The Impact of Reallocating Pentagon Funds from Nuclear Weapon Upgrades to Nuclear Reactors
How many reactors can you get from UPGRADING a nuke?
If there is a single policy that can perpetuate the “Washington Consensus”, then it is the notion that Uncle Sam is always in the look out for additional funds for weaponry, because as everyone knows from listening to Fox News and CNN (official US state ideology), America is always suppose to be 'under threat' from nations like Russia, China, and Iran1.
The military-industrial complex has skillfully employed the tactic of instilling fear in the US public, leading politicians to authorize additional funds for expanding the weapons arsenal. During the Cold War, there may have been some rationale behind the approach of using nuclear weapons as a deterrent for a great power conflict. However, it became obsolete when America's 'unipolar moment' arrived as was put by Charles Krauthammer in Foreign Affairs in the early 1990s. Additionally, the deterrence theory was largely disproven with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine whose origins lie in a failure to promote diplomatic solutions over military alliances as a means to guarantee the long peace.
As humorously coined by the Comedian George Carlin, the deterrence strategy is akin to the 'bigger dick foreign policy.'"
There are few countries whose leadership is more fixated on asserting its own strength than Uncle Sam, and there is no better way to illustrate this than by examining the exorbitant amount of money spent on maintaining its nuclear weapons arsenal only so that it can be kept in silos. With a recent announcement, the USA Department of defense (that is only really involved in wars) aims to spend another $107 billion to only rehabilitate part of its arsenal. These weapons are unlikely to ever be used, simply because it would trigger Nuclear Winter and a mutually assured destruction from Russia and China.
The projected cost of replacing the aging nuclear missiles buried in silos across the Great Plains has soared by more than a third to $107 billion, the Pentagon said, a development that comes as China pushes ahead with an expansion of its arsenal.
So, I asked myself, is there a link between America's extravagant expenditure on nuclear weapons and its struggles to complete nuclear power plants within budget and on schedule?
Uncle Sam currently boasts the most expensive nuclear power plants and worse Engineering Procurement and Contracting Management in the world, with Vogtle Power Station holding the record for the most expensive electricity in history. The ratepayers of the state of Georgia is unfortunately going to have to pay of this expensive mistake for decades.
But here’s the truth: At $35 billion, Plant Vogtle is the most expensive power plant ever built on earth. Vogtle’s electricity is estimated to cost $170–$180/MWh, which is astoundingly high. These high costs are why 49 other states decided against building nuclear plants, even with lavish federal subsidies. They pursued far more affordable clean-energy solutions: 2,200 MW of geothermal would have cost just $9 billion, and solar plus storage would have cost between $4 billion and $5 billion, less than a fourth the cost of Vogtle.
Why can’t the money used for nuclear weapons rather go to pay of this reactor?
In contrast, China, South Korea, and India construct nuclear facilities at nearly 1/5th of the cost compared to the USA.
Let's consider if America were to invest the $100 billion in civilian nuclear power instead.
We can utilize the 10, 6, and 3 dollars per Watt rule for the S Curve, to estimate the potential nuclear power capacity and its impact on decarbonization.
Let’s consider that they will hit the economies of scales that were seen historically in America and in other countries elsewhere.
Let’s assume that the politicians would stay committed to a mass build and understand that the first 2 reactors will be “too expensive”.
Let’s assume that the cost won’t fall on the ratepayers.
Let’s assume that environmental activists won’t go out of their way to obstruct the process.
Let's assume that the US public overcomes the fear that state-driven expansion of infrastructure is not synonymous with 'communism’. A mixed economy was after all what made The New Deal and the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority in particular so successful in alleviating poverty in The Deep South.
Let’s assume that the democrats in America would overcome their fear of nuclear winter and realise that nuclear power is almost always a social democratic argument.
The table below shows what $100 billion could get them in decarbonisation and revitalising their nuclear weapons arsenal.
By redirecting the funds allocated for nuclear weapons towards building nuclear power stations, America could potentially generate 30 gigawatts (GW) of low carbon electricity. This capacity would be substantial enough to replace nearly all the installed natural gas capacity in California. It would decarbonise their entire electricity mix.
While I am not an economist, it seems evident that spending resources on electricity generation, rather than storing weapons in silos, offers better value for money.
Is America misallocating its brains by using them to maintain nuclear weapons as opposed to figuring out how to build reactors more affordably?
Is it a valid excuse to claim that civilian nuclear power “is too expensive” when substantial funds are allocated for building nuclear weapons?
Interestingly, despite Iran having a Gross Domestic Product comparable to that of South Africa or Maryland and severely lacking nuclear weapons, it is often portrayed as an 'ominous threat.' Iran does not have the ability to be a threat to any country outside of its immediate peripherique.