MEXICO NUCLEAR POWER AFF

Mexico has [some] uranium [irrelevant to version 2 and 3 of the 1AC]Dahlkamp 10"Uranium Deposits Of The World, Volume 2 – USA and Latin America" Franz J. Dahlkamp; Honorary Chair (Honorary-Professor) at Mining-University of Leoben (1990). Dr. Dahlkamp completed a PhD in 1958 and a Dr. of Science in Habilitation in 1979, has over 45 years of extensive experience in the uranium industry working as an economic geologist with several mining companies; 2010To date, only small and low-grade uranium deposits have been discovered in Mexico. Most occur in the Sierra de Pena Blanca, Chihuahua state, and in the La Sierrita-Burgos Basin, Nuevo Leon state. The former hosts volcanic-type and the latter sandstone-type uranium deposits. Additional U prospects are reported from areas in the states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Durango, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosi, and Sonora (OECD-NEA and IAEA 1986). They include uraniferous phosphorite deposits. Uranium exploration commenced in 1957/1958 and ended in May 1983. Uranium production was restricted to some test mining in the Sierra de Gomez and Sierra de Pena Blanca. Ore from these mines was treated in a plant at Villa Aldama, Chihuahua, which operated from 1969 to 1971 and produced 49 t U as by-product to molybdenum. OECD-NEA and IAEA (2007) reports remaining recoverable resources of 1,800t U in the identified resources (RAR + Inferred) <US$ 130/kg U category (status January 1, 2007). Additional by-product resources of some 150,000t U are calculated for phosphorite deposits in Baja California (OECD-NEA and IAEA 1999).

NotesSMR-Small Modular Reactor, occasionally just called small reactorsFOAK-First of a KindWhy US key-Best technology in safety and security, important to prevent/mitigate nuclear proliferationWhy Mexico key-Can sway developing world to nuclear powerMolten salt reactors include thorium: “Many of the problems associated with Nuclear Reactors are solved with Thorium Molten Salt Reactors. They were built and developed by a team led by Alvin Weinberg over a twenty year period starting in the 1950s.” How will Mexico get the molten sodium? Not a problem, there’s a metric [____] ton of thorium. And it can’t be used to make nuclear wepons, which was why the government originally used uranium.

1AC v3 [Organized to be lay friendly]

[Intro] Molten Salt Small Modular Reactors First, we’ll overview what we’re talking about and why it’s a huge benefit over the current systemWilson 2013-Youngest person to ever produce fusion, recipient of the Thiel Fellowship (big research/entrepreneurship grant) (Taylor, “Taylor Wilson: My radical plan for small nuclear fission reactors”, TED Talks, February 2013, http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_my_radical_plan_for_small_nuclear_fission_reactors.html)//ADBut this is actually a talk about, okay -- (Laughter) — but this is actually a talk about fission. It's about perfecting something old, and bringing something old into the 21st century. Let's talk a

little bit about how nuclear fission works. In a nuclear power plant, you have a big pot of water that's under high pressure ,

and you have some fuel rods, and these fuel rods are encased in zirconium, and they're little pellets of uranium dioxide fuel, and a fission reaction is controlled and

maintained at a proper level, and that reaction heats up water, the water turns to steam, steam turns the turbine , and you produce electricity from it. This is the same way we've been producing electricity, the steam turbine idea, for 100 years [the steam turbine guys, don’t try and say nuclear power is only 60 years old, we know.] , and nuclear was a really big advancement in a way to heat the water, but you still boil water and that turns to steam and turns the turbine. And I thought, you know, is this the best way to do it? Is

fission kind of played out, or is there something left to innovate here? And I realized that I had hit upon something that I think has this huge potential to change the world . And this is what it is. This is a small modular reactor . So it's not as big as the reactor you see in the diagram here. This is between 50 and 100 megawatts. But that's a ton of power. That's between, say at an average use, that's maybe 25,000 to 100,000 homes could run off that. Now the really interesting thing about these reactors is they're built in a factory. So they're modular reactors that are built essentially on an assembly line, and they're trucked anywhere in the world, you plop them down, and they

produce electricity. This region right here is the reactor. And this is buried below ground, which is really important. For someone who's done a lot

of counterterrorism work, I can't extol to you how great having something buried below the ground is for proliferation and security concerns. And inside this reactor is a molten salt, so anybody who's a fan of thorium, they're going to be really excited about this, because these reactors happen to be really good at breeding and burning the thorium fuel cycle, uranium-233. But I'm not really concerned about the fuel. You can run these off -- they're really hungry, they really like down-blended weapons pits, so that's highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that's been down-blended. It's made into a grade where it's not usable for a nuclear weapon, but they love this stuff. And we have a lot of it sitting around, because this is a big problem. You know, in the Cold War, we built up this huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, and that was great, and we don't need them anymore, and what are we doing with all the waste, essentially? What are we doing with all the pits of those nuclear weapons? Well, we're securing them, and it would be great if we could burn them, eat them up, and this reactor loves this stuff. So it's a molten salt reactor. It has a core, and it has a heat exchanger from the hot salt, the radioactive salt, to a cold salt which isn't radioactive. It's still thermally hot but it's not radioactive. And then that's a heat exchanger to what makes this design really, really interesting, and that's a heat exchanger to a gas. So going back to what I was saying before about all power being produced -- well, other than photovoltaic -- being

produced by this boiling of steam and turning a turbine, that's actually not that efficient, and in fact, in a nuclear power plant like this, it's only roughly 30 to 35 percent efficient . That's how much thermal energy the reactor's putting out to how much electricity it's producing. And the reason the efficiencies are so low is these reactors operate at pretty low temperature. They operate anywhere from, you know, maybe 200 to 300 degrees Celsius. And these reactors run at 600 to 700 degrees Celsius, which means the higher the temperature you go to, thermodynamics tells you that you will have higher efficiencies. And this reactor doesn't use water. It uses gas, so supercritical CO2 or

helium, and that goes into a turbine, and this is called the Brayton cycle. This is the thermodynamic cycle that produces electricity, and this makes this [Molten Salt SMRs are] almost 50 percent efficient, between 45 and 50 percent efficiency. And I'm really excited about this, because it's a very compact core. Molten salt reactors are very compact by nature, but what's also great is you get a lot more electricity out for how much uranium you're fissioning, not to mention the fact that these burn up. Their burn-up is much higher. So for a given amount of fuel you put in the reactor, a lot more of it's being used. And the problem with a traditional nuclear power plant like this is, you've got these rods that are clad in zirconium, and inside them are uranium dioxide fuel pellets. Well, uranium dioxide's a ceramic, and ceramic doesn't like releasing what's inside of it. So you have what's called the xenon pit, and so some of these fission products love neutrons. They love the neutrons that are going on and helping this reaction take place. And they eat them up, which means that, combined with

the fact that the cladding doesn't last very long, you can only run [a regular reactor] one of these reactors for roughly, say, 18 months without refueling it. So these [MS-SMR] reactors run for 30 years without refueling, which is, in my opinion, very, very amazing, because it means it's a sealed system. No refueling means you can seal them up and they're not going to be a proliferation risk, and they're not going to have either nuclear material or radiological material proliferated from their cores. But let's go back to safety, because everybody after Fukushima had to reassess the safety of nuclear, and one of the things when I set out to design a power reactor was it had to be passively and intrinsically safe, and I'm really excited about this reactor for essentially two reasons. One, it doesn't operate at high pressure. So traditional reactors like a pressurized water reactor or boiling water reactor, they're very, very hot water at very high pressures, and this means, essentially, in the event of an accident, if you had any kind

of breach of this stainless steel pressure vessel, the coolant would leave the core. These reactors operate at essentially atmospheric pressure, so there's no inclination for the fission products to leave the reactor in the event of an accident . Also, they operate at high temperatures, and the fuel is molten, so they can't melt down, but in the event that the reactor ever went out of tolerances, or you lost off-site power in the case of something like Fukushima, there's a dump tank. Because your fuel is liquid, and it's combined with your coolant, you could actually just drain the core into what's called a sub-critical setting, basically a tank underneath the reactor that has some neutrons absorbers. And this is really important, because the reaction stops. In this kind of reactor, you can't do that. The fuel, like I said, is ceramic inside zirconium fuel rods, and in the event of an accident in one of these type of reactors, Fukushima and Three Mile Island -- looking back at Three Mile Island, we didn't really see this for a while — but these zirconium claddings on these fuel rods, what happens is, when they see high pressure water, steam, in an oxidizing environment, they'll actually produce hydrogen, and that hydrogen has this explosive capability to release fission products. So the core of this reactor, since it's not under pressure and it doesn't have this chemical

reactivity, means that there's no inclination for the fission products to leave this reactor. So even in the event of an accident, yeah, the reactor may be toast,

which is, you know, sorry for the power company, but we're not going to contaminate large quantities of land . So I really think that in the, say,

20 years it's going to take us to get fusion and make fusion a reality, this could be the source of energy that provides carbon-free electricity. Carbon-free electricity. And it's an amazing technology because not only does it combat climate change, but it's an innovation. It's a way to bring power to the developing world, because it's produced in a factory and it's cheap. You can put them anywhere in the world you want to. And maybe something else. As a kid, I was obsessed with space. Well, I was obsessed with nuclear science too, to a point, but before that I was obsessed with space, and I was really excited about, you know, being an astronaut and designing rockets, which was something that was always exciting to me. But I think I get to come back to this, because

imagine having a compact reactor in a rocket that produces 50 to 100 megawatts. That is the rocket designer's dream . That's someone who is designing a habitat on another planet's dream. Not only do you have 50 to 100 megawatts to power whatever you want to provide propulsion to get you there, but you have power once you get there. You know, rocket designers who use solar panels or fuel cells, I mean a few watts or kilowatts -- wow, that's a lot of power. I mean, now we're talking about 100

megawatts. That's a ton of power. That could power a Martian community. That could power a rocket there . And so I hope that maybe I'll have an opportunity to kind of explore my rocketry passion at the same time that I explore my nuclear passion. And people say, "Oh, well, you've launched this thing, and it's radioactive, into space, and what about accidents?" But we launch plutonium batteries all the time. Everybody was really excited about Curiosity, and that had this big plutonium battery on board that has plutonium-238, which actually has a higher specific activity than the low-enriched uranium fuel of these molten salt reactors, which means that the effects would be negligible, because you launch it cold, and when it gets into space is where you actually activate this reactor.

Obviously this technology offers a lot of advantages. Let’s cover a few:

Advantage 1: WarmingA. Nuclear power key to solving global warming—new technologies make fission

safer and more efficientWilliams 13, Arthur Williams is a condensed-matter theorist, retired from IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center after 30 years there. Watson is located near the Indian Point nuclear-power facility. Living and working near Indian Point continues to motivate him to learn about the issues surrounding nuclear power. He is now a registered and practicing patent agent.(04/08/13, “Nuclear power: The only available solution to global warming”; http://www.physicstoday.org/daily_edition/points_of_view/nuclear_power_the_only_available_solution_to_global_warming#bio, jj)

Global warming, energy independence, water scarcity and third-world economic growth are all

amenable to a common, safe, clean, cost-competitive and field-tested nuclear solution. Why isn’t this solution universally embraced and implemented?¶ I suggest two reasons. First, we humans respond much more strongly to dramatic events, like earthquakes, violent weather and terrorist acts, than we do to steady-state threats, such as auto accidents, medical errors and coal particles. At a cost of $4 trillion, we started two wars in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 that killed 2996. The death tolls in the US from auto accidents (30 000), medical errors (44 000–200 000), and coal dust (13 000) are not only higher, but also perennial. The gradual character of carbon dioxide emissions and global warming is elevating our “boiling frog” tendencies to an entirely new scale of danger . Although the problem may not excite us, our pot is warming so quickly that we must leap to survive. A measure of the magnitude and urgency of this challenge can be found in Bill Gates’ summary of his wonderful TED lecture on this topic: Despite the time, effort and money he has devoted to new vaccines and seeds, if he could be granted a single wish for the coming decades, it would be for a practical, CO2-free energy source. That explicit prioritization reflects his awareness of an especially unfortunate feature of warming, that its burden falls most heavily on the politically voiceless poor, and less heavily on those with the means to address the challenge. The disparity adds to our inertia.¶ The second reason lies in deeply entrenched myths (which for my purposes I shall define as untruths breeding complacency), rooted in unrealistically high expectations for renewable energy and unrealistically negative expectations for nuclear power. Criticism of nuclear power focuses on history and ignores dramatic advances in fission technology. This incomplete picture gives rise to myths that conflict directly with the assertions of Gates and of John Parmentola, the US army's director of research and laboratory management: that nuclear fission is the only “practical” solution in view.¶ The remainder of this essay comments on Gates’ criteria for “practicality,” and examines the factors of availability, reliability, cost, scale, safety, proliferation and

waste. The good news is that new fission technologies make fission clean, safe , competitively inexpensive, and resistant to terrorism . Moreover, they solve the nuclear-waste challenge. One technology claims to reduce the high-level waste output of a typical power plant from 20 tons per year to a few kilograms . American startups are pursuing commercialization, but much of the action is in other countries, notably China and India.¶ Gates and Parmentola also emphasize the urgency for halting CO2 emissions. In my view, the following six widespread and paralyzing myths must be addressed.¶ Myth #1: Wind and solar can do it¶ Renewable sources, like wind, solar, and tide, emit no CO2, and that’s undeniably good. While the discussion of renewables often focuses on cost, it is power density and intermittency that conspire with cost to prevent these technologies from providing adequate solutions.¶ As Gates puts it, technologies for renewable energy represent energy farming. Because the intrinsic power density of renewable sources is orders of magnitude lower than that of hydrocarbons and nuclear processes, large tracts of land are required to reap even modest quantities of power.¶ Even if large tracts of land, such as those in the Sahara or the American Southwest, are

employed, the electricity produced is inherently intermittent, and must be stored and transported. For example, Gates estimates that all the world’s existing batteries can store only about 10 minutes of electricity consumption. Also, because land is not available near population centers, transport such as high-tension towers must be provided.¶ While the relative cost of renewable sources is improving, cost still represents a disadvantage of several hundred percent that has been compensated by government subsidies. Subsidies might continue, but as Hargraves emphasizes in his extensively researched book, Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, the prospects for eliminating CO2 emissions are greatly improved if the alternative power source is cheaper than hydrocarbons. The high energy density and availability of coal make it misleadingly attractive. Hargraves concludes that at least one of the next-generation breed-and-burn fission technologies can produce electricity for about $0.03/kWh, making it cost-competitive, even with coal. The intrinsic safety and relative simplicity of the coming generation of breed-and-burn fission reactors makes them

significantly less expensive than those of the present generation.¶ Myth #2: Nuclear is unsafe¶ There are two safety issues in the context of nuclear power: meltdown and terrorism. Both are essentially eliminated by next-generation fission technologies .¶ Concerns raised by incidents at Three Mile

