{"id":89496,"date":"2023-09-29T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/geopolitique-du-nucleaire\/"},"modified":"2024-10-31T14:25:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T13:25:19","slug":"geopolitique-du-nucleaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/geopolitique-du-nucleaire\/","title":{"rendered":"G\u00e9opolitique du nucl\u00e9aire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Teva Meyer is a researcher at CRESAT (the French Centre for Research on Economies, Societies, Arts, and Technologies) who is also associated with IRIS (the Institute for International and Strategic Relations). In this book [The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Industry: The Power and Might of a Dual Industry<\/em>], he provides a comprehensive overview of the geopolitical implications of nuclear power, both civil and military. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Over four sections that break down the nuclear industry (from uranium mines to power plants, via enrichment and nuclear waste, not forgetting nuclear weapons), he demonstrates the important role played by nuclear power in international relations, despite its objectively limited relative presence: it represents 4 percent of global energy consumption (half as much as wood, for example), and arms expenditure on nuclear deterrence is marginal.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n

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Meyer<\/span> Teva, G\u00e9opolitique du nucl\u00e9aire. Pouvoir et puissance d\u2019une industrie duale<\/em>, Paris: Le Cavalier bleu, February 2023, 184 p.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n \n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

From the very first pages, through an analysis of the uranium market, Meyer deconstructs the myth of aspatial nuclear power. Just because its energy density seems to remove nuclear power from all geographical considerations, that does not mean that nuclear power is not strongly linked to geographical territories by other parameters.<\/p>\n

Gaps between uranium production and resource requirements are the norm for nuclearized countries, and even more so for the major powers of China, Russia, and the United States (with 50 percent, 75 percent and 99 percent imported uranium respectively; 100 percent for France). Even in the chapter on ore and fuel, the line between civil and military nuclear power appears blurred: from 1996 to 2013, nuclear disarmament agreements (the Megatons to Megawatts program) resulted in the arrival on the US market of fuel equivalent to 153,000 metric tonnes of uranium, or eight years\u2019 consumption.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n The Oppenheimer Enigma<\/a>\n \n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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26 December 2023<\/div>\n DUPUY Jean-Pierre<\/a>\n
\n 8 p.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Forum\n <\/a>\n Geopolitics<\/a>\n Science and Technology<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The second part of the book is about enrichment: increasing the proportion of the isotope uranium-235 (0.7 percent of natural uranium) in relation to that of uranium-238. This is a crucial phase, without which uranium ore is useless, and a strategic one, since the output can be used for multiple purposes: energy (enriched to between 3 percent and 5 percent), research, use in naval propulsion or medicine (enriched to 20 percent), and finally military (enriched to over 90 percent). When talking about independence, it is therefore this phase that is often emphasized, rather than the origin of the ore, as it could also be a bottleneck \u2014 only eleven sites are capable of enriching natural uranium. These analyses of uranium ore and its enrichment exemplify the highly political, rather than scientific, aspect of the notion of independence. According to Meyer, \u201cthere is no serious scientific debate on the definition of energy independence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n

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This section also includes a chapter on nuclear waste, where the resources-waste products-weapons continuum is clearly depicted. What constitutes a \u201cwaste product\u201d and what constitutes a \u201cresource\u201d can, of course, vary from country to country, and in some cases \u2014 as in the case of plutonium, produced during the irradiation of uranium \u2014 even constitute material for the production of a bomb, and therefore a weapon.<\/p>\n

On the topic of waste itself, while national-level waste management seems to be the norm today (particularly from a French perspective and that of Cig\u00e9o,[1]<\/a><\/sup>the Industrial Centre for Geological Disposal, a project to build a facility for disposing of radioactive waste on French territory), the internationalization of waste management has been considered on several occasions and continues to be considered regularly \u2014 often more to keep waste at a distance than to combat proliferation. Two of the most outstanding examples of this are the waste sunk in international waters until 1983 and the option of sending it into space, which was considered until the explosion of the Challenger shuttle in 1986. But some countries, such as the United States and Russia, remain committed to bilateral agreements for the recovery of waste from other countries, and in 2009, a European Commission working group was set up for countries lacking the appropriate geology or the financial or technical resources required.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n What is to be Done with Radioactive Waste?<\/a>\n \n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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26 December 2022<\/div>\n BRUX Julie (de)<\/a>\n GEOFFRON Patrice<\/a>\n JOLY Pierre-Benoit<\/a>\n (…)<\/span>\n
\n 16 p.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Journal Article\n <\/a>\n Environment<\/a>\n Society<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As we have seen, waste products illustrate the link between the civil and the military spheres, but they can also be \u201csymbolic weapons in the way they are used,\u201d as storage facilities located near borders demonstrate: between the Federal and Democratic Republics of Germany, at Morsleben and Gorleben; or more recently, in the United States, in 2017, where, to secure the border with Mexico, it was proposed to incorporate trenches filled with radioactive waste; or again in 2018, when Saudi Arabia envisaged a tunnel along its border with Qatar for storing waste from its future civil atomic program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third section of the book covers power stations. The Russian nuclear power industry, now fully integrated into ROSATOM (250,000 employees), is the world\u2019s largest and one of the most ambitious forces for nuclear development \u2014 it has a presence in forty-three countries and has agreements with over seventy countries. Backed by the world\u2019s fourth-largest nuclear power plant fleet, and using the Russian domestic market as a showcase, ROSATOM is selling a turnkey solution, including financing and the return of nuclear waste to Russia. In comparison, China appears relatively divided, with three groups regularly in competition (China General Nuclear Power Corporation, China National Nuclear Corporation, and State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation), but it is the other industrial giant with equally integrated technical and financial offerings. The historic French and American players appear to be in relative retreat, after losing some foreign contracts in the first decade of the twenty-first century and the bankruptcy of Westinghouse in 2017. Before the book\u2019s final section devoted to nuclear weaponry, the author reminds us that in times of conflict, power plants are also a military issue, and represent so many potential targets, symbolic or real, as the Zaporizhzhia power plant in Ukraine has illustrated since 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n

