Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Contributing towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

Transcription

1 Critical Issues Forum (CIF) Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Contributing towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons by Jean du Preez

2 1. History of Nuclear Testing, Nuclear Testing and the Arms Race 5. Educational resources to train the next generation of CTBT experts

3 If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds From the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita as recalled by Dr Robert Oppenheimer Trinity test: 16 July

4 Absolute Devastation: Hiroshima & Nagasaki Hiroshima Nagasaki 6 August Little Boy 9 August Fat Man 118,000 killed, 80,000 wounded 74,000 killed, 75,000 wounded

5 The Destruction of Hiroshima bomb (13Kt) km: 86% killed km: 27% killed km: prompt radiation zone km: 3 rd degree burns km: 2 nd degree burns km: 50 psi overpressure destroys everything km: 10 psi - sweep everything in a high-rise building onto streets km: 3-5 psi - destroy brick houses & shatter windowpanes Heat: 6000 degrees Celcius

6 Testing and the start of the nuclear arms race Trinity Test (20 kt) USSR JOE (22 kt) UK Hurricane (25 kt) USSR Tsar Bomba (57 mt) China tests at Lop Nur Hiroshima & Nagasaki US Mike (10.4 mt) Blue Dessert Rat France test in Algeria Little Feller (Davy Crockett) ( kt) 1974 Smiling Budha (12Kt): India 70Kt

7 For more on nuclear testing over time, see the CTBTO website

8 Scale comparison Hiroshima 13 kt U.S. B83 bomb 1200 kt Chinese DF-5A warhead 4,5 mt Soviet Tzar Bomba 50 mt

9 2047 nuclear explosions One test every 9 days for 50 years.

10 by Isao Hashimoto

11 Sites of nuclear explosions

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13 Late 1950s early 1960s: peak in testing Atmospheric tests Underground tests Underwater tests

14 Atmospheric testing: ~ 25% French test in South Pacific

15 From early nuclear weapons.. Little Boy: Hiroshima Fatman: Nagasaki

16 . to small, extra large and complex weapon systems 0.01Kt kt Testing is required W87 /88 warhead kt

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18 6 Testing motivations 1. Weapons effect 2. Safety tests 3. Weapons development Performance testing Weaponization testing Physics tests 4. Political motivations International politics Security and testing Domestic politics 5. Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs)

19 Weapon Effects

20 Operation Crossroads 2 nd and 3 rd U.S. nuclear tests (1946) Test the weapon effect of a nuclear bomb Able (30 June, air dropped) Baker (24 July, first underwater test, 23 kt) Fat man design (used in Nagasaki) Able: 23Kt Baker: 21 Kt

21 Conducted 7 August kt Officially classified as weapons development test, but clearly also involved studying weapon effects. Plumbbob/Stokes

22 Safety Tests Ensure weapon only works when its supposed to One-Point Safe A nuclear weapon is one-point safe if, when the High Explosive inside the weapon is initiated and detonated at any single point, the probability of producing a nuclear yield exceeding 2 kilograms TNT equivalent is less than 1 in one million Insensitive high explosives designed to withstand stimuli representative of severe but credible accidents. The current range of stimuli are shock, (from bullets, fragments and shaped charge jets), heat (from fires or an adjacent thermal events) and adjacent detonating munitions Permissive Action Link (PAL) security device for nuclear weapons. Its purpose is to prevent unauthorized arming or detonation of the nuclear weapon

23 Weapons Development

24 Weapon Development Tests Performance tests Testing of basic design concepts e.g. Trinity (16 July 1945) Physics tests Understanding physics necessary to develop more advanced designs Weaponization tests Testing of weaponized (smaller, lighter, more robust etc.) designs

25 Ivy/Mike (31 October 1951) First performance test of true two-stage thermonuclear device 82-ton refrigerator of cooled hydrogen isotopes 10.4 MT Ivy Mike Performance Testing TX-16/EC-16 Experimental/Emergency Capability Small number produced MK 17/24 Mass produced 200/105

26 Weaponization Testing Dominic/Frigate Bird (6 May 1962) Particularly stark example of weaponization test Only U.S. test of ballistic missile with live nuclear warhead (vast majority of U.S. tests from fixed platforms) 600 kt delivered over a range of 1,174 miles