Island and Chernobyl were seriously aggravated by recent events at Fukushima. Such dangers are not intrinsic to fission, but stem from military priorities favoring fuel rods comprised of metal-clad ceramics. Ceramics conduct heat poorly, and active cooling (powered externally) is required to prevent overheating, melting and rupture of the cladding. Molten-salt reactors are qualitatively different. First, the exploiting the molten state leads to an inherently

safe reactor design, since no additional melting is possible. More specifically, the far superior thermal conductivity of molten salt eliminates the need for active cooling . At any time and without any external power, the reactor can be drained, by gravity, into a subterranean vessel in which passive cooling suffices. Such reactors are termed “walk-away” safe. A molten-salt reactor ran successfully and without incident at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for four years.¶ High-

level wastes produced by fission are unavoidable, but they are only a tiny fraction of what we call nuclear waste. The complete burning of nuclear fuel in molten-salt reactors provides all the benefits of reprocessing , which has permitted France, for example, to produce about 80% of its electricity from fission for decades, without theft of fissile material by terrorists, although Greenpeace did block a plutonium shipment. Because next-generation reactors integrate breeding and burning into a single process, fissile material does not exist outside the reactor, where it is both hot and diluted, thereby reducing the risk of theft significantly below even that of reprocessing.¶ Myth #3: Nuclear waste remains an unsolved problem¶ As the term “breed-and-burn” suggests, next-generation fission technologies are related to and provide the benefits of reprocessing. An independent benefit of molten-salt technologies is that the fissile material can remain in the reactor until it is completely consumed, thereby producing dramatically less waste. In today’s solid-fuel reactors the fuel is clad in metals that can tolerate only a limited amount of neutron bombardment, necessitating removal of the fuel long before it is fully consumed. This distinction is the basis of the claim by the MIT-based startup, Transatomic Power, that waste production can be reduced from tons to kilograms, increasing by a factor of 30 the energy obtained from a given quantity of fuel. Refueling frequency is also reduced in molten-salt reactors by the continuous removal of neutron-absorbing xenon, whose accumulation in solid-fuel reactors also reduces the time that fuel can remain in the reactor. ¶ A bonus, but not a surprise, given the connection between breed-and-burn reactors and reprocessing, is that some new reactors can consume existing nuclear waste—both depleted and spent fuel. In this way, next-generation fission can solve the waste problem created by present-generation fission . ¶ Myth #4:

Fission may provide electricity, but it neither fuels transportation nor provides clean water¶ Fission produces cheap heat, which is broadly useful. In the present context, the cost-effective heat produced by fission is symbiotic with two highly developed

technologies that address two of our most critical challenges, CO2-free transportation and seawater desalination . ¶ Transportation consumes a large fraction of the energy budget. Its fractional share is approaching that of industry, which is about twice that of both residential and commercial energy consumption. Since fission reactors are unlikely to be placed in cars and trucks, in what sense can fission contribute to CO2-free transportation? The answer is the synthesis of ammonia. NH3 synthesis is among the most promising exploitations of heat from fission. NH3 can be viewed as an especially effective medium for hydrogen storage and delivery. The infrastructure for NH3 production and distribution is already widespread. NH3 has about half the energy content by weight of gasoline, but its much lower cost gives it a price-performance advantage. Most importantly, NH3 burns to form air and water:¶ 4NH3 + 3O2 = 2N2 + 6H2O¶ Fission also offers a choice between electrically powered reverse osmosis and traditional distillation as means to produce potable water. Distillation can use fission-produced heat directly, whereas reverse osmosis is very energy demanding, and can use fission-produced electricity. Either way, the value of potable water is rising rapidly, and will benefit directly from cheap clean power.¶ Myth #5: Nuclear installations are large, expensive and problematic to site¶ The greater efficiency of molten-salt reactors makes them smaller for a given capacity. More importantly, they operate at atmospheric pressure, which eliminates both the threat of explosion and the need for a large containment structure, the visual signature of today’s fission plants. In combination with the pervasive relative simplicity of molten-fuel reactors, elimination of the containment structure renders molten-salt facilities relatively small and inexpensive. Such reactors also lend themselves to factory manufacture, further reducing their cost. The original molten-fuel reactor was intended to power airplanes. In the present context, the efficiency, reduced size, and guaranteed safety of next-generation fission plants combine to reduce the NIMBY (not in my backyard) resistance to their siting. ¶ Myth #6: Nuclear requires lengthy

development (new game changer needed) ¶ Writing in the February 2013 issue of Physics Today, John Parmentola called for the invention of a game-changing fission technology. Correspondingly, Gates calls for hundreds of startups pursuing different variations on the common theme. Gates is involved with one such company, TerraPower, which will commercialize an innovative solid-fuel breed-and-burn technology.¶ The call for startups and game changers reveals the great irony of this context: that arguably the most promising of the breed-and-burn technologies is not at all new. As mentioned above, the molten-salt thorium reactor was developed at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, where it ran successfully for four years.¶ A measure of the significance of the Oak Ridge effort is the conviction and enthusiasm of the Oak Ridge lab director, Alvin Weinberg. His zeal for the intrinsic safety and other virtues of the

molten-salt reactor, now called LFTR (lithium-fluoride thorium reactor), was not politically welcome, and led to his firing by President Nixon in 1973. Weinberg devoted the rest of his life to the promotion of LFTR; the Weinberg Foundation continues his mission.¶ A contemporary proponent of LFTR, Kirk Sorensen, leads the startup Flibe, which is focused on LFTR commercialization. The MIT-based startup Transatomic Power recently won an ARPA-E competition as part of its efforts to commercialize a LFTR-related technology that will burn “spent” fuel or uranium, at least initially.¶ Where the action is¶ As David Kramer reported in the November 2012 issue of Physics Today, enthusiasm for nuclear power has waned in the US. The Fukushima events have led to similar declines in Japan and Germany. Fortunately for the world, others are moving forward; consider fission facilities in China:¶ 14 operational¶ 27 under construction¶ 51 planned¶ 120 proposed¶ 212 total¶ The central

assertion here echoes that of both Gates and Parmentola: nuclear fission is the only known technology capable of bringing CO2 emissions under control . My hope is that greater

awareness of the benefits promised by coming fission technologies will debunk the myths currently stalling public and private investment, and reverse the unfortunate trend in the US, Japan and Germany.

This is important because:

B. Glacier loss from climate change increases the risk of nuclear conflict—water supplies and shifting borders escalate tensionsSharma 10 (Rajeev Sharma, journalist-author who has been writing on international relations, foreign policy, strategic affairs, security and terrorism for over two decades, 2/25/2010, "Climate Change = War?" The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2010/02/25/climate-change-war/)For all the heat generated by discussions of global warming in recent months, it is an often overlooked fact that climate change has the potential to create border disputes that in some cases could even provoke clashes between states. Throw in to the mix three nuclear-armed nations with a history of

disagreements, and the stakes of any conflict rise incalculably . Yet such a scenario is becoming increasingly likely as glaciers around the world melt , blurring international boundaries . The chastened United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, still doesn’t dispute that glaciers are melting; the only question is how fast. The phenomenon is already pushing Europeans and Africans to redraw their borders. Switzerland and Italy, for example, were forced to introduce draft resolutions in their respective parliaments for fresh border demarcations after alpine glaciers started melting unusually quickly. And in Africa, meanwhile, climate change has caused rivers to change course over the past few years. Many African nations have rivers marking international boundaries and are understandably worried about these changing course and therefore cutting into their borders. Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan are just some of the African countries that have indicated apprehension about their international boundaries. But it is in Asia where a truly nightmarish

scenario could play out between India, Pakistan and China–nuclear weapon states that between them have the highest concentration of glaciers in the world outside the polar regions . A case in point is the Siachen Glacier in the Karakoram range, the largest glacier outside the polar region, which is the site of a major bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan . According to scientific data, Siachen Glacier is melting at the rate of about 110 meters a year–among the fastest of any glacier s in the world. The glacier ’s melting ice is the main source of the Nubra River , which itself drains into the Shyok River. These are two of the main rivers in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. The Shyok also joins the Indus River, and forms the major source of water for Pakistan. It is clear, then, why the melting of

glaciers in the Karakoram region could have a disastrous impact on ties between India and Pakistan. French geologists have already predicted the Indus will become a seasonal river by 2040, which would unnerve Pakistan as its ‘granary basket,’ Punjab, would become increasingly drought-prone and eventually a desert–all within a few decades. It takes no great leap of imagination to see the potential for conflict as the two nations resort to military means to control this water source. Meanwhile, glacier melting could also be creating a potential flashpoint between India and China . The melting

Himalayan glaciers will inevitably induce change s to the McMahon Line , the boundary that separates India and China. Beijing has already embarked upon a long-term strategy of throttling of India’s major water source in the north-east–the Brahmaputra River that originates in China.

Advantage 2: DesalinationA. SMRs key to desalination

Solan 2010 (David Solan, Director, Energy Policy Institute, Associate Director, Center for Advanced Energy Studies, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Boise State University, June 2010, “ECONOMIC AND EMPLOYMENT IMPACTS OF SMALL MODULAR NUCLEAR REACTORS,” Energy Policy Institute, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/EPI_SMR_ReportJune2010.pdf)Besides electricity generation, additional applications may be well-suited for SMR systems in the future. While the applicability of nuclear energy to additional applications is not dependent on facility size, the actual use of large nuclear facilities does not occur due to economic considerations. Currently, only a few countries utilize nuclear energy for non-generation purposes, primarily desalination and district heating (IAEA, 2008). A brief overview of the application possibilities for SMRs is

provided below.¶ Desalination. The IAEA has identified desalination as possibly the leading non-electric civilian use for nuclear energy. Water scarcity is becoming an increasingly problematic global issue in both developed and developing countries. As noted in an IAEA (2007) report,¶ Because of population growth, surface water resources are increasingly stressed in many parts of the world, developed and developing regions alike. Water stress is counter to sustainable development; it engenders disease; diverts natural flows, endangering flora and fauna of rivers, lakes wetlands, deltas and oceans; and it incites regional conflicts over water rights. In the developing world, more than one billion people currently lack access to safe drinking water ; nearly two and a half billion lack access to adequate sanitation services. This would only get worse as populations grow. Water stress is severe in the developed world as well....In light of these trends, many opportunities in both developed and developing countries are foreseen for supply of potable water generated using nuclear process heat or off-peak electricity (p. 23).¶ The desalination of sea water requires large amounts of energy and is not dependent on a particular fuel for heat or electricity. The IAEA (2000) defines nuclear desalination as “the production of potable water from sea water in a facility in which a nuclear reactor is used as the source of energy for the desalination process” (p. 3). The three technologies that comprise nuclear desalination are nuclear, the desalination method,

and the system that couples them together (IAEA, 2000). The feasibility of integrated nuclear desalination plants has been proven with over 175 reactor-years of experience worldwide (IAEA, 2007a). ¶ Large-scale, proven commercial technologies for desalination can be grouped into distillation processes and the reverse osmosis process. Distillation technologies require heat to create steam which condenses and separates fresh water from brine. Reverse osmosis requires only electricity to push fresh water from the higher pressure saltwater side of a semi-permeable membrane to the lower pressure freshwater side. An IAEA study (2007a) on the economics of nuclear desalination reported that “ SMRs offer the largest potential as coupling options to nuclear

desalination systems in developing countries ” (p. 4). Furthermore, the study found that the costs for nuclear desalination are roughly similar to that of natural gas desalination, and could be substantially lower depending on fuel costs (IAEA, 2007a). Based on a preliminary assessment of the global desalination market through 2030, particularly in developing countries,

desalination has the potential to provide a strong market for SMRs if they can successfully compete with conventional nuclear plants and other sources of generation (Arthur, 2010).

B. Water is key to all life—additionally, fossil fuels are the biggest cause of the loss of potable water

NASCA 2004 (National Association for Scientific and Cultural Appreciation, 2004, “Water shortages - Only a matter of time,” http://www.nasca.org.uk/Strange_relics_/water/water.html)Water Shortage According to the latest estimates nearly 70% of the Earth’s population will struggle to find an adequate water supply by the year 2025 . Many authorities now believe that tension over water consumption will be the major catalyst for the wars of the future . Water shortage. It’s just around the corner. Water is one of the prime essentials for life as we know it. The plain fact is - no water, no life! This becomes all the more worrying when we realise that the worlds supply of drinkable water will soon diminish quite rapidly. In

fact a recent report commissioned by the U nited N ations has emphasised that by the year 2025 at least 66%

of the worlds population will be without an adequate water supply. Incalculable damage. As a disaster in the making water shortage ranks in the top category. Without water we are finished , and it is thus imperative that we protect the mechanism through which we derive our supply of this life giving fluid . Unfortunately the exact opposite is the case. We are doing incalculable damage to the planets capacity to generate water and this will have far ranging consequences for the not too distant

future. Bleak future The United Nations has warned that burning of fossil fuels is the prime cause of water shortage . While there may be other reasons such as increased solar activity it is clear that this is a situation over which we can exert a great deal of control. If not then the future will

be very bleak indeed! Already the warning signs are there. Drought conditions. The last year has seen devastating heatwaves in many parts of the world including the USA where the state of Texas experienced its worst drought on record. Elsewhere in the United States forest fires raged out of control, while other regions of the globe experienced drought conditions that were even more severe. Parts of Iran, Afgahnistan, China and other neighbouring countries experienced their worst droughts on record. These conditions also extended throughout many parts of Africa and it is clear that if circumstances remain unchanged we are facing a disaster of epic proportions. Moreover it will be one for which there is no easy answer. Dangers. The spectre of a world water shortage evokes a truly frightening scenario. In fact the United Nations warns that disputes over water will become the prime source of conflict in the not too distant future. Where these shortages become ever more acute it could forseeably lead to the brink of nuclear conflict. On a lesser scale water, and the price of it, will acquire an importance somewhat like the current value placed on oil. The difference of course is that while oil is not vital for life, water most certainly is! Power shift. It seems clear then that in future years countries rich in water will enjoy an importance that perhaps they do not have today. In these circumstances power shifts are inevitable, and this will undoubtedly create its own strife and tension. Nightmare situation. In the long term the implications do not look encouraging. It is a two edged sword. First the shortage of water, and then the increased stresses this will impose upon an already stressed world of politics. It means that answers need to be found immediately. Answers that will both ameliorate the damage to the environment, and also find new sources of water for future consumption. If not, and the problem is left unresolved there will eventually come the day when we shall find ourselves with a nightmare situation for which there will be no obvious answer.

