestly we may be the largest consumers, but American’s can afford these prices more than anyone else on the global market.
Nuke power isn’t worth it because there is no storage and it’s MORE EXPENSIVE than coal per kilowatt. France has lot of nuclear power sure, but it’s also not cheaper than the surrounding nations using fossil fuel. The only real advantage is using less foreign resources, but using foreign resources is ideal just as letting factories pollute other nations is more idea.
That leaves cleaner air and more resources here for us. As we can see natural resources are going to be one of the top most valuable things in the distant future. Russia is likely in top place on that front. Which is why we should have spent trillions helping them rebuild and buying their friendship. Now they are China’s ally instead… WAY TO GO national defense guys. All that money for the cold war and when it’s time to actually get something useful from all that spending you drop the ball because all you know how to do is harm, so the idea setting Russia back up makes no sense to those obbsessed with war. Yet looking at Japan, re-building a former enemies has worked out VERY WELL for the US.
Coal is very available so why not just collect the carbon it burns and store that underground.
Wind and hydro are the cheapest of all per kilowatt, though like solar, wind isn’t reliable.
The switch to nuclear would take trillions upon trillions of dollars to impact out need for oil along with the setup of a hydrogen economy.
All you are thinking it can’t be any worse right.
WEll, actually, sure it could be HORRIBLE. If renewable energy turns out to live up to it’s promises (and it’s a very big market) it’s it clearly the vastly superior option.
Even biofuel well managed is a better option than nuclear. You have to consider we are paying people to guard dead nuclear reactors because of the waste and such. It’s like a big dead spot in the US that can’t be built on or used for anything AND costs money to maintain. SO.. you never really stop paying for nuclear since there is no disposal option.
If renewable pans out like it’s supposed to by 2020 we’ll just be stuck with a bunch of big useless nuclear reactors. PLUS uranium is hard to come by, so you create the problem were you can only buy your fuel from a handful of suppliers. Regardless if they are domestic or not, they will not offer good prices when there is little competition.
So, overall nuclear costs too much and will only cost more in the future as maintenance never stops and waste must infinitely be guarded. Plus people more of less HATE the idea of living anywhere near one of those things. The one flaw of educating your public is they know when your going to ruin their property value and increase their health liabilities. We should save nuclear as a total last resort.
Instead clean up the existing coal industry. It’s already there and chances are WE ONLY NEED enough extra capacity to last us until renewable energy technology hits the big time. Stuff like nanosolar is more than a little promising it could very easily revolutionize energy. Mass production and varying the design to use different metals would make nanosolar replace all types of power plants and create an electric car.
Though, technically oil dependence shouldn’t be the problem that it is. The root of the problem is that American’s are stupid enough to think they can push their morals and government in a positive way onto any and every culture.
IF we just LEFT the arabs alone oil wouldn’t be so expensive AND we wouldn’t need to borrow money to secure out oil supply… which wasn’t threatened in the first place.
Look people… the oil problem, the middle east problem, the Iran nuke problem.
It’s ALL because of badly managed government and THAT happens ONLY because the democratic population allows it to either out of apathy, obliviousness or sheer ignorance.
So don’t blame oil. Don’t blame Iran… blame yourselves. We drove up the price of oil and use more of it than anyone BY FAR. All these years of not realizing how important oil was an acting on that importance leds us here.
We could have, back in the 40s or 60s realizd oil was important and re-designed the internal combustion engine to NOT expell the vast majority of energy as wasted heat. INSTEAD we burned up the worlds oil supply in big muscles cars and SUV’s all getting less than 25% efficiency. So the other 75% of ALL the oil every burned is just gone.. converted to heat and carbon.
Had we gotten the engine efficiency up before the crises we’d have 2–3 times the oil supply we have today. Instead we burned through it like mad right up until the end.
The only positive thing this did was limit developing nations, however unlike US they simply lead more minimalistic lives, so rather than loss out on major production, their people become more efficient and learn to use less fuel. Sadly it’s the American people that need that lesson and now we finally have our teacher.… high energy prices.
The best way to fix this is to reduce consumption and not just talk about it or let people think that reduced consumption is bad. It just means using more efficient devices.
Many household appliances, energy star or not, are just not designed either to last or to run efficietly. Ceiling fans are a perfect example of a device that does almost nothing in most rooms but burns up considerable energy when left running all the time. With only minor effort you could design a ceiling fan 3–4 time as efficient as the ones we have today. WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR.
The High Pressure Sodium lights used in street lamps from one coast of America to another use MASSIVE amount of energy and pollute the night sky horribly.
A massive effort to mass produce LED lights as consumer and industrial replacement would yield amazing savings in energy. Unlike CFL lights, which are decent, they last much longer, use much less energy and do not contain environmental hazards. I doubt anything better than LED will come a long for quiet awhile.
Upgrading our electric infrastructure could save up thousands of megawatts a year. Putting the wires underground will likely save maintanence costs also and look MUCH nicer tha telephones poles and wires EVERYWHERE. Plus the US is in dire need of internet upgrades so you may as well make a modern wire running system instead of big dumb poles that fall over or get run into.
Sure it will cost money, but you have to upgrade your nations infrastructure eventually. We can’t afford not to spend money on infrastructure upgrades.
A effort to reduce consumption by making only energy efficient devices would do more than any other solution and it’s much more practical. LEDS are just one of thousands of examples how we can reduce out consumption on many devices by 1/2 or 1/3 without losing functionality.
The problem with waiting until the energy crisis happens to address is, is that it takes decades for people old high demand electric devices to crap out and get replaced by modern high efficiency devices. Now you left trying to both find renewable solutions, cheap solutions and press consumers to upgrade before then need to in an effort to reduce overall demand.
Obviously nuking Iran isn’t not only an option but is horrible stupid. You don’t drop a nuke on the worlds more resource rich region and not expect massive spikes in energy costs.
As it stands there is no reason to think Iran has nukes. It is also highly likely renewable energy will make Iran’s investment in nukes a giant waste of money. So, let them sabotage their own economy by obsessing over nuclear power. If they develop a weapon the worst they’ll do is nuke Israel and .. I can live with that. We should have never created the nation of Israel it has cost the US trillions of dollars and likely trillions more. Before the creation of Israel the jews and muslims lived in relative harmony compared to what they have now.
That’s our preemptive foreign policy coming back to haunt us. Without a doubt, we are our own worst enemy. I bet we are the most likely nation to nuke ourselves also.
Why are we so paranoid about Iran’s Nuclear Reactors. They are going to build them anyway.If,they are going to make weapons and do in fact threaten us,then,a few well placed bombs will make Iran a wasteland.
The World press along with superpowers have made a ‘Superpower’ out of Iran! In fact Iran is a weak and missmanaged nation with huge natural resources that has been plundered by the regime. Iran has a weak airforce and navy. On the other hand it has large army that are poorly trained. Iran can affort to lose a million but not sure if the coolitions can do the same. The Iranian niuclear facilies can be destroyed by the US. The price of oilcould spike to $200 a barrel but the Saudis and other Opec memebers can increase their productions in order to stabilize the price.