Tom Zoellner
Page 38
CHAPTER 7: INSTABILITY
Statistics and history on the Areva mines in Niger were drawn from a paper read at the 2004 annual symposium of the World Nuclear Association in London: “Uranium Mining in Niger: Status and Perspectives of a Top Five Producing Country,” by George Capus, Pascal Bourrelier, and Moussa Souley. “Country Report,” by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Feb. 2, 2007, was also helpful, as was the article “Niger: Uranium—Blessing or Curse?,” by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Oct. 10, 2007. Accounts of the violence in Arlit were taken from the news dispatches “France Sees Areva Progress, Offers Niger Mine Aid,” by Abdoulaye Massalatchi of Reuters, Aug. 4, 2007; “Niger’s Uranium Industry Threatened by Rebels,” by Andrew Mc-Gregor, in Terrorism Focus, July 31, 2007; “Niger Rebels Pressure Uranium Mines,” by James Finch, in Stock Interview, July 9, 2007; “Uranium Worth a Fight, Niger Rebels Say,” by Tristan McConnell, in the Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 21, 2007; and “Five Wounded as Bus Hits Landmine in Niger,” by the South Africa Press Association and Agence France-Presse, Nov. 23, 2007. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also produced two relevant bulletins: “New Tuareg Rebel Group Speaks Out,” May 12, 2007, and “Five Killed as Army Clashes with Tuaregs in Desert North,” Oct. 7, 2007. The account of Rocco Martino’s dealings with Elisabetta Burba comes from the well-reported book The Italian Letter: How the Bush Administration Used a Fake Letter to Build the Case for War in Iraq, by Peter Eisner and Knut Royce (New York: Rodale, 2007). Eisner offers a compressed version in “How a Bogus Letter Became a Case for War,” in the Washington Post, Apr. 3, 2007. I also drew from other accounts for this section, including “The Italian Job: How Fake Iraq Memos Tripped Up Ex-Spy,” by Jay Solomon and Gabriel Kahn, in the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 22, 2006; “The War They Wanted, the Lies They Needed,” by Craig Unger, in Vanity Fair, July 2006; and “The Italian Job,” by Laura Rozen, in the American Prospect, Mar. 2006. The rehashing of the U.S. buildup to war was partly drawn from Unger, “The War They Wanted,” and Eisner and Royce, The Italian Letter, as well as “U.S. Claim on Iraqi Nuclear Program Is Called into Question,” by Joby Warrick, in the Washington Post, Jan. 24, 2003, and “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” by Joseph Wilson, in the New York Times, July 6, 2003. Reflections on nuclearism were taken from the lecture “The Image of the End of the World: A Psychosocial History,” by Robert Jay Lifton, at Salve Regina College in Newport, R.I., in 1983, and reprinted in Facing Apocalypse (Dallas: Spring Publications, 1987). Thoughts on the state of Islamic science came from “Myth-Building: The ‘Islamic’ Bomb,” by Pervez Hoodbhoy, in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1993; “Islam and Science—Unhappy Bedfellows,” by Pervez Hoodbhoy, in Global Agenda, Jan. 2006; The Arab Human Development Report 2002: Creating Opportunities for Future Generations, by the United Nations Development Program and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (also quoted by Hoodbhoy); and What Went Wrong?, by Bernard Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Al-Qaeda’s history with uranium—as well as the economics of homemade atomic bombs—is partly covered in “The Bomb in the Backyard,” by Peter D. Zimmerman and Jeffrey G. Lewis, in the National Post of Canada, Dec. 20, 2006, as well as The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright (New York: Random House, 2006). Some biographical information about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in the newspaper stories “Waiting for the Rapture in Iran,” by Scott Peterson, in the Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 21, 2005; “‘Divine Mission’ Driving Iran’s New Leader,” by Anton La Guardia, the Telegraph, Jan. 15, 2006; and “Nuclear Armed Iran Risks World War, Bush Says,” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, in the New York Times, Oct. 18, 2007. Details of the experimental centrifuges at Natanz were drawn from “A Tantalizing Look at Iran’s Nuclear Program,” by William J. Broad, in the New York Times, Apr. 29, 2008. Iran’s history and attitude toward nuclear science can be found in the background paper “Iran: Nuclear Chronology,” by the staff of the Monterey Institute for International Studies, 2003; and the book The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran, by Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2007). Also, the news stories “Rafsanjani: Iran Will Get Its Nuclear Rights with Wisdom,” by the Islamic Republic News Agency, Jan. 11, 2006; “Rafsanjani: Europe Indebted to Muslims for Scientific Advancement,” by the Islamic Republic News Agency, Aug. 15, 2007; “Iran Admits Nuclear Secrecy,” by