Advantage 3: Nuclear SecurityFirst-proliferation

The US taking the lead in a global nuclear industry is key to ensuring that nuclear power is developed safelyFerguson 2010 (Dr. Charles D. Ferguson, President of the Federation of American Scientists, Adjunct Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and Adjunct Lecturer in the National Security Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University, May 19, 2010, Statement before the House Committee on Science and Technology for the hearing on Charting the Course for American Nuclear Technology: Evaluating the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap, http://www.fas.org/press/_docs/05192010_Testimony_HouseScienceCommHearing%20.pdf)The U nited S tates and several other countries have considerable experience in building and operating small and medium power reactors. The U.S. Navy, for example, has used small power reactors since the 1950s to provide propulsion and

electrical power for submarines, aircraft carriers, and some other surface warships. China, France, Russia, and the U nited K ingdom have also

developed nuclear powered naval vessels that use small reactors. Notably, Russia has deployed its KLT-40S and similarly designed small power reactors on icebreakers and has in recent years proposed building and selling barges that would carry these types of reactors for use in sea-side communities throughout the

world. China has already exported small and medium power reactors. In 1991, China began building a reactor in Pakistan and started constructing a second reactor there in 2005. In the wake of the U.S.-India nuclear deal, Beijing has recently reached agreement with Islamabad to build two additional reactors rated at 650 MWe.2¶ One of the unintended consequences of

more than 30 years of sanctions on India’s nuclear program is that India had concentrated its domestic nuclear industry on building small and medium power reactors based on Canadian pressurized heavy water technology , or Candu-type

reactors. Pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) pose proliferation concerns because they can be readily operated in a mode optimal for producing weapons-grade plutonium and can be refueled during power operations . Online refueling makes it exceedingly difficult to determine when refueling is occurring

based solely on outside observations, for example, through satellite monitoring of the plant’s operations. Thus, the chances for potential diversion of fissile material increase. This scenario for misuse underscores the need for more frequent inspections of these facilities. But the limited resources of the International Atomic Energy Agency have resulted in a rate of inspections that are too infrequent to detect a diversion of a weapon’s worth of material.3 The opening of the international nuclear market to India may lead to further spread of PHWR technologies to more states. For example, last year, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, Ltd. (NPCIL) expressed interest in selling PHWRs to

Malaysia.4 NPCIL is the only global manufacturer of 220 MWe PHWRs. New Delhi favors South-to-South cooperation; consequently developing states in Southeast Asia , sub-Saharan Africa , and South America could become recipients of these technologies in the coming years to next few decades. Many of these countries would opt for small and medium power reactors because their electrical grids do not presently have the capacity to support large power reactors and they would likely not have the financial ability to purchase large reactors. ¶ What are the implications for the U nited S tates of Chinese and Indian efforts to sell small and medium power reactors? Because China and India already have the manufacturing and marketing capability for these reactors, the United States faces an economically competitive disadvantage. Because the United States has yet to license such reactors for domestic use, it has placed itself at an additional market disadvantage. By the time the United States has licensed such reactors, China and India as well as other competitors may have established a strong hold on this emerging market.¶ The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission cautioned on December 15, 2008 that the “licensing of new, small modular reactors is not just around the corner. The NRC’s attention and resources now are focused on the large-scale reactors being proposed to serve millions of Americans, rather than smaller devices with both limited power production and possible industrial process applications.” The NRC’s statement further underscored that “examining proposals for radically different technology will likely require an exhaustive review” ... before “such time as there is a formal proposal, the NRC will, as directed by Congress, continue to devote the majority of its resources to addressing the current technology base.”6 Earlier this year, the NRC devoted consideration to presentations on small modular reactors from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Department of Energy, and the Rural Electric Cooperative

Association among other stakeholders.7 At least seven vendors have proposed that their designs receive attention from the NRC.8¶ Given the differences in design philosophy among these vendors and the fact that none of these designs have penetrated the commercial market, it is too soon to tell which, if

any, will emerge as market champions. Nonetheless, because of the early stage in development, the U nited S tates has an opportunity to state clearly the criteria for successful use of SMRs . But bec au se of the

head start of China and India, the U nited S tates should not procrastinate and should take a leadership role in setting the standards for safe, secure, and proliferation-resistant SMRs that can compete in the market. Several years ago, the United States sponsored assessments to determine these criteria.9 While the Platonic ideal for small modular reactors will likely not be realized, it is worth specifying what such an SMR would be. N. W. Brown and J. A. Hasberger of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory assessed that reactors in developing countries must:¶ • “achieve reliably safe operation with a

minimum of maintenance and supporting infrastructure;¶ • offer economic competitiveness with alternative energy sources available to the candidate sites;¶ • demonstrate significant

improvements in proliferation resistance relative to existing reactor systems.”10¶ Pointing to the available technologies at that time from Argentina, China, and Russia, they determined that “these countries tend to focus on the developmen t of the reactor without integrated considerations of the overall fuel cycle, proliferation , or waste issues .” They emphasized that what is required for successful development of an SMR is “a comprehensive systems approach that considers all aspects of manufacturing, transportation, operation, and ultimate disposal.”¶ Considering proliferation resistance, their preferred approach is to eliminate the need for on-site refueling of the reactor and to provide for waste disposal away from the client country. By eliminating on-site refueling the recipient country would not need to access the reactor core, where plutonium—a weapons-usable material—resides. By removing the reactor core after the end of service life, the recipient country would not have access to fissile material contained in the used fuel. Both of these proposed criteria present technical and political challenges.Projects with small capital outlay are typically more attractive to private investors operating in liberalized markets where indices like the net present value (NPV), the internal rate of return (IRR) and the payback time are of critical importance. Incremental capacity additions would generally lead to a smoother debt stock profile—i.e., lower financial distress of the project. For particular scenarios of SMR deployment interest during construction could be as low as half of a large reactor based project with equivalent total capacity.

Second-Terrorism

Old reactor types are vulnerable to terrorismEarly, et al., 2009(Bryan (Former Research Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs), Matthew Fuhrmann (Professor in Political Science at Texas A&M) and Quan Li (Professor in Political Science at Texas A&M), “Atoms for Terror: The Determinants of Nuclear/Radiological Terrorism”, Social Science Research Network, RSR)The presence and size of a civilian nuclear infrastructure affect terrorist groups’ cost-benefit calculus in

several respects. First, as many pundits agree, gaining access to the NR materials represents the most important hurdle for terrorist groups seeking to engage in NR terrorism. The presence and size of a civilian nuclear infrastructure increase the availability of fissile materials (e.g., plutonium or highly-enriched uranium, HEU) and radioactive materials (e.g., Cesium-137 and Strontium-90), all of which could be used in NR terror attacks.18 According to various studies, these materials are widely available in countries with nuclear programs and sometimes poorly guarded.19 Being both rational and cost sensitive, terrorists will be tempted to either steal NR materials or purchase them illicitly when they are cheap and/or

readily available. Since terrorists have significantly greater access to nuclear and radiological materials in countries with

civil nuclear infrastructures, the probability that they will employ NR [nuclear] terrorism in these states increases.20 Although terrorists could acquire NR materials in one country and use them in another, it is easier to use the materials in the same country where they are acquired. Transporting NR across borders involves additional costs and raises the likelihood that the materials will be interdicted. Groups are cognizant of this consideration and often look for NR materials in the country that they wish to attack.

C. Nuclear terrorism has devastating long term consequencesHellman 8 (Martin E. Hellman, emeritus prof of engineering @ Stanford, “Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence” SPRING 2008 THE BENT OF TAU BETA PI, http://www.nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf)

The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the public’s mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article

focuses primarily on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe of immense proportions: “A 10-kiloton bomb detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever.” [Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The likelihood of such an attack is also significant . Former Sec retary of Def ense William Perry has estimated the chance of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, “We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a low-probability event, but we can’t live in a world where it’s anything but extremely low-probability.” [Hegland 2005]. In a survey of 85 national security experts , Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20 percent for the “probability of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years ,” with 79 percent of the respondents believing “it more likely to be carried out by terrorists ” than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I

support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanism s for a full-scale nuclear war , the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce which- ever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g., nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). his article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full- scale nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact, society’s almost total neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important. The cosT of World War iii The danger associated with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of

nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III. Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World War. World War II’s fatalities were double or triple that number—chaos prevented a more precise deter- mination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapola- tion of the effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Con- gress, General Douglas MacArthur, stated, “Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. … If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide.” Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ex- pressed a similar view: “If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed ” [McNamara 1986, page 6]. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagan’s belief that nuclear weapons were “totally irrational, totally inhu- mane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” [Shultz 2007] Official studies, while couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World War III would exact: “The resulting deaths would be far beyond any precedent. Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S. deaths from 35 to 77 percent (i.e., 79-160 million dead) … a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care … millions of people might starve or freeze during the follow- ing winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. … further millions … might eventually die of latent radiation effects.” [OTA 1979, page 8] This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that as- sumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous nuclear explosions and their resultant fire- storms could usher in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the face of the earth , much as many scientists now believe the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007] suggests that even a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states,

such as India and Pakistan, could have devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities. While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engi- neering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing World War III is a necessity —not an option .

SMRs solve - they’re buried underground, heavily layered and no on-site refuelingLoudermilk 2011(Micah, research associate with the Energy & Environmental Security Policy program at National Defense University, “Small Nuclear Reactors and US Energy Security: Concepts, Capabilities, and Costs”, Journal of Energy Security, 5-31-11, http://www.ensec.org/index.php?view=article&catid=116%3Acontent0411&id=314%3Asmall-nuclear-reactors-and-us-energy-security-concepts-capabilities-and-costs&tmpl=component&print=1&page=&option=com_content&Itemid=375, accessed 8-1-12, RSR)As to the small reactors themselves, the designs achieve a degree of proliferation-resistance unmatched by large reactors . Small enough to be fully buried underground in independent silos, the concrete surrounding the reactor vessels can be layered much thicker than the traditional domes that protect conventional reactors without collapsing. Coupled with these two levels of superior physical protection is the traditional security associated with reactors today. Most sm all r eactor s also are factory-sealed with a supply of fuel inside. Instead of refueling reactors onsite, SMRs are returned to the factory, intact, for removal of spent fuel and refueling. By closing off the fuel cycle, proliferation risks associated with the nuclear fuel running the reactors are mitigated and concerns over the widespread distribution of nuclear fuel allayed .

SolvencyPlan: The Unites States Federal Government should increase its economic engagement towards Mexico by assisting Mexico with development and implementation of molten salt small modular reactorsWe reserve the right to clarify

A. Investment will produce nuclear power in MexicoAlonso et. al. 11—Researchers at the National Nuclear Research Institute of Mexico (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares) ( Gustavo Alonso, Javier C. Palacios, Jose R. Ramirez, Luis C. Longoria, Edmundo del Valle, " Alternatives of Financing for New Nuclear Reactors in Mexico ", IAEA, 2011, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/P1500_CD_Web/htm/pdf/topic2/2S07_G.%20Alonso.pdf)//AD5. DEPLOYMENT BY USING CREDIT RESOURCES For this alternative, there will be two sources of financing, one from international credit institutions that will contribute with an 85% of the lump sum and the second will be a national credit institution that will afford the other 15%. Discount rates considered in this case are as

follows: for the international credit according to the global market is 8%, and for the national credit a 12% discount rate is used. In this case the national scheme used is one called Financing Public Infrastructure (in Spanish Obra Pública Financiada), where the national credit institutions will support the civil

works and the international credit institutions will support the Nuclear and generator islands . Under this scheme

the credit institutions or the reactor vendors through the credit support will finance the nuclear power plant construction up to be in commercial operation . In that moment the utility will start to pay the credit according to the payment schedule. The main international credit assumptions are: • Payment credit period: 15 years. • 30 payments, each one every 6 months (does not include any payment during construction). • Grace period: 6 months after commercial operation. • Annual discount rate in dollars: 8%. The main national credit assumptions are: • Payment credit period: 5 years. Using again the information about the expending and income and the payment of the loans, international and international, the cumulative cash flow can be calculate, which is shown in Figure 2. It considers the three different overnight cost used in this study. To have a positive cash flow is mandatory to the approval of a project under this financing scheme. It is achieved for the 2500 US$/kW and 3000 US$/kW overnight costs considered in this study. Therefore under this two overnight cost scenarios the nuclear power plant deployment will be feasible. For the 3500 US$/kW overnight cost there is a small negative cash flow (15,009,082.00 US$ per year) during the first five years, after that time the national debt is already paid and the cash flow start to be positive. Although, it still can be a suitable candidate but could be subject to other constraints. Fig. 2. Cumulative cash flow from credit resources for different overnight cost 4. DISCUSSION

A diversification strategy can give greater protection against the volatility prices of primary fuels. It also eliminates the international dependence to only one natural gas provider among other benefits. In

Mexico several studies already consider nuclear energy an option to be considered as part of the electricity expansion, it makes a viable option from several different points of views. It can help to reduce or mitigate carbon emissions helping to alleviate climate change and also is already a competitive economical option in the long run.

B. Small modular reactors offer advantages in security and safetyWheeler 10- Former Senior Reactor Operator; Nuclear Workforce Planning & Workforce Development Expert (John, “Small Modular Reactors May Offer Significant Safety and Security Enhancements”, November 22, 2010, Clear Trend, http://thisweekinnuclear.com/?p=1193With this in mind, s mall m odular re actor s offer several big advantages that make them safer: They are smaller, so the amount

of radioactivity contained in each reactor is less. So much less in fact, that even if the worse case reactor accident occurs, the amount of radioactive material released would not pose a risk to the public. In nuclear lingo we say SMRs have a

smaller “source term.” This source term is so small we can design the plant and emergency systems to virtually eliminate the need for emergency actions beyond the physical site boundaries . Then, by controlling access to the site boundary, we can eliminate the

need for off-site protective actions (like sheltering or evacuations). These smaller reactors contain less nuclear fuel. This smaller amount of fuel (with passive cooling I’ll

mention in a minute) slows down the progression of reactor accidents. This slower progression gives operators more time to take action to keep the reactor cool. Where operators in large reactors have minutes or hours to react to events, operators of SMRs may have hours or even days . This means the chance of a reactor

damaging accident is very, very remote. Even better, most SMRs are small enough that they cannot

over heat and melt down. They get all the cooling they need from air circulating around the reactor. This is a big deal because if SMRs can’t melt down, then they can’t release radioactive gas that would pose a risk to the public. Again, this means the need for external emergency actions is virtually eliminated. Also, some SMRs are not water cooled; they use gas, liquid salt, or liquid metal coolants that operate at low pressures . This lower operating pressure means that if radioactive gases build up inside the containment building there is less pressure to push the gas out and into the air. If there is no pressure to push radioactive gas into the environment and all of it stays inside the plant, then it poses no risk to the public . SMRs are small enough to be built underground . This means they will have a smaller physical footprint that will be easier to defend against physical attacks. This provides additional benefits of lower construction costs because earth, concrete and steel are less costly than elaborate security systems in use today, and lower operating costs (a smaller footprint means a smaller security force). In summary, small modular nuclear reactors offer potential safety and security advantages over larger commercial reactors because they can be designed (1) to have smaller source terms, (2) to have accident scenarios that progress more slowly, (3) to be meltdown proof, (4) to operate at lower pressures, and (5) to have smaller security footprints. These safety and security advantages can result in considerable cost advantages. A large percentage of a nuclear plant’s operating expenses go into emergency planning and security . It is possible that four or five SMRs packaged together to provide the equivalent of a large nuclear unit could operate with a smaller staff size and lower costs. However, because existing rules were written for larger reactors, some changes to NRC regulations will be required for SMRs to take full advantage of their inherent safety and security features. There are groups already working on these

changes. These safety and security advantages offered by SMRs, when combined with lower initial capital costs, shorter construction times, and scalability, may tip the scales in favor of a new generation of small, factory built modular reactors.

