Nuclear Weapons and the Link to Nuclear Power

Beyond Nuclear advocates the elimination of all nuclear weapons and argues that removing them can only make us safer, not more vulnerable.

 The U.S. and Russia continue to maintain at least 26,000 nuclear weapons between them, with close to 5,000 ready to launch within minutes. The consequences of such a launch, whether full scale or partial, could still result in a nuclear winter, ending most life on earth as we know it. However, new studies have shown that even a smaller-scale regional nuclear war could still change the climate dramatically, decimating modern agriculture and starving billions. Such a war would affect populations far away from the conflict and the climatic effects would be long-lasting.

Although there are only five recognized nuclear weapons states (the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K.), and four unacknowledged ones (India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea), there are at least 32 additional countries that could develop nuclear weapons from their substantial supplies of uranium and plutonium produced by civilian nuclear programs. Indeed, all four of the unofficial nuclear weapons states developed their weapons from civilian nuclear programs.

The continued insistence on supplying the technlogy, materials and know-how for civilian nuclear programs perpetuates the danger that nuclear weapons may also be developed - with speculation over Iran a case in point.

It makes no sense to demand, on the one hand, that nuclear weapons states eliminate their arsenals while, on the other hand, offering nuclear energy as a reward to countries that promise not to develop nuclear weapons. It nuclear weapons are to be eliminated, this process must be divorced from resolving energy needs which can in any case be better filled by renewable energy, conservation and energy efficiency programs.

For details on the many links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, please see our Fact Sheet.

And see our new brochure, Atomic Energy and Global Security.

Additional Resources

Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism. Toon et al. 2007.

Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts. Robock et al. 2007.

How Nuclear Weapons Spread: Nuclear-weapon proliferation in the 1990s. By Frank Barnaby. Chapter one specifically addresses the link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. Graham Allison.