the Associated Press, Mar. 7, 2005; “Western Pressure Irks Average Iranians,” by Angus McDowell, the Christian Science Monitor, Apr. 24, 2006; “Across Iran, Nuclear Power Is a Matter of Pride,” by Neil MacFarquhar, the New York Times, May 29, 2005; “Iran Looks to Science as Source of Pride,” by Anne Barnard, the Boston Globe, Aug. 22, 2006; “The Riddle of Iran,” in the Economist, July 21, 2007; and “Satellite Images Show Work Near Iran Nuclear Site,” by Reuters, reprinted in Istanbul’s Today’s Zeman, July 11, 2007. The section on the logistics of uranium acquisition was drawn from “Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: Reducing the Danger of Highly Enriched Uranium,” a 2003 paper by Hui Zhang of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Zimmerman and Lewis, “The Bomb in the Backyard”; “Stockpiles Still Growing,” by David Albright and Kimberly Kramer, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov./Dec. 2004; “Nuclear Fuel Is Widespread,” by Sam Roe, in the Chicago Tribune, Feb. 4, 2007; and especially “Eliminating Excessive Stocks of Highly Enriched Uranium,” by Morten Bremer Maerli and Lars van Dassen, in Pugwash Issue Brief, published by the Council of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Apr. 2005. The quote from Ashton Carter is in “Responding to Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions: Next Steps,” the transcript of a Sept. 19, 2006, hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. William Langewiesche envisions a uranium-theft scenario and also pays an eye-opening visit to a checkpoint on the Georgian border with Armenia in “How to Build an Atomic Bomb,” in the Dec. 2006 issue of the Atlantic, reprinted in a revised version in The Atomic Bazaar, by William Langewiesche (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). The Logan Airport incident was mentioned in John McPhee’s The Curve of Binding Energy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973), and the Erwin safety record was examined in Nukespeak: The Selling of Nuclear Technology in America, by Stephen Hilgartner, Richard Bell, and Rory O’Conner (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1982). The incident in Dalhart was reported in the Sept. 22, 1951, United Press dispatch “‘Plaything’ of Three Boys Turns Out to Be Uranium,” and also in “Buried Treasure,” in Time, Oct. 1, 1951. The story of Sanford Simons was recalled in Doomsday Men, by P. D. Smith (London: Allen Lane, 2007). The Shanghai black market was detailed in a declassified memo of June 24, 1946, from the Strategic Services Unit of the War Department entitled “Ramona (Summary Report for June).” Colombia’s uranium seizure was told of in the National Public Radio report “Colombia Reflects Rising Threat of Nuclear Terrorism,” by Tom Gjelten, and broadcast Apr. 21, 2008. Further information on loose uranium was drawn from “Czech Seize Migrating Uranium,” by Mark Hibbs, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mar./Apr. 1993; “Nuclear Cleanup’s Trudge,” by David E. Hoffman, in the Wall Street Journal, Aug. 31, 2007; “At Mayak, Lax Security Worries U.S.,” by Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 22, 2003; the research paper “Recent Weapons-Grade Uranium Smuggling Case: Nuclear Materials Are Still on the Loose,” by Elna Sokova, William C. Potter, and Christina Chuen, Jan. 26, 2007, published by the Monterey Institute of International Studies; and “Nuclear Smuggling, Rogue States, and Terrorism,” by Rensselaer Lee, in The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Apr. 2006. Spying and asbestos at the IAEA were discussed in Melman and Javedanfar, The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran. The bale-of-marijuana aphorism is related in “The Seven Myths of Nuclear Terrorism,” by Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier, Current History, Apr. 2005, and is also cited in Langewiesche, The Atomic Bazaar. Bunn’s quote about poor oversight in Russia comes from his Securing the Bomb 2007 (Cambridge, Mass., and Washington, D.C.: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard Univer
sity, and Nuclear Threat Initiative, Sept. 2007). The movement of nonnuclear goods over the Georgian border is examined in the 2004 research paper “Smuggling Through Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region of Georgia,” by Alexandre Kukhianidze, Alexandre Kupatadze, and Roman Gotsiridze and published by the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center in Tbilisi. The tale of Oleg Khinsagov was first broken in the story “Smuggler’s Plot Highlights Fear Over Uranium,” by Lawrence Scott Sheets and William J. Broad, in the New York Times, Jan. 25, 2007, from which I drew some details. Further details were from “A Smuggler’s Story,” by Lawrence Scott Sheets, in the Atlantic, Apr. 2008. Some history of the Darial Gorge is in The Land of the Czar, by O. W. Wahl (London: Chapman and Hall, 1875).