Extensions

Warming

Agricultural Impacts

Warming kills agricultural production – CO2 fertilization is negligible by comparison.Hofstrand 11 – Agricultural Economist, Co-Director Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, Iowa State University Extension (Don, “Climate Change Beginning to Impact Global Crop Production”, September 2011; < http://www.agmrc.org/renewable_energy/climate_change_and_agriculture/climate-change-beginning-to-impact-global-crop-production/>)//BeddowThe demand for world agriculture output will grow exponentially over coming decades due to world population growth and expanding world economies. At the same time, the agriculture sector will be impacted by changes in climate that will challenge the productivity of the world’s agriculture resources . World population will continue to grow at a rapid rate. World population in 2010 was 6.9 billion people. By 2050 it is expected to grow to 9.3 billion people. This is a 35 percent increase in just 39 years or the addition of an average of 60 million people every year. For perspective this increase is equivalent to adding the population of the United States eight times to world population by 2050. The world’s agriculture resource base will be required to increase production to meet this increase. In addition to

population growth there has been an explosion of people moving out of poverty and into the middle class. This has occurred in several countries of the world but primarily in China and India that collectively make up over one-third of the world’s population. Rapid economic growth in these countries has resulted in increasing livings standards for a significant portion of their populations. As living standards increase, people’s diets change. Diets high in meat, which usually occurs as living standards improve, increase the demands on the agriculture sector because multiple pounds of feed are required to produce a pound of meat. At the same time, millions of people in Africa and around the world remain in

poverty. These people live in an environment of food insecurity where a weather event can quickly move them to a situation of food shortages. People in these regions are very sensitive to agricultural commodity price changes. They spend a much larger percentage of their incomes on food as compared to people in the developed world. Climate change has begun to impact the agricultural landscape. The continuation of these changes due to rising greenhouse gases will challenge the agriculture sector to finds ways to maintain and improve productivity. Recent research has shown that climate change is already beginning to have a negative impact on global crop production levels. The research project, a collaborative effort by researchers at Stanford University, Columbia University and the National Bureau of Economic Research, examined the impact of climate change on the global production of maize, wheat, rice and soybeans from 1980 to 2008. These are the four largest commodity crops and represent roughly 75 percent of the calories that humans directly or indirectly consume. Access to the report can be found at Climate Trends and Global Crop Production since 1980. The research is focused on temperature and precipitation changes over this period. A database of yield response models were developed to evaluate the impact of these climate trends on crop yields over the corresponding 1980 to 2008 time period. In addition, the positive yield impact of increased carbon dioxide levels was added to the analysis. Assessing the impact of past trends on agricultural crop yields will help project the impact of future trends on yields during coming decades. It will also help identify which agricultural regions will be impacted the most. Temperature Global average temperatures have risen by about 0.13 degrees Centigrade (.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since 1950. It is expected to increase to about 0.2 degrees Centigrade (.35 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade over the next two to three decades. The temperature increase in agriculture areas is expected to be substantially higher. In many agricultural locations, temperature trends increased and are more than twice the historic standard deviation, as shown in Figure 1. This includes Europe, Northern China, sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil. Sixty five percent of countries experienced temperature trends in crop production regions of at least one standard deviation for maize and rice. The corresponding percent of countries was 75 percent for wheat and 53 percent for soybeans. About a quarter of the countries experience trends of more than two standard deviations for each crop. By comparison, trends were evenly distributed about zero during the previous 20 year period (1960-1980). 1/ Linear trends for the growing season for the predominant crop in each grid cell. 2/ Trends are expressed as the ratio of the total trend for the 29 year period (1980-2008) divided by the historic standard deviation for the 1960-2000 period. 3/ Only cells with at least one percent of the area covered by either maize, wheat, rice or soybeans are shown. Precipitation Precipitation trends were less dramatic than temperature trends as shown in Figure 2. Modest increases or decreases in precipitation are evident in large parts of the world’s agricultural regions. Some parts of the world have experienced significant increases in precipitation while others have had significant decreases. However, when averaged, the effects of changes in growing season rainfall are near zero. Figure 2. Linear Trend in Precipitation, 1980-2008, measured in standard deviations 1/ 2/ 3/ 1/ Linear trends for the growing season for the predominant crop in each grid cell. 2/ Trends are expressed as the ratio of the total trend for the 29 year period (1980-2008) divided by the historic standard deviation for the 1960-2000 period. 3/ Only cells with at least one percent of the area covered by either maize, wheat, rice or soybeans are shown. Carbon Dioxide Increased levels of carbon dioxide have a positive impact on plant growth. A plant takes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) during the photosynthesis process, utilizes the carbon (C) to build the plant, and releases the oxygen (O2) back into the atmosphere. For many crops, the photosynthetic pathway allows the plant to respond to elevated levels of atmospheric CO2. These are referred to as C3 plants and include wheat, rice,

soybeans and most weeds. However, the photosynthetic pathway of C4 plants such as maize does not respond to elevated levels of CO2 , so the impact on yield is likely much smaller. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased by 47 parts per million (386 ppm less 339 ppm) over the 1980 to 2008 time period (Figure 3). Experiments of the impact of elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 indicated that the 47 ppm increase would increase the yields of C3 crops by approximately three percent. Figure 3. World Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Levels The affect of temperature and precipitation trends on the yields of maize, rice, wheat and soybeans is shown in Table 1. The impact on yields is greater for temperature than for precipitation. The greatest yield impact of temperature was on wheat followed by maize. When the three percent yield gain from elevated CO2 levels is added to wheat, soybeans and rice, the yield response for rice and soybeans become positive but remained negative for maize and wheat. Estimated changes in yields for maize, rice, wheat and soybeans for major producing countries are shown in Figure 4. The country with the largest impact was wheat production in Russia with an estimated negative yield impact of almost 15 percent. For the U.S., yield changes due to temperature and precipitation trends are negligible for maize, wheat and soybeans. This corresponds to the small temperature and precipitation trends shown in Figures 1 and 2. Yield impacts were smaller for rice than the other crops. The confidence intervals of the yield estimates were larger for soybeans than the other crops. Figure 4. Estimated net impact of climate trends from 1980 to 2008 on crop yields for major producing countries and for global production. Values are expressed as percent of average yields. A = Maize, B = Rice, C = Wheat, D = Soybeans. * Gray bars show median estimate and error bars show 5 percent to 95 percent confidence internal from bootstrap resampling with 500 replicates. Red and blue dots show median estimate of impact for temperature trend and precipitation trend, respectively. Note, the sum of the temperature (red dots) and precipitation (blue dots) estimates equals the total estimate shown by the gray bars. The researchers calculated the impact of the climate trends on global crop yields. Maize production would have been about six percent higher and wheat production about four percent higher had the climate trends since 1980 not existed . The effects on rice and soybeans were

lower and not statistically significant. The researchers also calculated the impact of climate trends on global crop prices using price elasticities. The estimated changes in crop production excluding and including carbon dioxide fertilization resulted in commodity price increases of about 20 percent and about 5 percent respectively. The analysis does not take into account the potentially mitigating impact of crop production climate adaptation strategies currently taking place such as where crops are grown and how crops are grow (seed varieties, planting dates, etc.) Some adaptations strategies are already taking place in the U.S. Midwest. However, it also does not take into account the negative impact of the increased occurrence of extreme weather events associated with global warming. An increase in the frequency of extreme weather events has been documented in the U.S. Midwest (Climate Change in Iowa). Implications To meet this expanding world demand, agriculture must become more adept at anticipating climate trends and finding ways of adapting to these changes. The research report shows that the impact of temperature on crop yields is a larger factor than the impact of precipitation. This would indicate that adaptation strategies should focus more on temperature changes than on precipitation changes. The research report concluded that North America is the agricultural region least impacted by temperature and precipitation changes. The U.S. already accounts for about forty percent of the world’s production of corn and soybeans and a substantial portion of the world’s wheat. The U.S. share may increase if these patterns persist and the rest of the world is increasingly challenged by temperature increases. It will have significant implications for the world grain trade and the role of the U.S. in feeding the world. Most of the increase in agricultural production over the last century is the result of yield increases rather than agricultural land area expansion. However, due to the world’s rapidly growing demand for food and the negative yield impact of climate change on food production, there will be great pressure to expand the world’s agricultural land area. Expanding the agricultural land area may significantly increase carbon dioxide emissions due to the release of carbon from converting native areas to farmland as discussed in Agricultural Research Combats Climate Change. Increased investments in agricultural research in the U. S. and across the world is needed to meet the challenge of world food production. However, this must be combined with programs to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the long run, agricultural research will not be able to compensate for the devastating effects of climate change on world agricultural production.

Anthropogenic

Best compilation of scientific data proves consensus – warming is real and anthropogenic.Cook et al 5/15 – Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, Australia (John, “Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature”, 5/15/13; < http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf/1748-9326_8_2_024024.pdf>)//BeddowAn accurate perception of the degree of scientific consensus is an essential element to public support for climate policy (Ding et al 2011 ). Communicating the scientific consensus also increases people’s acceptance that climate change (CC) is happening (Lewandowsky et al 2012 ). Despite numerous indicators of a consensus, there is wide public

perception that climate scientists disagree over the fundamental cause of global warming (GW; Leiserowitz et al 2012 , Pew 2012 ). In the most comprehensive analysis performed to date , we have extended the analysis of peer-reviewed climate papers in Oreskes ( 2004 ). We examined a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC, published over a 21 year period, in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW). Surveys of climate scientists have found strong agreement (97–98%) regarding AGW amongst publishing climate experts (Doran and Zimmerman 2009 , Anderegg et al 2010 ). Repeated surveys of scientists found that scientific agreement about AGW steadily increased from 1996 to 2009 (Bray 2010 ). This is reflected in the increasingly definitive statements issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on

the attribution of recent GW (Houghton et al 1996 , 2001 , Solomon et al 2007 ). The peer-reviewed scientific literature provides a ground- level assessment of the degree of consensus among publishing scientists. An analysis of abstracts published from 1993–2003 matching the search ‘global climate change’ found that none of 928 papers disagreed with the consensus position on AGW (Oreskes 2004 ). This is consistent with an analysis of citation networks that found a consensus on AGW forming in the early 1990s (Shwed and Bearman 2010 ). Despite these independent indicators of a scientific consensus, the perception of the US public is that the scientific community still disagrees over the fundamental cause of GW. From 1997 to 2007, public opinion polls have indicated around 60% of the US public believes there is significant disagreement among scientists about whether GW was happening (Nisbet and Myers 2007 ). Similarly, 57% of the US public either disagreed or were unaware that scientists agree that the earth is very likely warming due to human activity (Pew 2012 ). Through analysis of climate-related papers published from 1991 to 2011, this study provides the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date in order to quantify and evaluate the level and evolution of consensus over the last two decades.

BadTerry Deibel, a professor of foreign affairs strategy at the National War College for more than three decades, says

Deibel 7 — International Relations @ Naval War College (Terry, "Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic of American Statecraft," Conclusion: American Foreign Affairs Strategy Today)

“Finally, there is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a nonviolent nature, which, though far in the future, demands urgent action. It is the threat of global warming to the stability of the climate upon which all earthly life depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing the gathering of this threat for three decades now, and what was once a mere possibility has passed through probability to near certainty. Indeed not one of more than 900 articles on climate change published in refereed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is occurring. “In legitimate scientific circles,” writes Elizabeth Kolbert, “it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming.” Evidence from a vast international scientific monitoring effort accumulates almost weekly, as this sample of

newspaper reports shows: an international panel predicts “brutal droughts, floods and violent storms across the planet

over the next century”; climate change could “literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions of Alpine

Snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria”; “glaciers in the Antarctic and in Greenland are melting much faster

than expected, and…worldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier than a decade ago”; “ rising sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes ” ; “NASA scientists have concluded from direct temperature measurements that 2005 was the hottest year on record, with 1998 a close second”; “Earth’s warming climate is estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year” as disease spreads; “widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidad…killed broad swaths of corals” due to a 2-degree rise in sea temperatures. “The world is slowly disintegrating,” concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. “They call it climate change…but we just call it breaking up.” From the founding of the first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained relatively constant at about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present they are accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way immediately to reduce levels, only to slow their increase, we are thus in for significant global warming; the only debate is how much and how serous the effects will be. As the newspaper stories quoted above show, we are already experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread of disease, mass die offs of plants and animals, species extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying countries like the Pacific nation of Kiribati and the Netherlands […] at a warming of 5 degrees or less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20 feet that would cover North Carolina’s outer banks, swamp the southern third of Florida, and inundate Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village. Another catastrophic effect would be the collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter weather in Europe far warmer than its latitude would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate levels of warming at 1-6 percent of GDP annually; severe warming could cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most frightening scenario is runaway greenhouse warming, based on positive feedback from the buildup of water vapor in the atmosphere that is both caused by and causes hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated with only 5-10 degree changes in average global temperatures, took place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring ever-increasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced with this specter, the best one can conclude is that “humankind’s continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing Russian roulette with the earth’s climate and humanity’s life support system. At worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York University, “we’re just going to burn everything up; we’re going to het the atmosphere to the temperature it was in the Cretaceous when there were crocodiles at the poles, and then everything will collapse.” During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized a theory of nuclear winter to describe how a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union would not only destroy both countries but possible end life on this planet. Global warming is the post-Cold War era’s equivalent of nuclear winter at least as serious and considerably better supported scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers form terrorism and traditional military challenges to shame. It is a threat not only to the security and prosperity to the United States, but potentially to the continued existence of life on this planet.”

CO2

CO2 does cause warming – their authors are deluded and ignore empirics.Nuccitelli 12 - Environmental scientist, MA in physics and climate researcher (Dana, “New Research Confirms Global Warming Has

Accelerated” 4/9/12 < http://www.skepticalscience.com/new-research-confirms-global-warming-has-accelerated.html>)//BeddowEarth’s climate has varied widely over its history, from ice ages characterised by large ice sheets covering many land areas, to warm periods with no ice at the poles. Several factors have affected past climate change, including solar variability, volcanic activity and changes in the composition of the atmosphere. Data from Antarctic ice cores reveals an interesting story for the past 400,000 years. During this period, CO2 and temperatures are closely correlated, which means they rise and fall together. However, based on Antarctic ice core data, changes in CO2 follow changes in temperatures by about 600 to 1000 years, as illustrated in Figure 1 below. This has led some to conclude that CO2 simply cannot be responsible for current global warming. This statement does not tell the whole story. The initial changes in temperature during this period are explained by changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun, which affects the amount of seasonal sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. In the case of warming, the lag between temperature and CO2 is explained as follows: as ocean temperatures rise, oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere. In turn, this release amplifies the warming trend, leading to yet more CO2 being released. In other words, increasing CO2 levels become both the cause and effect of further warming. This positive feedback is necessary to trigger the shifts between glacials and interglacials as the effect of orbital changes is too weak to cause such variation. Additional positive feedbacks which play an important role in this process include other greenhouse gases, and changes in ice sheet cover and vegetation patterns. A 2012 study by Shakun et al. looked at temperature changes 20,000 years ago (the last glacial-interglacial transition) from around the world and added more detail to our understanding of the CO2-temperature change relationship. They found that: The Earth's orbital cycles trigger the initial warming (starting approximately 19,000 years ago), which is first reflected in the Arctic. This Arctic warming caused large amounts of ice to melt, causing large amounts of fresh water to flood into the oceans. This influx of fresh water then disrupted the Atlantic Ocean circulation, in turn causing a seesawing of heat between the hemispheres. The Southern Hemisphere and its oceans warmed first, starting about 18,000 years ago. The warming Southern Ocean then released CO2 into the atmosphere starting around 17,500 years ago, which in turn caused the entire planet to warm via the increased greenhouse effect. Overall, about 90% of the global warming occurred after the CO2 increase (Figure 2).

Help push out coal

SMR’s K2 push out coal—they solve the barriers to a nuclear renaissanceShellenberger 12 – et al and Ted Nordhaus—co-founders of American Environics and the Breakthrough Institute a think tank that works on energy and climate change – AND – Jesse Jenkins-Director of Energy and Climate Policy, the Breakthrough Institute (Michael, Why We Need Radical Innovation to Make New Nuclear Energy Cheap, September 11, 2012, http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/new-nukes/)//ADArguably, the biggest impact of Fukushima on the nuclear debate, ironically, has been to force a growing number of pro-nuclear environmentalists out of the closet, including us.

The reaction to the accident by anti-nuclear campaigners and many Western publics put a fine point on the gross misperception of risk that informs so much anti-nuclear fear. Nuclear remains the only proven technology capable of reliably generating zero-carbon energy at a scale that can have any impact on global warming. Climate change -- and , for that matter, the enormous present-day health risks associated with burning coal , oil, and gas -- simply dwarf any legitimate risk associated with the operation of nuclear power plants.

