Proliferation Cost vs Non-Proliferation Cost

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

TL: PROLIFERATION COSTS VS NON-PROLIFERATION COSTS


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                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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TL: PROLIFERATION COSTS VS NON-PROLIFERATION COSTS
SO: Stephanie Mills, Greenpeace International (GP)
DT: May 11, 1995

THE COSTS OF PROLIFERATION VERSUS
 THE COST OF NON-PROLIFERATION

While diplomats met during the past month at the United Nation
nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) talks:

* Britain sent its newest Trident nuclear submarine on patrol.
On Saturday April 29th, the Vanguard submarine went on its
second patrol.  Vanguard carries up to 96 100-kiloton nuclear
warheads on its complement of new Trident missiles.  Each
missile has a 4500 mile range and each warhead a killing
capacity equivalent to 640 Hiroshima bombs.

* France inaugurated a new above-ground nuclear testing
facility.  At the end of April, Prime Minister Edouard
Balladur inaugurated a laser facility near Bordeaux for
simulation testing of nuclear weapons. The facility is
estimated to cost 6 billion French francs.

* On Sunday May 7th, Jacques Chirac was elected President of
France.  M. Chirac has previously said that France would
resume testing if military experts advised it; on May 9th, he
told New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger that France might
conduct five to seven tests before concluding its testing
program.

* The United States opened for public comment an environmental
impact statement on a new tritium facility, estimated to cost
US $5 billion.  This facility would supply tritium for
maintaining a U.S. nuclear arsenal at START II levels until
the year 2050.

* Russia continues to produce new nuclear warheads for newly
manufactured SS-25 ICBMs.

* Some 4.8 tons of plutonium was created in nuclear power
reactors worldwide.

* An estimated one ton of weapons-usable plutonium -- the
equivalent of 130 nuclear weapons -- was produced in civil
nuclear reprocessing facilities globally.

* On May 5, the U.S. Department of Energy released an
environmental impact statement for the Dual Axis Radiographic
Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) to conduct simulation nuclear
testing.

* The U.S. spent, over the past month, an estimated $780
million on nuclear weapons development, maintenance, and
deployment.

By comparison, the NPT conference itself cost some five
million US dollars, a fraction of the cost of a single nuclear
weapon.  This lopsided investment in continuing nuclear
weapons programs shows the lack of priority nuclear weapons
states attach to achieving the elimination of nuclear weapons
and non-proliferation.




UNFINISHED BUSINESS:
THE NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT AND NON-PROLIFERATION STEPS THAT NPT
MEMBER STATES MUST TAKE BY THE YEAR 2000

If the outcome of the NPT Review and Extension Conference is
to be at all meaningful, significant progress on nuclear
disarmament and non-proliferation must be taken before the
Review Conference in the year 2000.

INTERIM STEPS should include:

* the immediate ratification and implementation of START II. *
the negotiation of further reductions in strategic nuclear
arsenals, including  START III, with the participation of
Britain, France and China, to bring the numbers of strategic
nuclear weapons to zero by the year 2005.
* the withdrawal of all forward deployed nuclear weapons, i.e.
all tactical nuclear weapons based in 'non-nuclear' European
countries, with the aim of their elimination.
*  the withdrawal of all submarines carrying nuclear weapons
from international waters to patrol within territorial waters,
with the aim of their elimination.
* The removal of all nuclear weapons from alert status, and
the removal of warheads from missile launchers.
* An immediate moratorium by all states, including China, on
nuclear weapons testing until the conclusion of a nuclear test
ban treaty. *  Negotiations on a ban on the design,
development and production of nuclear warheads and new
delivery systems.
* The ending of funding for new nuclear systems in all
national budgets. * The negotiation of a missile flight test
ban.
* The adoption of further Nuclear Weapons Free Zones and
ratification by all nuclear weapon states of the protocols of
the existing NWFZs. * The agreement, by the Review Conference
in 2000 at the latest, to begin negotiations on a convention
for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

THE PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS

* An immediate moratorium on the production and use of all
weapons-usable uranium and plutonium, including commercial
plutonium reprocessing, pending a negotiated ban.
* Urgent conclusion of a comprehensive fissile-cut off
convention, including a ban on the use of existing military
stockpiles for the production of more nuclear warheads.
* States should set phase-out dates of 2010 at the latest for
nuclear power programs, which routinely produce plutonium and
thus pose an inevitable proliferation risk.
* A new energy deal based on sustainable and renewable sources
and energy efficiency must be concluded to replace existing
nuclear power promotion function of the NPT; this would meet
the genuine energy needs of developing countries while
reducing proliferation risks.


FURTHER INFORMATION:
Blair Palese, Stephanie Mills, Greenpeace New York:
212-941-0994  ext 211 or 755-3659.