CHAPTER 8: RENAISSANCE
General overviews of supply and demand are contained in the reports The Global Nuclear Fuel Market, by the staff of the World Nuclear Association, 2005, and Investing in the Great Uranium Bull Market: A Practical Investor’s Guide to Uranium Stocks (Sarasota, Fla.: Stock Interview, 2006). Further details are in “Atomic Renaissance,” in the Economist, Sept. 8, 2007; “The New Economics of Nuclear Power,” by the staff of the World Nuclear Association, 2005; “A Rush for Uranium,” by Susan Moran and Anne Raup, in the New York Times, Mar. 28, 2007; “Nuclear Power: Winds of Change,” by Michael Campbell et al., a paper from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Mar. 31, 2007; and “Solving ‘Fission Impossible,’” by Daniel Gross, in Newsweek, Oct. 29, 2007. The debate about the climate benefits from nuclear energy are reflected in the following: “Nuclear Power Is the Only Green Solution,” by James Lovelock, in the London Independent, May 24, 2006; the position paper “Environmentalists Do Not Support Nuclear Power,” by Jim Green, published by Friends of the Earth, Australia, May 11, 2007; “Atomic Myths, Radioactive Realities: Why Nuclear Power Is the Poor Way to Meet Energy Needs,” by Arjun Makhijani in the Journal of Land, Resources & Environmental Law 24, no. 1 (2004); and “Pelosi Reconsiders Nuclear Power,” in the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 8, 2007. Statistics and background on Chinese coal came from two New York Times stories: “Dangerous Coal Mines Take Human Toll in China,” by Erik Eckholm, June 19, 2000, and “Pollution from Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow,” by Keith Bradsher and David Barboza, June 11, 2006. Details on Senator Pete Domenici’s lobbying on behalf of the nuclear industry and his statements at the Eunice, New Mexico, ground-breaking are in the well-reported Jan. 2007 package of stories “Power Play: New Dawn for Nuclear Energy?,” by Mike Stuckey and John W. Schoen, on MSNBC.com. Some background on the decision is in “Waste Issues Dog Uranium Plant Build,” by Ben Neary, in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Dec. 9, 2003; “Recent Almelo Visitors Speak to Eunice Rotary Club,” in the Eunice News, Dec. 13, 2007; “Texas Senate Approves Fee to Bury Nuclear Waste in Andrews,” by John Reynolds, in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, May 5, 2005; and “Dangerous Liaisons,” by Marilyn Berlin Snell, in Sierra, May/June 2005. General background on the region is in “Little Texas”: Beginnings in Southeastern New Mexico, by May Price Mosley (Roswell, N.M.: Hall-Poorbaugh Press, 1973). Paducah’s early history is recounted in the special section “The Atomic Plant’s 40th Anniversary,” reprinted in the Paducha Sun, Nov. 3, 1992. The less happy environmental aftereffects are detailed in two stories by Joby Warrick in the Washington Post: “Paducah Plant Spewed Plutonium,” Oct. 1, 2000, and “Nuclear Bomb Risk Revealed at Kentucky Uranium Plant,” Feb. 11, 2000. Information on the Piketon plant came from the press release “USEC Will Fuel Nuclear Revival, CEO Tells Shareholders,” Apr. 25, 2006, and the newspaper story “Costly Centrifuge Plan Key to Piketon Revival,” by Tom Beyerlein and Lynn Hulsey, in the Dayton Daily News, Nov. 14, 2006. Some recent developments on the Arizona Strip are in “Power Surge,” by Max Jarman, in the Arizona Republic, May 28, 2006. Fragments from the life of Bob Adams and the history of his Energy Fuels Nuclear company are told in “Bob Adams: Positive Energy Force in the Yampa Valley,” by Rod Hanna, in Steamboat Springs, Summer 1980; “Bob Adams: 1917-1982,” in the Steamboat Pilot, Sept. 30, 1982; “Home on the Range No More: The Boom and Bust of a Wyoming Uranium Mining Town, 1957-1988,” by Michael A. Amundson, in the Western Historical Quarterly, Winter 1995; and Quest for the Pillar of Gold: The Mines and Miners of the Grand Canyon, by George E. Billingsley, Earle E. Spamer, and Dove Menkes (Grand Canyon Village, Ariz.: Grand Canyon Association, 1987). The colorful early history of the Vancouver exchange, including the Pine Point anecdote, comes from Fleecing the Lamb: The Inside Story of the Vancouver Stock Exchange, by David Cruise and Allison Griffiths (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1987). Further information was drawn from “The Scam Capital of the World,” by Joe Queenan, in Forbes, May 29, 1989; “Salt for the Bre-X Wounds,” in Macleans, Mar. 2, 1998; “The Ghost of Bre-X Rises,” by Steve Maich, in Macleans, June 13, 2005; “Geologists