About 100,000 people die every year due to exposure to air pollutants from the burning of coal . By contrast, about 4,000 people have died from nuclear energy -- ever -- almost entirely due to Chernobyl. But rather than simply lecturing our fellow environmentalists about their misplaced priorities, and how profoundly inadequate present-day renewables are as substitutes

for fossil energy, we would do better to take seriously the real obstacles standing in the way of a serious nuclear renaissance. Many of these obstacles have nothing to do with the fear-mongering of the anti-nuclear movement or, for that matter, the regulatory hurdles imposed

by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and similar agencies around the world. As long as nuclear technology is characterized by enormous upfront capital costs, it is likely to remain just a hedge against overdependence on lower-cost coal and

gas, not the wholesale replacement it needs to be to make a serious dent in climate change. Developing countries need large plants capable of bringing large amounts of new power to their fast-growing economies. But they also need power to be cheap . So long as coal remains the cheapest source of electricity in the developing world, it is likely to remain king. The most worrying threat to the future of nuclear isn't the political fallout from Fukushima -- it's economic reality. Even as new nuclear plants are built in the developing world, old plants are being retired in the developed world. For example, Germany's plan to phase-out nuclear simply relies on allowing existing plants to be shut down when they reach the ends of their lifetime. Given the size and cost of new conventional plants today, those plants are unlikely to be replaced with new ones. As such, the combined political and economic constraints associated with current nuclear energy technologies mean that nuclear energy's share of global energy generation is unlikely to grow in the coming decades, as global energy

demand is likely to increase faster than new plants can be deployed. To move the needle on nuclear energy to the point that it might actually be capable of

displacing fossil fuels, we'll need new nuclear technologies that are cheaper and smaller . Today, there are a

range of nascent, smaller nuclear power plant designs , some of them modifications of the current light-water reactor technologies used on

submarines, and others, like thorium fuel and fast breeder reactors, which are based on entirely different nuclear fission technologies. S maller, m odular r eactor s

can be built much faster and cheaper than traditional large-scale nuclear power plants . Next - gen eration nuclear reactors are designed to be incapable of melting down, produce drastically less radioactive waste , make it very difficult or impossible to produce weapons grade material, use less water, and require less maintenance . Most of these designs still face substantial technical hurdles before they will be ready for commercial demonstration. That means a great deal of research and innovation will be necessary to make these next generation plants viable and capable of displacing coal and gas. The United States could be a leader on developing these technologies, but unfortunately U.S. nuclear policy remains mostly stuck in the past. Rather than creating new solutions, efforts to restart the U.S. nuclear industry have mostly focused on encouraging utilities to build the next generation of large, light-water reactors with loan guarantees and various other subsidies and regulatory fixes. With a few exceptions, this is largely true elsewhere around the world as well. Nuclear has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress for more than 60 years, but the enthusiasm is running out. The Obama administration deserves credit for authorizing funding for two small modular reactors, which will be built at the Savannah River site in South Carolina. But a much more sweeping reform of U.S. nuclear energy policy is required. At present, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission haslittle institutional knowledge of anything other than light-water reactors and virtually no capability to review or regulate alternative designs. This affects nuclear innovation in other countries as well, since the NRC remains, despite its many critics, the global gold standard for thorough regulation of nuclear energy. Most other countries follow the NRC's lead when it comes to establishing new technical and operational standards for the design, construction, and operation of

nuclear plants. What's needed now is a new national commitment to the development, testing, demonstration , and early stage commercialization of a broad range of new nuclear technologies -- from much smaller light-water reactors to next generation ones -- in search of a few designs that can be mass produced and deployed at a significantly lower cost than current designs. This will require both greater public support for nuclear innovation and an entirely different regulatory framework to review and approve new commercial designs. In the meantime, developing countries will continue to build traditional, large nuclear power plants. But time is of the essence. With the lion's share of future carbon emissions coming from those emerging economic powerhouses, the need to develop smaller and cheaper designs that can scale faster is all the more important. A true nuclear renaissance can't happen overnight. And it won't happen so long as large and expensive light-water

reactors remain our only option. But in the end, there is no credible path to mitigating climate change without a

massive global expansion of nuclear energy . If you care about climate change, nothing is more important than developing the nuclear technologies we will need to get that job done .

India-China

China and India’s relationship is very rocky—there are tensions even nowMascarenhas 13 (Hyacinth 5/1/13, India China Border Dispute: Will the Asian Giants Come to Blows, http://www.policymic.com/articles/39591/india-china-border-dispute-will-the-asian-giants-come-to-blows)

Two weeks ago, India's military officials accused China of moving into disputed territory near the countries' de facto border in the Himalayas and setting up camp six miles into Indian territory, resulting in a renewed border dispute between the two Asian neighbors. Although Beijing and New Delhi have maintained that they do not want the disagreement to escalate and threaten their relationship,

China's Foreign Ministry said last week that its troops "never trespassed the line," according to a Washington Post article. ¶ Now entering its third week, the standoff may threaten to disrupt new Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Delhi later this month , a trip

that promised to be a hopeful sign of change in relations between the two rivals.¶ According to the Christian Science Monitor, three rounds of "flag talks" between local military commanders and negotiations between the countries failed to resolve the situation so far. Indian officials have claimed that the Chinese unit has also been “reinforced and resupplied.” The border line separating China and India, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), has remained a source of conflict between the countries. It also resulted in a brief 1962 border war where Indian forces were defeated. ¶ Both governments are trying their best to downplay the dispute and prevent it from escalating further into armed conflict.¶ "China and India are wise and capable enough to handle the existing differences...while boosting friendly cooperation," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, according to a Christian Science Monitor article. ¶ Calling the incursion a "localized problem," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has maintained that talks are going on to resolve the problem and not "accentuate the situation."¶ Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid described the conflict as “acne” that can be cured “by simply applying an ointment” on Thursday. Khurshid is also scheduled to leave for Beijing on May 9. ¶ India's governing Congress Party's political opponents, together with a growing number of political analysts and commentators, have criticized the government's response to the issue, calling them "cowardly, incompetent, and good for nothing."¶ While laced with tension, the long border has seen its fair share of similar disputes involving stealthy strategies. "Since the border has never been officially delineated, both sides have different perceptions of the Line of Actual Control and both sides send out patrols...some unexpected incidents are natural," said Lan Jianxue, an India expert at the China Institute of International Studies, in a CS Monitor article. ¶ While trade relations

between the two countries have continued to blossom, border relations remain uncertain. As diplomatic negotiations continue between the Asian giants, each country's approach to the alleged incursion, whether passive or aggressive, could be the defining dynamic. The mutual failure to clearly demarcate the border could further delay a resolution and increase chances of similar conflicts in the future. ¶ Whether or not the situation will move towards armed conflict is still unclear. The potential to do so, however, is still looming. Still stinging from the 1962 war, many in India insist on a more aggressive stance to protect Indian

interests. "There is pressure on the Indian army to do something tit-for-tat," said Dr. Binod Singh, an Indian academic at

Peking University’s South Asian Studies Center. "If that happens, who knows what kind of unfortunate event we might see."

China-India war causes extinctionCaldicott 2 (Helen, Founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex, p. x)[Backfile Check]//LAThe use of Pakistani nuclear weapons could trigger a chain reaction. Nuclear-armed India, an ancient enemy, could respond in kind. China, India's hated foe, could react if India used her nuclear weapons, triggering a nuclear holocaust on the subcontinent. If any of either Russia or America's 2,250 strategic weapons on hair-trigger alert were launched either accidentally or purposefully in response, nuclear winter would ensue, meaning the end of most life on earth.

Solvency

Nuclear tech solves warming – decreases reliance on carbon based sources.WNA 7 (World Nuclear Association, Nuclear Energy: Meeting the Climate Change Challenge¶ , IPCC, 4th Assessment Report, Mitigation of Climate Change (2007), http://www.world-nuclear.org/climatechange/nuclear_meetingthe_climatechange_challenge.html)Over the next twenty five years global electricity demand is expected to double. By the middle of the 21st century that demand could be three or four times larger than that of today. Growth is inevitable and necessary, as the world economy evolves and countries seek to improve the quality of life of their citizens. Meeting the increasing demand for electricity will require a mix of energy resources, with

low or non-emitting sources, including nuclear power, taking a n increasingly predominant role . Nuclear

energy already makes a substantial environmental contribution to generating electricity. Today nuclear power plants [currently] operating in over thirty countries produce 15% of the world’s electricity, avoid ing the emission of over two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. This saving equals more than 20% of global CO2 emissions from power generation . Extensive studies have shown that the full lifecycle emissions from nuclear power are similar to most forms of renewable generation, and many times lower than electricity generation from fossil fuels. Nuclear technologies can be used in areas other than the generation of clean low carbon electricity. A number of nuclear reactors have already been used to power desalination plant, a role that will become increasingly important as the world’s water resources become scarcer. Nuclear technologies can also be able to reduce emissions in the transport sector by providing electricity to recharge battery - powered vehicles or by producing hydrogen for fuel cells . Nuclear power plant designed to generate high temperature heat will be able supply process heat, enabling industry to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.

Nuclear power key to solving global warming—new technologies make fission safer and more efficientWilliams 13, Arthur Williams is a condensed-matter theorist, retired from IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center after 30 years there. Watson is located near the Indian Point nuclear-power facility. Living and working near Indian Point continues to motivate him to learn about the issues surrounding nuclear power. He is now a registered and practicing patent agent.(04/08/13, “Nuclear power: The only available solution to global warming”; http://www.physicstoday.org/daily_edition/points_of_view/nuclear_power_the_only_available_solution_to_global_warming#bio, jj)

Global warming, energy independence, water scarcity and third-world economic growth are all

amenable to a common, safe, clean, cost-competitive and field-tested nuclear solution. Why isn’t this solution universally embraced and implemented?¶ I suggest two reasons. First, we humans respond much more strongly to dramatic events, like earthquakes, violent weather and terrorist acts, than we do to steady-state threats, such as auto accidents, medical errors and coal particles. At a cost of $4 trillion, we started two wars in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 that killed 2996. The death tolls in the US from auto accidents (30 000), medical errors (44 000–200 000), and coal dust (13 000) are not only higher, but also perennial. The gradual character of carbon dioxide emissions and global warming is elevating our “boiling frog” tendencies to an entirely new scale of danger . Although the problem may not excite us, our pot is warming so quickly that we must leap to survive. A measure of the magnitude and urgency of this challenge can be found in Bill Gates’ summary of his wonderful TED lecture on this topic: Despite the time, effort and money he has devoted to new vaccines and seeds, if he could be granted a single wish for the coming decades, it would be for a practical, CO2-free energy source. That explicit prioritization reflects his awareness of an especially unfortunate feature of warming, that its burden falls most heavily on the politically voiceless poor, and less heavily on those with the means to address the challenge. The disparity adds to our inertia.¶ The second reason lies in deeply entrenched myths (which for my purposes I shall define as untruths breeding complacency), rooted in unrealistically high expectations for renewable energy and unrealistically negative expectations for nuclear power. Criticism of nuclear power focuses on history and ignores dramatic advances in fission technology. This incomplete picture gives rise to myths that conflict directly with the assertions of Gates and of John Parmentola, the US army's director of research and laboratory management: that nuclear fission is the only “practical” solution in view.¶ The remainder of this essay comments on Gates’ criteria for “practicality,” and examines the factors of availability, reliability, cost, scale, safety, proliferation and

waste. The good news is that new fission technologies make fission clean, safe ,

competitively inexpensive, and resistant to terrorism . Moreover, they solve the nuclear-waste challenge. One technology claims to reduce the high-level waste output of a typical power plant from 20 tons per year to a few kilograms . American startups are pursuing commercialization, but much of the action is in other countries, notably China and India.¶ Gates and Parmentola also emphasize the urgency for halting CO2 emissions. In my view, the following six widespread and paralyzing myths must be addressed.¶ Myth #1: Wind and solar can do it¶ Renewable sources, like wind, solar, and tide, emit no CO2, and that’s undeniably good. While the discussion of renewables often focuses on cost, it is power density and intermittency that conspire with cost to prevent these technologies from providing adequate solutions.¶ As Gates puts it, technologies for renewable energy represent energy farming. Because the intrinsic power density of renewable sources is orders of magnitude lower than that of hydrocarbons and nuclear processes, large tracts of land are required to reap even modest quantities of power.¶ Even if large tracts of land, such as those in the Sahara or the American Southwest, are

employed, the electricity produced is inherently intermittent, and must be stored and transported. For example, Gates estimates that all the world’s existing batteries can store only about 10 minutes of electricity consumption. Also, because land is not available near population centers, transport such as high-tension towers must be provided.¶ While the relative cost of renewable sources is improving, cost still represents a disadvantage of several hundred percent that has been compensated by government subsidies. Subsidies might continue, but as Hargraves emphasizes in his extensively researched book, Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, the prospects for eliminating CO2 emissions are greatly improved if the alternative power source is cheaper than hydrocarbons. The high energy density and availability of coal make it misleadingly attractive. Hargraves concludes that at least one of the next-generation breed-and-burn fission technologies can produce electricity for about $0.03/kWh, making it cost-competitive, even with coal. The intrinsic safety and relative simplicity of the coming generation of breed-and-burn fission reactors makes them significantly less expensive than those of the present generation.¶ Myth #2: Nuclear is unsafe¶ There are two safety issues in the context of nuclear power: meltdown and terrorism. Both are essentially eliminated by next-generation fission technologies .¶ Concerns raised by incidents at Three Mile

Island and Chernobyl were seriously aggravated by recent events at Fukushima. Such dangers are not intrinsic to fission, but stem from military priorities favoring fuel rods comprised of metal-clad ceramics. Ceramics conduct heat poorly, and active cooling (powered externally) is required to prevent overheating, melting and rupture of the cladding. Molten-salt reactors are qualitatively different. First, the exploiting the molten state leads to an inherently

safe reactor design, since no additional melting is possible. More specifically, the far superior thermal conductivity of molten salt eliminates the need for active cooling. At any time and without any external power, the reactor can be drained, by gravity, into a subterranean vessel in which passive cooling suffices. Such reactors are termed “walk-away” safe. A molten-salt reactor ran successfully and without incident at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for four years.¶ High-

level wastes produced by fission are unavoidable, but they are only a tiny fraction of what we call nuclear waste. The complete burning of nuclear fuel in molten-salt reactors provides all the benefits of reprocessing, which has permitted France, for example, to produce about 80% of its electricity from fission for decades, without theft of fissile material by terrorists, although Greenpeace did block a plutonium shipment. Because next-generation reactors integrate breeding and burning into a single process, fissile material does not exist outside the reactor, where it is both hot and diluted, thereby reducing the risk of theft significantly below even that of reprocessing.¶ Myth #3: Nuclear waste remains an unsolved problem¶ As the term “breed-and-burn” suggests, next-generation fission technologies are related to and provide the benefits of reprocessing. An independent benefit of molten-salt technologies is that the fissile material can remain in the reactor until it is completely consumed, thereby producing dramatically less waste. In today’s solid-fuel reactors the fuel is clad in metals that can tolerate only a limited amount of neutron bombardment, necessitating removal of the fuel long before it is fully consumed. This distinction is the basis of the claim by the MIT-based startup, Transatomic Power, that waste production can be reduced from tons to kilograms, increasing by a factor of 30 the energy obtained from a given quantity of fuel. Refueling frequency is also reduced in molten-salt reactors by the continuous removal of neutron-absorbing xenon, whose accumulation in solid-fuel reactors also reduces the time that fuel can remain in the reactor. ¶ A bonus, but not a surprise, given the connection between breed-and-burn reactors and reprocessing, is that some new reactors can consume existing nuclear waste—both depleted and spent fuel. In this way, next-generation fission can solve the waste problem created by present-generation fission . ¶ Myth #4:

Fission may provide electricity, but it neither fuels transportation nor provides clean water¶ Fission produces cheap heat, which is broadly useful. In the present context, the cost-effective heat produced by fission is symbiotic with two highly developed

technologies that address two of our most critical challenges, CO2-free transportation and seawater desalination . ¶ Transportation consumes a large fraction of the energy budget. Its fractional share is approaching that of industry, which is about twice that of both residential and commercial energy consumption. Since fission reactors are unlikely to be placed in cars and trucks, in what sense can fission contribute to CO2-free transportation? The answer is the synthesis of ammonia. NH3 synthesis is among the most promising exploitations of heat from fission. NH3 can be viewed as an especially effective medium for hydrogen storage and delivery. The infrastructure

for NH3 production and distribution is already widespread. NH3 has about half the energy content by weight of gasoline, but its much lower cost gives it a price-performance advantage. Most importantly, NH3 burns to form air and water:¶ 4NH3 + 3O2 = 2N2 + 6H2O¶ Fission also offers a choice between electrically powered reverse osmosis and traditional distillation as means to produce potable water. Distillation can use fission-produced heat directly, whereas reverse osmosis is very energy demanding, and can use fission-produced electricity. Either way, the value of potable water is rising rapidly, and will benefit directly from cheap clean power.¶ Myth #5: Nuclear installations are large, expensive and problematic to site¶ The greater efficiency of molten-salt reactors makes them smaller for a given capacity. More importantly, they operate at atmospheric pressure, which eliminates both the threat of explosion and the need for a large containment structure, the visual signature of today’s fission plants. In combination with the pervasive relative simplicity of molten-fuel reactors, elimination of the containment structure renders molten-salt facilities relatively small and inexpensive. Such reactors also lend themselves to factory manufacture, further reducing their cost. The original molten-fuel reactor was intended to power airplanes. In the present context, the efficiency, reduced size, and guaranteed safety of next-generation fission plants combine to reduce the NIMBY (not in my backyard) resistance to their siting. ¶ Myth #6: Nuclear requires lengthy

development (new game changer needed) ¶ Writing in the February 2013 issue of Physics Today, John Parmentola called for the invention of a game-changing fission technology. Correspondingly, Gates calls for hundreds of startups pursuing different variations on the common theme. Gates is involved with one such company, TerraPower, which will commercialize an innovative solid-fuel breed-and-burn technology.¶ The call for startups and game changers reveals the great irony of this context: that arguably the most promising of the breed-and-burn technologies is not at all new. As mentioned above, the molten-salt thorium reactor was developed at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, where it ran successfully for four years.¶ A measure of the significance of the Oak Ridge effort is the conviction and enthusiasm of the Oak Ridge lab director, Alvin Weinberg. His zeal for the intrinsic safety and other virtues of the molten-salt reactor, now called LFTR (lithium-fluoride thorium reactor), was not politically welcome, and led to his firing by President Nixon in 1973. Weinberg devoted the rest of his life to the promotion of LFTR; the Weinberg Foundation continues his mission.¶ A contemporary proponent of LFTR, Kirk Sorensen, leads the startup Flibe, which is focused on LFTR commercialization. The MIT-based startup Transatomic Power recently won an ARPA-E competition as part of its efforts to commercialize a LFTR-related technology that will burn “spent” fuel or uranium, at least initially.¶ Where the action is¶ As David Kramer reported in the November 2012 issue of Physics Today, enthusiasm for nuclear power has waned in the US. The Fukushima events have led to similar declines in Japan and Germany. Fortunately for the world, others are moving forward; consider fission facilities in China:¶ 14 operational¶ 27 under construction¶ 51 planned¶ 120 proposed¶ 212 total¶ The central

assertion here echoes that of both Gates and Parmentola: nuclear fission is the only known technology capable of bringing CO2 emissions under control . My hope is that greater

awareness of the benefits promised by coming fission technologies will debunk the myths currently stalling public and private investment, and reverse the unfortunate trend in the US, Japan and Germany.

AT: Cooling Cycle

That just makes it more important to pass the plan now—cutting emissions during cooling cycles is keyHarris 13— Journalist for national public radio, citing a study by Shang-Ping Xie and Yu Kosaka, professors at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California (Harris, Richard. "A Cooler Pacific May Be Behind Recent Pause In Global Warming." NPR, 29 Aug. 2013, http://www.npr.org/2013/08/29/216415005/a-cooler-pacific-may-be-behind-recent-pause-in-global-warming)//ADA study in the journal Nature could help explain why the Earth's average temperature hasn't increased during the past 15 years — despite a long-term trend of global warming. The Earth's average temperature has risen by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. But the temperature rise has not been moving in lock step with the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide —

mainly from burning fossil fuels — traps heat in the air. Now scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have more evidence that this global "pause" has to do with conditions in the Pacific Ocean. "We started the study trying to resolve several contradictions," says Shang-Ping Xie . He and a colleague asked why the average global temperature has bucked its long-term upward trend. They also set out to explain why — even during this hiatus —

there has been record melting of ice in the Arctic Ocean, and why there have been many new summertime heat records. Xie says he can explain a lot of that simply by looking at what's been happening in the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean. Waters there have been relatively cool, and that means the ocean can take up more heat than usual. "It's gaining extra heat during the past 15 years, and that heat is being stored" in the deep ocean , he says. There's no

telling how long this cool phase will persist. But the previous Pacific cool phase, which started in the 1940s, lasted about 30 years. It can't last forever; the ocean will eventually return to a warm phase, "and when that happens, we will be seeing unprecedented rates of climate warming," he says. Not only will we get the natural heat wave, but on top of that we'll also get all the warming from greenhouse gases that have been building up during this cold

cycle. Xie says he can also explain the continuing summer heat records and melting Arctic ice. It turns out that the plateau in average global temperatures is mostly the result of lower

temperatures during the wintertime. That drags down the average, "but if you go to the summer season, actually the global mean temperature has kept rising for the past 15 years," he says. "That allows heat waves to set records, and it allows the Arctic Ocean to melt at a record pace." In fact, when he runs a computer simulation that includes the cooling of the Pacific Ocean, he also sees a seasonal pattern that matches the real world ups and downs.

AT: Ice Age

No Ice Age now – empirics.Blackburn 10 – Environmental Policy and BSc in Environmental Biology, climate scientist (Anne-Marie, “How we know an ice age isn’t just around the corner”, 9/1/10; < http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-we-know-an-ice-age-isnt-just-around-the-corner.html>)//BeddowAccording to ice cores from Antarctica, the past 400,000 years have been dominated by glacials, also known as ice ages, that last about 100,000 years. These glacials have been punctuated by interglacials, short warm periods which typically last 11,500 years. Figure 1 below shows how temperatures in Antarctica changed over this period. Because our current interglacial (the Holocene) has already lasted approximately 12,000 years, it has led some to claim that a new ice age is imminent. Is this a valid claim? To

answer this question, it is necessary to understand what has caused the shifts between ice ages and interglacials during this period. The cycle appears to be a response to changes in the Earth’s orbit and tilt , which affect the amount of summer sunlight

reaching the northern hemisphere. When this amount declines, the rate of summer melt declines and the ice sheets begin to grow. In turn, this increases the amount of sunlight reflected back into space, increasing (or amplifying) the cooling

trend. Eventually a new ice age emerges and lasts for about 100,000 years. So what are today’s conditions like? Changes in both the orbit and tilt of the Earth do indeed indicate that the Earth should be cooling. However, two reasons explain why an ice age is unlikely: These two factors, orbit and tilt, are weak and are not acting within the same timescale – they are out of phase by about 10,000 years. This means that their combined

effect would probably be too weak to trigger an ice age. You have to go back 430,000 years to find an interglacial with

similar conditions, and this interglacial lasted about 30,000 years. The warming effect from CO2 and other greenhouse gases is greater than the cooling effect expected from natural factors. Without human interference, the Earth’s orbit

and tilt, a slight decline in solar output since the 1950s and volcanic activity would have led to global cooling. Yet global temperatures are definitely on the rise . It can therefore be concluded that with CO2 concentrations set to continue

to rise, a return to ice age conditions seems very unlikely. Instead, temperatures are increasing and this increase may come at a considerable cost with few or no benefits.

AT: Iron Acidification

Doesn’t solve ocean acidification and releases methane.IPCC 07 – (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Ocean Fertilization and Other Geo-Engineering Options”, 2007; http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch11s11-2-2.html)//BeddowIron fertilization of the oceans may be a strategy for removing CO2 from the atmosphere. The idea is that it stimulates the growth of phytoplankton and therefore sequesters CO2 in the form of particulate organic carbon (POC). There have been eleven field studies in different ocean regions with the primary aim of examining the impact of iron as a limiting nutrient for phytoplankton by the addition of small quantities (1–10 tonnes) of iron sulphate to the surface ocean. In addition, commercial tests are being pursued with the combined (and conflicting) aims of increasing ocean carbon sequestration and productivity. It should be noted, however, that iron addition will only stimulate phytoplankton growth in ~30% of the oceans (the Southern Ocean, the equatorial Pacific and the Sub-Arctic Pacific), where iron depletion prevails. Only two experiments to date (Buesseler and Boyd, 2003) have reported on the second phase, the sinking and vertical transport of the increased phytoplankton biomass to depths below the main thermocline (>120m). The efficiency of sequestration of the phytoplankton carbon is low (<10%), with the biomass being largely recycled back to CO2 in the upper water column (Boyd et al., 2004). This suggests

that the field-study estimates of the actual carbon sequestered per unit iron (and per dollar) are over-estimates. The cost of large-scale and long-term fertilization will also be offset by CO2 release/emission during the acquisition, transportation and release of large volumes of iron in remote oceanic regions. Potential negative effects of iron fertilization include the increased production of methane and nitrous oxide, deoxygenation of intermediate waters and changes in phytoplankton community composition that may cause toxic blooms and/or promote changes further along the food chain. None of these effects have been directly identified in experiments to date, partly due to the time and space constraints.

Deoxygenation and and toxic blooms would kill off sea life—this cuts biodiversity

Biodiversity is critical, the negative effects of the CP mean you vote affRaj 12 (Dr. P.J. Sanjeeva Raj, consultant ecologist and the Professor and Head of the Zoology Department of the Madras Christian College (MCC), “Beware the loss of biodiversity”, September 23, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/beware-the-loss-of-biodiversity/article3927062.ece) Professor Edward O. Wilson, Harvard visionary of biodiversity, observes that the current rate of

biodiversity loss is perhaps the highest since the loss of dinosaurs about 65 million years ago during the Mesozoic era, when

humans had not appeared. He regrets that if such indiscriminate annihilation of all biodiversity from the face of the

earth happens for anthropogenic reasons, as has been seen now, it is sure to force humanity into an

emotional shock and trauma of loneliness and helplessness on this planet. He believes that the current wave of biodiversity loss is sure

to lead us into an age that may be appropriately called the “Eremozoic Era, the Age of Loneliness.” Loss of biodiversity is a much greater threat to human survival than even [and] climate

change. Both could act, synergistically too, to escalate human extinction faster.

Biodiversity is so indispensable for human survival that the U nited N ations General Assembly has

designated the decade 2011- 2020 as the ‘Biodiversity Decade’ with the chief objective of enabling

humans to live peaceably or harmoniously with nature and its biodiversity. We should be happy that during October 1-19, 2012, XI

Conference of Parties (CoP-11), a global mega event on biodiversity, is taking place in Hyderabad, when delegates from 193 party countries are expected to meet. They will review the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which was originally introduced at the Earth Summit or the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is the nodal agency for CoP-

11. Today, India is one of the 17 mega-diverse (richest biodiversity) countries. Biodiversity provides all basic needs for our healthy survival —

oxygen, food, medicines, fibre, fuel, energy, fertilizers, fodder and waste-disposal, etc. Fast vanishing

honeybees, dragonflies, bats, frogs, house sparrows, filter (suspension)-feeder oysters and all

keystone species are causing great economic loss as well as posing an imminent threat to human

peace and survival. The three-fold biodiversity mission before us is to inventorise the existing biodiversity, conserve it, and, above all, equitably share the sustainable benefits out of it.

AT: Too Late

It’s not too late—every reduction mattersNuccitelli 12-Is an environmental scientist at a private environmental consulting firm in the Sacramento, California area. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in astrophysics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Master’s Degree in physics from the University of California at Davis. He has been researching climate science, economics, and solutions as a hobby since 2006 (Dana, “Realistically What Might The Future Climate Look Like?”, Think progress, September 1, 2012, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/01/784931/realistically-what-might-the-future-climate-look-like/)//ADWe’re not yet committed to surpassing 2°C global warming, but as Watson noted, we are quickly running out of time to realistically give ourselves a chance to stay below that ‘danger limit’. However, 2°C is not a do-or-die threshold. Every bit of CO2 emissions we can reduce means that much avoided future warming, which means that much avoided climate change impacts . As Lonnie Thompson noted, the more global warming we manage to mitigate, the less adaption and suffering we will be forced to cope with in the future. Realistically, based on the current political climate (which

we will explore in another post next week), limiting global warming to 2°C is probably the best we can do. However, there is a big difference between 2°C and 3°C, between 3°C and 4°C, and anything greater than 4°C can probably accurately be described as catastrophic, since various tipping points are expected to be triggered at this level. Right now, we are on track for the catastrophic consequences (widespread coral mortality, mass extinctions, hundreds of millions of people adversely impacted by

droughts, floods, heat waves, etc.). But we’re not stuck on that track just yet, and we need to move ourselves as far off of it as possible by reduc ing our greenhouse gas emissions as soon and as much as possible . There are of course many people who believe that the planet will not warm as much, or that the impacts of the associated climate change will be as bad as the body of scientific evidence suggests. That is certainly a possibility, and we very much

hope that their optimistic view is correct. However, what we have presented here is the best summary of scientific evidence available, and it paints a very bleak picture if we fail to rapidly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions . If we continue forward on our current path, catastrophe is not just a possible outcome, it is the most probable outcome. And an intelligent risk management approach would involve taking steps to prevent a catastrophic scenario if it were a mere possibility, let alone the most probable outcome . This is especially true since the most important component of the solution – carbon pricing – can be implemented at a relatively low cost, and a far lower cost than trying to adapt to the climate change consequences we have discussed here (Figure 4).