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As far as atomic weapons are concerned, while only ten countries actually have the bomb, some twenty have invested in military programs, and researchers estimate that at least thirty countries have the capacity to develop it. Proliferation therefore remains an \u201cexceptional spatial event,\u201d despite John F. Kennedy\u2019s pessimistic projections in 1963 that up to twenty-five powers would become nuclear by the 1970s. Meyer describes the reasons why a country might acquire the bomb, how to do so (alone, in collaboration, by buying it, on the black market, and so on), and what it is possible to do with it.<\/p>\n

The effectiveness of deterrence has always been open to question and geographical interpretation. Like proliferation control and the treaties governing it, the flaws in globalization create a space in which proliferation can occur \u2014 see the example of the network of the Pakistani Abdul Qadeer Khan, who sold nuclear technology to at least three countries (North Korea, Libya, and Iran), in violation of treaties. Today, while the number of nuclear warheads has fallen sharply since the seventy thousand recorded at the 1986 peak, the modernization that has been undertaken \u2014 diversification (ground-based missiles, submarines, airborne), improvement, and so on \u2014 is harder to interpret. Deterrence strategies range from transparency (United States, France, and the United Kingdom) to maintaining doubt (Russia). In response to the arms controls put in place by Russia and the United States through the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the 1970s, with limited effects, by 2022, eighty-six countries had signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which introduced a ban on threatening an adversary with the use of nuclear weapons against it. However, this treaty was rejected by the countries with nuclear weapons and therefore currently has no operational force. A range of experiences of denuclearization (South Africa, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine) nevertheless suggest that the future is not set in stone.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n Speeding toward Instability?<\/a>\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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4 December 2023<\/div>\n PAGLIA Morgan<\/a>\n
\n 4 min.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Lu, vu, entendu\n <\/a>\n G\u00e9opolitique<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Finally, the last chapter of the book is devoted to nuclear testing, always carried out on the periphery of empires, or on the margins of the countries carrying it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer\u2019s book provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the various connections that exist in the nuclear industry, between the civil and military sectors, but also between nuclear-armed countries and territories. At a time when there is much talk of reviving the nuclear industry, particularly in the contexts of the fight against climate change and the issue of sovereignty, this book has the advantage of demonstrating the many implications of nuclear power and the complex geopolitical backdrop against which it is used. The message readers will retain is that, beyond the political slogans and binary oppositions (independent vs. dependent, civil vs. military, and so on), the reality of nuclear power is much more of a tangle of concepts and issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article has been translated from French and edited by Cadenza Academic Translations.
Translator: Claire Ivins, Editor: Zahira Ransome, Senior editor: Mark Mellor<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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    Editor\u2019s note: See Brux<\/span> Julie (de) et al., \u201cQue faire des d\u00e9chets radioactifs\u00a0? Anticiper l\u2019avenir \u00e0 1\u00a0000 ans,\u201d Futuribles, no.\u00a0452, janvier-f\u00e9vrier 2023, p.\u00a047-62. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Teva Meyer is a researcher at CRESAT (the French Centre for Research on Economies, Societies, Arts, and Technologies) who is also associated with IRIS (the Institute for International and Strategic Relations). In this book [The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Industry: The Power and Might of a Dual Industry], he provides a comprehensive overview of the … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":80782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[203,210],"keyword":[1048,949,143,1037,883,1187],"class_list":["post-89496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-seen-heard","tag-geopolitique-en","tag-science-et-technique-en","keyword-geopolitique-en","keyword-industrie-en","keyword-ressources-minerales","keyword-energie-nucleaire-en","keyword-armes-nucleaires-en","keyword-souverainete-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89496"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99206,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89496\/revisions\/99206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89496"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=89496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}