Still Have Something to Answer For,” by David Baines, in the Vancouver Sun, Aug. 18, 2007; and “U.S. Gets Burned by Lax Canadian Oversight,” by Robert Mc-Clure, in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 13, 2001. The broker’s quote comes from the Oct. 28, 1997, Reuters dispatch “Bre-X Joins Forces with Suharto’s Son, Stock Soars,” by Heather Scoffield, and quoted in the July 31, 2007, court judgment Her Majesty the Queen v. John Bernard Felderhof, by Justice Peter Hyrn in the Ontario Justice Court. General background on Mongolia is drawn from In the Empire of Genghis Khan, by Stanley Stewart (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2004); some surprising aspects of Khan’s reign are in “To the Left of Chinggis Khan,” by Timothy May, in World History Connected, Nov. 2006. Development schemes for Mardai are disclosed in “Western Prospector Builds on Soviet-Era Uranium Project,” by Stephen Stakiw, in the Northern Miner, Nov. 25, 2005, and the corporate report “Gurvanbulag Uranium Mine and Mill Development Plans,” by Emeelt Mines LLC, June 2007. Ivanhoe’s recent history is in “The New El Dorado,” by Michael Schuman, in Time International, Aug. 7, 2006; “Your Risk, His Reward,” by David Baines, Canadian Business, June 1997; and “Big Dig: Mongolia Is Roiled by Miner’s Huge Plans,” by Patrick Barta, in the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 4, 2007.
EPILOGUE
Gerard Holden’s quotes came from the Brinkley Mining announcement “Agreement in DRC,” dated July 11, 2007, and also the Sept. 18, 2007, news dispatch “Brinkley Hits Back in DRC Uranium Fracas,” by Allan Seccombe of Miningmx .com. Further background is in “Congo Purge Puts Brinkley Deal in Doubt,” by Ben Laurence, in the Sunday Times, Sept. 16, 2007; the British Broadcasting Company story “DR Congo ‘Uranium Ring Smashed,’” Mar. 8, 2007; the Reuters dispatch “Congo Keeps Uranium Riches Under Wraps,” Dec. 10, 2007; and the article “Uranium Smuggling Allegations Raise Questions Concerning Nuclear Security in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” by Peter Crail and Johan Bergenas, in WMD Insights, Apr. 2007. Some reactor information comes from “Nuclear Technical Cooperation: A Right or a Privilege?,” by Jack Boureston and Jennifer Lacey, in Arms Control Today, Sept. 2007. Estimates of the Russian HEU stockpile are in Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996: World Inventories, Capabilities, and Policies, by David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), and quoted in “Russia: Fissile Material and Disposition,” by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The controversial Department of Energy survey is called HEU: Striking a Balance—A Historical Report on the United States Highly Enriched Uranium Production, Acquisition, and Utilization Activities from 1945 Through September 30, 1996. The circumstances of its suppression and eventual release are discussed in the article “The U.S. Highly Enriched Uranium Declaration: Transparency Deferred but Not Denied,” by Steven Aftergood and Frank N. von Hippel, in Nonproliferation Review, Mar. 2007. The phenomenon at Oklo was explained by George A. Cowan in Scientific American, July 1976. The street address for the site of the Archer Daniels Midland warehouse—2377 Richmond Terrace on Staten Island, right under the Bayonne Bridge—was drawn from the diligent work of Timothy L. Karpin and James M. Maroncelli, The Traveler’s Guide to Nuclear Weapons Sites (Lacey, Wash.: Historical Odyss
eys Publishers, 2002), supplied to me by Robert S. Norris.
INDEX
Abbey, Edward
Abdoussalam
Abenroth, Wolfgang
Aboriginals of Australia
and environmentalists
Mirrar clan
myths of
and race issues
Absolute Weapon, The (Brodie)
Acheson, Dean
Adams, Bob
African Metals Corporation
Agee, James
Agricola, Georgius
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud
Albright, David
Alexander the Great
alpha particles
alpha rays
al-Qaeda
aluminium, irradiated
Alvarez, Luis
Anasazi Indians
Anderson, Jerry
Anglo-American
Annabell, Ross
apocalypse
Armageddon
arms race
atomic tests
Aum Shinrikyo
book of Revelation
civil defense programs
and control of uranium
Doomsday Book
endism
fiery end
Hiroshima
Indian nuclear program
International Atomic Energy Agency
Iranian nuclear program, see Iran
Israeli nuclear program
Last Judgment
Libyan nuclear program
methods of obtaining fissile material
mutually assured destruction
Nagasaki
North Korean nuclear program
nuclear club
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
Pakistani nuclear program