Nuclear Security

Prolif Impact

Increased proliferation causes extinctionKissinger et al 11—Shultz was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Mr. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Mr. Nunn is former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (“Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation: The doctrine of mutual assured destruction is obsolete in the post‐Cold War era”, Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2011, http://www.nti.org/c_press/Deterrence_in_the_Age_of_Nuclear_Proliferation.pdf, ZBurdette)As long as there has been war, there have been efforts to deter actions a nation considers threatening. Until fairly recently, this meant building a military establishment capable of intimidating the adversary, defeating him or making his victory more costly than the projected gains. This, with conventional weapons, took time. Deterrence and war strategy were identical. The advent of the nuclear weapon introduced entirely new factors. It was possible, for the first time, to inflict at the beginning of a war the maximum casualties. The doctrine of mutual assured destruction

represented this reality. Deterrence based on nuclear weapons, therefore, has three elements: It is importantly psychological, depending on calculations for

which there is no historical experience. It is therefore precarious. It is devastating. An unrestrained nuclear exchange between superpowers could destroy civilized life as we know it in days. Mutual assured destruction raises enormous inhibitions against employing the weapons. Since the first use of nuclear weapons against Japan, neither of the superpowers, nor any other country, has used nuclear weapons in a war. A gap opened between the psychological element of deterrence and the risks most leaders were willing to incur. U.S. defense leaders made serious efforts to give the president more flexible options for nuclear use short of global annihilation. They never solved the problem, and it was always recognized that Washington and Moscow both held the keys to unpredictable and potentially catastrophic escalations. As a result, nuclear deterrence was useful in preventing only the most catastrophic scenarios that would have threatened our survival. But even with the deployment of thousands of nuclear weapons on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet moves into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 were not deterred. Nor were the numerous crises involving Berlin, including the building of the Wall in 1961, or major wars in Korea and Vietnam, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the case of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons did not prevent collapse or regime change. Today, the Cold War is almost 20 years behind us, but many leaders and publics cannot conceive of

deterrence without a strategy of mutual assured destruction. We have written previously that reliance on this strategy is becoming increasingly hazardous. With the spread of nuclear weapons, technology, materials and know‐how, there is an increasing risk that nuclear weapons will be used. It is not possible to replicate the high‐risk stability that prevailed between the two nuclear superpowers during the Cold War in such an environment. The growing number of nations with nuclear arms and differing motives, aims and ambitions poses very high and unpredictable risks and increased instabilit y . From 1945 to 1991, America and the Soviet Union were diligent, professional, but also lucky that nuclear weapons were never used. Does the world want to continue to bet its survival on continued good fortune with a growing number of nuclear nations and adversaries globally? Can we devise and successfully implement with other nations, including other nuclear powers, careful, cooperative concepts to safely dismount the nuclear tiger while strengthening the capacity to assure our security and that of allies and other countries considered essential to our national security? Recently, the four of us met at the Hoover Institution with a group of policy experts to discuss the possibilities for establishing a safer and more comprehensive form of deterrence and prevention in a world where the roles and risks of nuclear weapons are reduced and ultimately eliminated. Our broad conclusion is that nations should move forward together with a series of conceptual and practical steps toward deterrence that do not rely primarily on nuclear weapons or nuclear threats to maintain international peace and security. The first step is to recognize that there is a daunting new spectrum of global security threats. These threats include chemical, biological and radiological weapons, catastrophic terrorism and cyber warfare, as well as natural disasters resulting from climate change or other environmental problems, and health-related crises. For the United States and many other nations, existential threats relating to the very survival of the state have diminished, largely because of the end of the Cold War and the increasing

realization that our common interests greatly exceed our differences. However, an accident or mistake involving nuclear weapons, or nuclear terrorism fueled by the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear materials , and nuclear know-how, is still a very real risk. An effective strategy to deal with these dangers must be developed. The second step is the realization that

continued reliance on nuclear weapons as the principal element for deterrence is encouraging, or at least excusing, the spread of these weapons, and will inevitably erode the essential cooperation necessary to avoid proliferation, protect nuclear materials and deal effectively with new threats . Third, the U.S. and Russia have no basis for maintaining a structure of deterrence involving nuclear weapons deployed in ways that increase the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon, or even a deliberate nuclear exchange based on a false warning. Reducing the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles with verification to the levels set by the New Start Treaty is an important step in reducing nuclear risks. Deeper nuclear reductions and changes in nuclear force posture involving the two nations should remain a priority. Further steps must include short‐range tactical nuclear weapons. Fourth, as long as nuclear weapons exist, America must retain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear stockpile primarily to deter a nuclear attack and to reassure our allies through extended deterrence. There is an inherent limit to U.S. and Russian nuclear reductions if other nuclear weapon states build up their inventories or if new nuclear powers emerge. It is clear, however, that the U.S. and Russia—having led the nuclear buildup for decades— must continue to lead the build‐down. The U.S. and its NATO allies, together with Russia, must begin moving away from threatening force postures and deployments including the retention of thousands of short‐range battlefield nuclear weapons. All conventional deployments should be reviewed from the aspect of provocation. This will make America, Russia and Europe more secure. It will also set an example for the world. Fifth, we recognize that for some nations, nuclear weapons may continue to appear relevant to their immediate security. There are certain undeniable dynamics in play—for example, the emergence of a nuclear‐armed neighbor, or the perception of inferiority in conventional forces—that if

not addressed could lead to the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and an increase d risk they will be used . Thus, while the four of us believe that reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective, some nations will hesitate to draw or act on the same conclusion unless regional confrontations and conflicts are addressed. We must therefore redouble our efforts to resolve these issues.

NT Possible

Nuclear terrorism is possible—most qualified evidenceUs Russia Joint Threat Assessment May 11http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Joint-Threat-Assessment%20ENG%2027%20May%202011.pdf ABOUT THE U.S.-RUSSIA JOINT THREAT ASSESSMENT ON NUCLEAR TERRORISM The U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Nuclear Terrorism is a collaborative project of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the U.S.A. and Canada Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences led by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen and Pavel Zolotarev. Authors: • Matthew Bunn. Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Co-Principal Investigator of Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. • Colonel Yuri Morozov (retired Russian Armed Forces). Professor of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences and senior fellow at the U.S.A and Canada Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chief of department at the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, 1995–2000. • Rolf Mowatt-Larssen. Senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy, 2005–2008. • Simon Saradzhyan. Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Moscow-based defense and security expert and writer, 1993–2008. • William Tobey. Senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and director of the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, deputy administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, 2006–2009. • Colonel General Viktor I. Yesin (retired Russian Armed Forces). Senior fellow at the U.S.A and Canada Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and advisor to commander of the Strategic Missile Forces of Russia, chief of staff of the Strategic Missile Forces, 1994–1996. • Major General Pavel S. Zolotarev (retired Russian Armed Forces). Deputy director of the U.S.A and Canada Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and head of the Information and Analysis Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense, 1993–1997, deputy chief of staff of the Defense Council of Russia, 1997–1998. Contributor: • Vladimir Lukov, director general of autonomous non-profit organization “Counter-Terrorism Center.”

The expert community distinguishes pathways terrorists might take to the bomb (discussed in detail in the next

section of the report). One is the use of a nuclear weapon that has been either stolen or bought on the black market. The probability of such a development is very low, given the high levels of physical security (guards, barriers, and the like) and technical

security (electronic locks and related measures) of modern nuclear warheads. But we cannot entirely rule out such a scenario , especially if we recall the political instability in Pakistan, where the situation could conceivably develop in a way that would

increase the chance that terrorist groups might gain access to a Pakistani nuclear weapon A second pathway is the use of an improvised nuclear device built either by terrorists or by nuclear specialists that the terrorists have secretly recruited, with use of weapons-usable fissile material either stolen or bought on the black market.1 The probability of such an attack is higher than using stolen nuclear warheads, because the acceleration of tech nological progress and globalization of information space make nuclear weapons technologies more accessible while the existence of the nuclear black market eases access of terrorists to weapons- usable fissile materials. A third pathway is the use of an explosive nuclear device built by terrorists or their accomplices with fissile material that they produced themselves—either highly enriched uranium (HEU) they managed to enrich, or plutonium they managed to produce and reprocess. Al-Qaeda and associated groups appear to have decided that enriching uranium lies well beyond the capabilities that they would realistically be able to develop. A fourth pathway is that terrorists might receive a nuclear bomb or the materials needed to make one from a state . North Korea , for example, has been willing to sell its missile technology to many countries, and transferred its plutonium production reactor technology to Syria, suffering few consequences as a result. Transferring the means to make a nuclear bomb to a terrorist group, however, would be a dramatically different act, for the terrorists might use that capability in a way that could provoke retaliation that would result in the destruction of the regime. A far more worrisome transfer of capability from state to group could occur without the witting cooperation of the regime. A future A.Q. Khan -type rogue

nuclear supplier network operating out of North Korea or out of a future nuclear-armed Iran could potentially transfer such a capability to a surrogate group and/ or sell it for profit to the highest bidder. Global trends make nuclear terrorism a real threat. Although the international community has recognized the dangers of nuclear terrorism, it has yet to develop a comprehensive strategy to lower the risks of nuclear terrorism. Major barriers include complacency about the threat and the adequacy of existing nuclear security measures; secrecy that makes it difficult for states to share information and to cooperate; political disputes; competing priorities; lack of funds and technical expertise in some countries; bureaucratic obstacles; and the sheer difficulty of preventing a potentially small, hard-to-detect team of terrorists from acquiring a small, hard-to-detect chunk of nuclear material with which to manufacture a crude bomb. These barriers must not be allowed to stand in the way of the panhuman universal priority of preventing this grave threat from materializing. If current approaches toward eliminating the threat are not replaced with a sense of urgency and resolve, the question will become not if, but when , where, and on what scale the first act of nuclear terrorism occurs .

Getting the nukes is easier than you’d thinkDempsey, Director of African Studies at Army War College, 6 (Thomas, Director of African Studies @ U.S. Army War College and served as a strategic intelligence analyst for Africa at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and as Chief of Africa Branch for the Defense Intelligence Agency, Counterterrorism in African Failed States: Challenges and Potential Solutions, April, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub649.pdf)

Raising the Stakes:The Nuclear Dimension of the Terrorist Threat. The threat that terrorist hubs based in failed states pose to the United States and to its allies escalates dramatically if those hubs can obtain access to nuclear weapons. The risk that such weapons will find their way into terrorist hands is increasing significantly as a result of three interrelated factors. The end of the Cold War has witnessed an alarming erosion of control and security of Russian nuclear technology and weaponry . It has also witnessed increasing nuclear proliferation among non-nuclear states . The circumstances surrounding that proliferation —primarily its clandestine and covert nature—make it far more likely for nuclear weapons to find their way from state proliferators into the hands of terrorist groups . The problematic issue of accounting for and controlling Sovietera nuclear weapons and technology has been explored thoroughly by Jessica Stern in her 1999 study of terrorism and WMD. Stern described a Soviet-era military that was melting down, unpaid, and rife with corruption. Loss of accountability for fissionable materials, poor controls on the technology of nuclear weapons production, and poor supervision of Russia’s militarized scientific community characterized the post- Cold War Russian nuclear sector. Lapses may have even included loss of operational nuclear devices.46 More recent reporting on the situation is hardly more encouraging. A survey in 2002 of 602 Russian scientists working in the Russian WMD sector revealed that roughly 20 percent of the Russian scientists interviewed expressed a willingness to work for nations identified as WMD proliferators : Iran, North Korea or Syria.47 Most recently, Busch and Holmes have catalogued the efforts of rogue states and of Al Qaeda to acquire nuclear weapons capability from the inadequately controlled Russian nuclear sector, and have identified the human element of that sector as being especially vulnerable.48 When viewed in combination with the growing influence and reach of Russian organized crime, the lack of security in the Russian weaponized nuclear technology sector represents a significant risk of nuclear capability finding its way into the hands of terrorist hubs. Exacerbating this risk are the efforts of non-nuclear states that are seeking to develop a nuclear strike capability. While North Korea frequently is cited as the best example of this sort of nuclear proliferation, in the context of terrorist access to WMD, Iran may prove to be far more dangerous. The clandestine Iranian nuclear weapons program is reportedly well-advanced. A recent study of the Iranian nuclear program published by the U.S. Army War College considers Iranian fielding of operational nuclear weapons to be inevitable and estimates the time frame for such a fielding to be 12 to 48 months.49 Given Iran’s well-established relationship with Hezballah in Lebanon and its increasingly problematic, even hostile, relationship with the United States, the Iranian nuclear weapons program would seem to offer a tempting opportunity to Al Qaeda elements seeking clandestine access to nuclear technology. Even if the Iranian leadership does not regard sharing nuclear secrets with terrorist groups as a wise policy, elements within the Iranian government or participants in its nuclear weapons program may be willing to do so for their own reasons. The nature of clandestine nuclear weapons programs makes them especially vulnerable to compromise, as the Pakistani experience has demonstrated. The clandestine nuclear weapons program directed by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan on behalf of the Pakistani government exemplifies the risks inherent in such secret undertakings. As the details of Khan’s nuclear weapons operation have emerged, it has become increasingly evident that he exercised little control over the elements of his network operating outside of Pakistan. His non-Pakistani partners in acquiring nuclear technology appear to have been motivated almost entirely by money, and Khan himself seems to have operated with minimal oversight from the Pakistani government.50 Under such circumstances, the risk that critical nuclear technology will be diverted to groups like Al Qaeda is particularly high , especially when those groups have access to significant financial resources, and program participants are able to profit from diversion with little chance of detection by either the proliferating state or by opponents of that proliferation. While both hubs and nodes exist in failed state terrorist networks in Sub-Saharan Africa, only the hubs present a threat of genuinely serious proportions t o U.S. interests. Escalating nuclear

proliferation offers terrorist hubs sheltering in failed states the opportunity to translate funding into weapons access. If those hubs are successful in maintaining even a tenuous connection through their virtual network to terrorist nodes existing within the United States or the territory of its allies, or in other areas of vital U.S. interest, then the risk posed by terrorist groups operating from failed states becomes real and immediate. The recent atta cks by terrorist nodes in London, Cairo, and Madrid suggest that such is the case. Developing the nexus between nuclear weapons acquisition, delivery to a local terrorist node, and employment in a terrorist attack probably will require significant resources and considerable time. Evolved terrorist hubs operating in failed states like Sierra Leone, Liberia, or Somalia may have both. Identifying those hubs, locating their members, and entering the failed state in which they are located to apprehend or destroy them will be a complex and difficult task.