27 Physics Tests The development of advanced nuclear designs is generally argued to require testing to further understanding of the underlying physics. For example, fusion physics and radiation flow First Soviet thermonuclear device (RDS-6) 4 th Soviet test, detonated on 12 August 1953 (almost exactly 4 years after 1 st test) 400 kt one-stage design (not a true two-stage design)

28 Political Motivations

29 International Politics Of Testing Three possible motives for developing nuclear weapons (Sagan, 1996): Security Norms Domestic politics Whatever reason or combination of reasons motivates a state to proliferate, testing would further its goals. Political and technical reasons for testing generally coexist.

30 Security and Testing Potential strategies of nuclear coercion: Deterrence (making threats to prevent another party from changing the status quo) Compellence (making threats to try to change the status quo) Requires credible (implicit or explicit) nuclear threats. Testing often seen as necessary to make such threats Announced first tests (China, UK, France, India, Pakistan, DPRK). Counter-example: Israel Many pictures of tests declassified shortly afterwards.

31 Domestic Politics and Testing Decisions to proliferate and develop more advanced nuclear weapons inevitably connected to domestic politics. Many examples of domestic opponents accusing a government of weakness for failing to take nuclear weapons development sufficiently seriously. Nuclear tests can relieve domestic pressure.

32 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions OSI Inspection Trainees 2016

33 PNEs and Treaty Law Article V of NPT: potential benefits from any peaceful applications of nuclear explosions will be made available to non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty on a nondiscriminatory basis the charge to such Parties for the explosive devices used will be as low as possible and exclude any charge for research and development. PNEs prohibited under CTBT.

34 PNEs: A Very Brief History First U.S. PNE: 10 December 1961 First Soviet PNE: 15 January 1965 Peaceful nuclear explosions category is very broad: Excavation, earth moving, cavity formation Some cavities apparently still used for gas storage in Russia. Oil and gas stimulation Extinguishing oil fires Seismic sounding

35 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions (PNE) Operation Ploughshares Sedan Test Pan-Atomic Canal Chagan Lake Project Chariot

36 US/Soviet Testing Programs Soviet Union United States Number % Number % PNEs 173 (156) (42) 4 Effects 70 (53) (100) 9 Safety 42 (25) 4 92 (92) 8 Development 684 (481) (891) 78 Joint 0 (0) 0 24 (24) (715) 1,149 (1,149) # Explosions (# Tests)

37 The US and a number of other NWS conduct experiments as part of its Stockpile Stewardship Program to test the reliability and safety of its nuclear arsenals. These are not considered to be nuclear explosives test, and are not covered by the CTBT Hydronuclear tests study nuclear materials under the conditions of explosive shock compression. They can create sub-critical conditions, or supercritical conditions with yields ranging from negligible all the way up to a substantial fraction of full weapon yield. [4] Sub-critical (or cold) tests are any type of tests involving nuclear materials and possibly highexplosives (like those mentioned above) that purposely result in no yield. Since the end of U.S. nuclear explosive testing in 1992, investments in science-based Stockpile Stewardship have led to dramatic improvements in simulation capabilities. Computers have become at least a hundredthousand times more powerful, and modern integrated design codes now more realistically capture the behavior of real nuclear devices. Sub-critical experiment at Nevada National Security Site

38 The consequences of nuclear testing Tsar Bomba Baneberry Starfish Prime

39 Consequences of Testing: When something goes wrong Bikini Atoll Castle Bravo Castle Bravo Lucky Dragon Number 5

40 Consequences of Testing: The downwind effect Estimation of I-131 Dosis Operation Buster

41 Baby Tooth Study Dr Louise Reiss

42 Any person living in the contiguous United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout, and all organs and tissues of the body have received some radiation exposure. "Report on the Feasibility of a Study of the Health Consequences to the American Population from Nuclear Weapons Tests Conducted by the United States and Other Nations. Department of Health and Human Services and National Cancer Institute

43 Halflife of Pu-239: 24,100 years

44 Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Source: Ploughshares Fund

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