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.