I think what Mr Gore was indicating that ‘misuses’ or ‘breaches’ of nuclear material all came from civilian programs. Not that weapons came from civilian programs.

He essentially handled the issue fairly sensitively, and asked that Australia should be careful in its choices. Obviously there are a large number of nations who have an established nuclear industry as you mentioned.

What I didn’t mention is that he also asked the question “what would the world look like with 500, 1000, or 3000 nuclear reactors”

Can civilian intent always last in such an environment? But also can appropriate management occur? What happens when there is political instability, economy failures, failures of saftey. Would we advocate nuclear power to the developing world?

Can we say for certain that with a tripling, quadrupling or more of nuclear reactors that we wont have another significant accident or misuse?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I agree that we need to shift from coal, and nuclear power is one of the “climate stabilisation wedges”.

The main question I do have though is what limits or caveats do you place on countries as to whether they are responsible enough for nuclear power. As once given its hard to take away.

Mr. Gore was factually incorrect if he implied that all nuclear weapons programs have derived from nuclear energy programs. The obvious counter examples are the United States (weapons in 1945, commercial electricity in 1957) Great Britain, Russia, China, and France where weapons all came before nuclear energy. It is also widely acknowledged that Israel probably has a few nuclear weapons, but no nuclear power plants, India’s weapons materials have come from research reactors, and South Africa developed its (now decommissioned) weapons from enrichment plants that did not serve the power industry.

There are also dozens of countries that have had nuclear electricity for decades without any indication of wanting to develop weapons.

The linkage between nuclear weapons and nuclear power is as firm as the linkage between napalm and gasoline. In both cases the weapons use similar materials as the power production, but in both cases the technology and the intent are far different. You can have one without the other.

Al Gore Sr. had a much more responsible attitude towards nuclear power and its potential for improving the human condition. I think it is rather sad that the world’s most recognizable spokesperson for a very real problem is ignoring one of the most potent weapons we have in the fight to conquer the problem.

Nuclear power plants are clean enough to run inside sealed submarines full of people. They are certainly worth considering as a power source for our spaceship Earth.