Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation

The claim that there is a connection between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons is just so much self-serving BS. If you Google "nuclear energy", "nuclear weapons" and connection; you will find many anti-nuke sites that claim there is a connection because they both use Uranium.

That's like saying we can't understand commercial aviation unless we also understand the strategy and internal politics of the US Air Force; because both the commercial aviation industry and the USAF both burn jet fuel!

Let's look at the facts! First follow the money. The source of money for the nuclear energy program is the electric bills of the electricity consumers that are served by nuclear power plants. That's where the "nuclear industry" gets its money.

The USA's nuclear weapons program is funded by Congress. The nuclear weapons program is not part of the Pentagon budget, it is part of the budget of the Dept. of Energy, and specifically a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department called the National Nuclear Security Agency or NNSA.

The nuclear weapons program deals with classified information called Restricted Data that is classified under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The nuclear power industry information is declassified. In fact, that is one of the main differences between the Atomic Energy Act of 1947 and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The latter declassified the information with regard to nuclear power. The only classified / sensitive information with regard to nuclear power concerns security and actions / capabilities to maintain the security of nuclear installations.

Let's look at the cast of players. Because this has changed of late, let's go back to the cast of characters when the USA was actively making nuclear weapons instead of the "stewardship" we have today.

First, someone has to design the nuclear weapon. Every person involved in the design of a nuclear weapon now in the US stockpile, has had the same name at the top of their paycheck; "University of California". All persons involved in the design of the USA's nuclear weapons were employed at either Los Alamos National Laboratory, or Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Until just a few years ago, the SOLE contractor for both labs was the University of California.

The non-nuclear part of the nuclear weapons such as the firing circuits, neutron generators, batteries, ...were all designed by Sandia National Lab, which was run back then by AT&T.

Nuclear material for the weapons had to be produced, and ALL the nuclear material in US weapons was produced at either Hanford or Savannah River. The operator of both facilities during the years nuclear weapons were being made was DuPont.

The heart of the "nuclear triggers" was produced in the DOE's Rocky Flats complex, which back then was run by Rockwell International.

Another facility in the weapons production complex was DOE's Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge, and back then, it was run by Union Carbide.

Fuel for the reactors at Hanford and Savannah River was processed at a facility in Crescent, Oklahoma run by Kerr-McGee. ( They employed Karen Silkwood. )

Another part of the nuclear weapons production complex is the Kansas City Plant, that was run by Allied Signal.

Finally, the parts were all brought together and assembled into nuclear weapons at the Pantex plant in the Texas panhandle, which was run by Mason & Hanger.

Nuclear reactors for power production were made by Westinghouse, General Electric, Combustion Engineering, and Babcock & Wilcox. The power plants were built by Bechtel, Stone & Webster, and Brown & Root.

The nuclear power plants used to be run by the local utilities that built them; but those utilities have sold the plants to a few companies that run nuclear power plants as a business such as Exelon ( parent to Chicago's Commonwealth Edison ) and Entergy. A few utilities like PG&E still operate their own plants, however Diablo Canyon is owned / run by the parent company PGECorp, whereas PGECorp's wholly owned subsidiary Pacific Gas & Electric, is the regulated utility company.

So other than the trivial connection of both using Uranium which is as trivial a connection as the airlines and the USAF both burning jet fuel; we see that the funding sources, the legal rules defining operation, as well as the "cast of characters" which are the companies involved are TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

Nuclear weapons were produced by University of California, AT&T, DuPont, Allied Signal, Union Carbide, and Mason & Hanger.

Nuclear power plants were produced by Westinghouse, GE, Combustion, B&W, Bechtel, Stone & Webster, and Brown & Root.

So much for this "connection" between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy that we need to understand. It doesn't exist.