Major threat of nuclear terrorism Schneidmiller 12 (Chris, deputy editor at Global Security Newswire for five years, leads a team reporting on nonproliferation and weapons of mass destruction,, August 1, 2012, “Nuclear Smuggling Shows Terrorist WMD Threat Persists: State Department,” Global Security Newswire, http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/state-report/)

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. State Department on Tuesday said the attempted smuggling of nuclear arms-grade uranium in recent years illustrates a continued risk that terrorists could acquire the ingredients for a weapon of mass destruction (see GSN, Aug. 19, 2011).¶ The department's Country Reports on Terrorism 2011 touts as "largely successful"

multilateral programs aimed at locking down chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials around the globe.¶ However, "the illicit trafficking of these materials persists, including instances involving highly enriched uranium in 2010 and 2011," according to a chapter titled "The Global Challenge of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism."¶ "These

examples suggest that caches of dangerous material may e xist on the black market and that we must complement our efforts to consolidate CBRN materials and secure facilities with broader efforts to detect, investigate, and secure CBRN materials that have fallen outside of proper control," the report says. "We must remain vigilant if we hope to prevent terrorist groups from obtaining the means and methods for generating CBRN weapons."¶ The document does not cite specific examples of HEU smuggling from the last two years and the State Department on Wednesday did not provide additional detail.¶ Authorities in Georgia and nearby nations in recent years have reported breaking up attempts to sell illicit nuclear and radiological materials (see GSN, April 16). A June 2011 case in Moldova was said to involve 2.2 pounds of uranium 235 (see GSN, May 25).¶ Violent extremists have made known their desire to obtain and employ nuclear and other unconventional arms materials, the report says. The danger is heightened by the potential for such a weapon to produce significant casualties and destruction, along with the wide access to information on those systems. There are also complications inherent in attempting to control equipment and materials that can be used for either good or ill purposes, the department said.¶ The State report cites a number of multilateral programs aimed at preventing the spread of unconventional weapons materials.¶ These include the Proliferation Security Initiative, under which 100 nations have pledged to take necessary measures to interdict potential illegal transport of WMD materials. The State and Defense departments in 2011 conducted a number of exercises and workshops with participating nations such as Canada, Colombia Italy and Mongolia, the report says.¶ Other initiatives include the U.S.-Russian-led Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, which now encompasses 83 countries, and the National Nuclear Security Administration's Second Line of Defense program that deploys radiation detection technology to partner countries.¶ "Organizations and initiatives concerned with chemical and biological weapons use international conventions and regulations to reduce stockpiles of material, regulate the acquisition of dual-use technology, and eliminate trade of specific goods," the department said. "Nuclear and radiological initiatives and programs focus on promoting peaceful uses of nuclear material and energy, safeguarding against diversion, and countering the smuggling of radioactive and nuclear material. U. S. participation within, and contribution to, these groups is vital to ensure our continued safety from the CBRN threat."¶ The 2011 deaths of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and other operatives placed the terrorist organization "on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse," the State Department said. However, it noted the increasing prominence of al-Qaida branches such as the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.¶ "We are very concerned about the growth of the affiliates," Daniel Benjamin, the State Department counterterrorism coordinator, said at a press briefing on Tuesday. "We are working closely with partner nations around the world. In the case of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which is I think everyone agrees is the most dangerous of the affiliates, that’s a group that benefited from the long political transition, the turmoil that was going on in Yemen."¶ He said, though that new Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi is "a very committed, very reliable partner now. And our work with Yemen is going very, very well. So while the group did exploit that period of uncertainty, we think the trend lines are going in the right direction now in Yemen."¶ More than 12,500 people died last year in more than 10,000 terrorist strikes spanning 70 nations, Benjamin said. That figure represents a 12 percent reduction from the previous year.¶ Foggy Bottom continues to list Cuba, Iran, Sudan and the embattled Assad regime in

Syria as state sponsors of terrorism . ¶ "Iran is and remains the pre-eminent state sponsor of terrorism in the world," Benjamin said. "We are deeply concerned about Iran’s activities on its own through the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard]-Quds

Force. And also, together with Hezbollah , as they pursue destabilizing activities around the globe , we are firmly committed to working with partners and allies to counter and disrupt Iranian activities and to prevent Iran from sponsoring new acts of [terror]. And we think that the international community is increasingly alert to this threat and will resist it."

Nuclear terrorism is extremely likely and is comparatively the largest threat to international stability -this evidence cites multiple peer-reviewed studies as well as terrorist group statements-answers defense based on means – there’s lots of unsafe material around the world and a lot of providers-answers defense based on motives – terrorists have an incentive to spur retaliation because it create chaosJaspal 12 – Associate Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan(Zafar Nawaz, “Nuclear/Radiological Terrorism: Myth or Reality?”, Journal of Political Studies, Vol. 19, Issue - 1, 2012, 91:111, dml)

The misperception, miscalculation and above all ignorance of the ruling elite about security puzzles are perilous for the national security of a state. Indeed, in an age of transnational terrorism and unprecedented dissemination of dualuse nuclear technology, ignoring nuclear terrorism threat is an imprudent

policy choice . The incapability of terrorist organizations to engineer fissile material does not eliminate completely

the possibility of nuclear terrorism. At the same time, the absence of an example or precedent of a nuclear/

radiological terrorism does not qualify the assertion that the nuclear/radiological terrorism ought to be remained a myth. Farsighted rationality obligates that one should not miscalculate transnational terrorist groups — whose behavior suggests that they have a death wish — of acquiring nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological

material producing capabilities. In addition, one could be sensible about the published information that huge amount of nuclear material is spread around the globe. According to estimate it is enough to build more than 120,000 Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs (Fissile Material Working Group, 2010, April 1). The alarming fact is that a few storage sites of nuclear/radiological materials are inadequately secured and continue to be accumulated in unstable regions (Sambaiew, 2010, February). Attempts at stealing fissile material had already been discovered (Din & Zhiwei, 2003: 18). Numerous

evidences confirm that terrorist groups had aspired to acquire fissile material for their terrorist acts . Late Osama bin Laden, the founder of al Qaeda stated that acquiring nuclear weapons was a“religious duty” (Yusufzai, 1999, January 11). The IAEA also reported that “al-Qaeda was actively seeking an atomic bomb.” Jamal Ahmad al-Fadl, a dissenter of Al Qaeda, in his trial testimony had “revealed his extensive but unsuccessful efforts to acquire enriched uranium for al-Qaeda” (Allison, 2010, January: 11). On November 9, 2001, Osama bin Laden claimed that “we have chemical and nuclear weapons as a deterrent and if America used them against us we reserve the right to use them (Mir, 2001, November 10).” On May 28, 2010, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a Pakistani nuclear scientist confessed that he met Osama bin Laden. He claimed that “I met Osama bin Laden before 9/11 not to give him nuclear know-how, but to seek funds for establishing a technical college in Kabul (Syed, 2010, May 29).” He was arrested in 2003 and after extensive interrogation by American and Pakistani intelligence agencies he was released (Syed, 2010, May 29). Agreed, Mr. Mahmood did not share nuclear know-how with Al Qaeda, but his meeting with Osama establishes the fact that the terrorist organization was in contact with nuclear scientists. Second, the terrorist group has sympathizers in the nuclear scientific bureaucracies. It also authenticates bin Laden’s Deputy Ayman Zawahiri’s claim which he made in December 2001: “If you have $30 million, go to the black market in the central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist and a lot of dozens of smart briefcase bombs are available (Allison, 2010, January: 2).” The covert meetings between nuclear scientists and al Qaeda members could not be interpreted as idle threats and thereby the threat of nuclear/radiological terrorism is real. The 33Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted in 2008 that “what keeps every senior government leader awake at night is the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass destruction, especially nuclear (Mueller, 2011, August 2).” Indeed, the nuclear deterrence strategy cannot deter the transnational terrorist syndicate from nuclear/radiological terrorist attacks. Daniel Whiteneck

pointed out: “Evidence suggests, for example, that al Qaeda might not only use WMD simply to demonstrate the magnitude of its

capability but that it might actually welcome the escalation of a strong U.S. response, especially if it

included catalytic effects on governments and societies in the Muslim world. An adversary that prefers

escalation regardless of the consequences cannot be deterred ” (Whiteneck, 2005, Summer: 187) Since taking office,

President Obama has been reiterating that “nuclear weapons represent the ‘gravest threat’ to United States and international security.” While realizing that the US could not prevent nuclear/radiological terrorist attacks singlehandedly, he launched 47an international campaign to convince the international community about the increasing threat of nuclear/ radiological terrorism. He stated on April 5, 2009: “Black market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a bomb has spread. Terrorists

are determined to buy, build or steal one. Our efforts to contain these dangers are centered on a global non-proliferation regime, but as more people and nations break the rules, we could reach the point where the center cannot hold (Remarks by President Barack Obama, 2009, April 5).” He added: “One terrorist with one nuclear weapon could unleash massive destruction. Al Qaeda has said it seeks a bomb and that it would have no problem with using it. And we know that there is unsecured nuclear material across the globe” (Remarks by President Barack Obama, 2009, April 5). In July 2009, at the G-8 Summit, President Obama announced the convening of a Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 to deliberate on the mechanism to “secure nuclear materials, combat nuclear smuggling, and prevent nuclear terrorism” (Luongo, 2009, November 10). President Obama’s nuclear/radiological threat perceptions were also accentuated by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1887 (2009). The UNSC expressed its grave concern regarding ‘the threat of nuclear terrorism.” It also recognized the need for all States “to take effective measures to prevent nuclear material or technical assistance becoming available to terrorists.” The UNSC Resolution called “for universal adherence to the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and its 2005 Amendment, and the Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.” (UNSC Resolution, 2009) The United States Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) document revealed on April 6, 2010 declared that

“terrorism and proliferation are far greater threats to the United States and international stability .”

(Security of Defence, 2010, April 6: i). The United States declared that it reserved the right to“hold fully accountable” any state or group “that supports or enables terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, whether by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts (Nuclear Posture Review Report,

2010, April: 12)”. This declaration underscores the possibility that terrorist groups could acquire fissile material from the rogue states.

AT: Attack Fails

And, even a failed attack would crash the global economy, cause retaliation, and won’t deter terrorists from tryingAllison, IR Director at Harvard, 07 (Graham, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, How Likely is a Nuclear Terrorist Attack on the United States?, April 18, http://www.cfr.org/weapons-of-mass-destruction/likely-nuclear-terrorist-attack-united-states/p13097)Let’s run a little with Michael Levi’s numbers. Imagine that he is correct, and terrorists have “a 90 percent chance of failure ” if they attempt a nuclear 9/11 . On the flip side, that would mean a 10 percent chance of success. What should a 10 percent possibility of success mean in terms of U.S. policy? Remember, risk equals probability times consequences. On a normal workday, half a million people crowd the area within a half-mile radius of New York City’s Times Square. If, in the heart of midtown Manhattan, terrorists detonated a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb (the yield of the bomb an intelligence source codenamed “Dragonfire” claimed was in New York

one month after 9/11), the blast would kill them all instantly. Hundreds of thousands of others would die from collapsing buildings, fire, and fallout in the hours and days thereafter. Multiply the consequence of such an attack (five-hundred thousand souls) by a 10 percent probability, and one would conclude that the U.S. government should mobilize an effort to prevent nuclear terrorism equivalent to saving fifty thousand Americans lives. Furthermore, the effect of a nuclear terrorist attack would reverberate beyond U.S. shores . After a nuclear

detonation, the immediate reaction would be to block all entry points to prevent another bomb from reaching its target. Vital markets for international products would disappear , and closely linked

financial markets would crash . Researchers at RAND , a U.S. government-funded think tank, estimated that a

nuclear explosion at the Port of Los Angeles would cause immediate costs worldwide of more than

$1 trillion and that shutting down U.S. ports would cut world trade by 7.5 percent . But Dr. Levi raises the possibility that, were terrorists to get their hands on enough nuclear weapons material to make a bomb, their design might fail. If a terrorist’s ten-kiloton nuclear warhead were to misfire (known to nuclear scientists as a “fizzle” ) and produce a one-kiloton blast, bystanders near ground zero would not know the difference . Such an explosion would torch anyone one-tenth of a mile from the epicenter, and topple buildings up to one-third of a mile out. Does the real possibility of a fizzle or failure mean that terrorists won’t attempt a nuclear attack ? No t necessarily. If terrorists pursued only fool-proof plans, they would have begun suicide bombing attacks on U.S. public transportation by now . But from a terrorist’s point of view, why pursue a course of action with a 95 percent chance of success, but at most forty victims, if you have a 10 percent chance at killing five-hundred thousand? The most important takeaway from this debate is that we must do everything technically feasible on the fastest possible time line to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear materials.[1] Whether nuclear explosion, fizzle, or total dud, the repercussions of such materials in jihadist clutches are unacceptable.

Inherency

No US Investment in Mexico

US investment in Mexico not focused on Nuclear PowerOffice of the US Trade Representative [No Date] (“Mexico”, http://www.ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/mexico)//ADTrade Balance The U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico was $61.3 billion in 2012, a 4.9% decrease ($3.2 billion) over 2012. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico accounted for 8.4% of the overall U.S. goods trade deficit in 2012. The United States had a services trade surplus of $11.5 billion with Mexico in 2011 (latest data available), up 8.6% from 2010. Investment

U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico (stock) was $91.4 billion in 2011 (latest data available), an 8.4% increase from 2010. U.S. FDI in Mexico is

primarily concentrated in the manufacturing, nonbank holding companies, and finance/insurance sectors. Mexican FDI in the United States (stock) was $13.8 billion in 2011 (latest data available), up 22.2% from 2010. Mexican direct investment in the U.S. is led by the manufacturing and wholesale trade sectors. Sales of services in Mexico by majority U.S.-owned affiliates were $34.4 billion in 2010, (latest data available), while sales of services in the United States by majority Mexico-owned firms were $4.8 billion.

Mexico not building reactors

While Mexico is interested in nuclear power, in the SQUO it is relying on fossil fuelsSBWire 13-Press Release Service (“"Mexico Power Report Q3 2013" Published”, SBWire (Originally from Business Monitor International), 7/18/2013, http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/mexico-power-report-q3-2013-published-279498.htm)//ADBoston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/18/2013 -- Mexico's electricity generating capacity is struggling to keep pace with domestic demand - a fact acknowledged by the state-run Federal Electricity Commission in April 2013. While the government has

pinpointed renewable sources of energy as a target area to fill this gap and has also brought the issue of nuclear power back to the table, we believe that the low price of gas and the prospect of shale gas discoveries on Mexican soil mean that gas will continue to play a central role in the country's electricity production. The government's 2013-2017 National Energy Strategy also addresses the issue of electricity tariffs - there are plans to make them cheaper for industrial clients as a means of boosting investment and raising productivity. Local governments have also asked that they become eligible for these lower tariffs; the details of these lower tariffs have yet to be published. We remain of the view that an estimated robust 3.96% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth for power consumption in 2012 will give way to a slightly less positive performance in 2013. With increased uncertainty as a result of a slowdown in the Mexican economy weighing on the sector, we believe that consumption growth will come in at a more modest 2.44% y-o-y in 2013. Mexico's low per capita consumption and relatively high energy intensity suggest that risks for long-term

electricity demand are on the upside; the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) admitted in April 2013 that it was working at maximum capacity, with shortages of natural gas and poor maintenance of power plants two reasons behind outages . In February 2013, the new National Energy Council of Mexico presented its first National Energy Strategy , outlining energy policy for 2013- 2027. Renewables are expected to take a key role, while nuclear energy is also under consideration . We forecast that it will be gas that makes the greatest gain s; however, not least given that the government is keen to invest in shale gas exploration. We forecast that electricity generated by gas-fired power plants will increase at a

compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.43% between 2013 and 2022, and will represent 59 .1 % of electricity generation capacity by 2022. Key developments this quarter include: - The National Energy Council of Mexico presented its first National Energy Strategy for 2013-2027. Goals including generating 35% of electricity from renewable sources by 2024.- CFE announced in April 2013 that it had selected Abengoa to develop a US$14mn in a transmission project that will see two substations and a 49km transmission line.

- Sener and Spain's OHR announced plans to construct a 35-megawatt (MW) gas-fired cogeneration power plant for Pemex in April 2013.- CFE announced plans to construct four 1,000MW combined cycle power plants in Veracruz, with work scheduled to begin in 2013 in a project that has an estimated cost of US$2.8bn.

Mexico cancelled plans to build 10 nuclear reactors in favor of natural gasRodriguez 11 (Carlos, “Mexico Scraps Plans to Build 10 Nuclear Power Plants in Favor of Using Gas”, Bloomberg, November 2, 2011, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-02/mexico-scraps-plans-to-build-as-many-as-10-nuclear-plants-focus-on-gas.html)//ADMexico, one of three Latin American nations that uses nuclear power, is abandoning plans to build as many as 10 new reactors and will focus on natural gas-fired electricity plants after boosting discoveries of the fuel. The country, which found evidence of trillions of cubic feet of gas in the past year, is “changing all its decisions, amid the very abundant existence of natural-gas deposits,” Energy Minister Jordy Herrera said in a Nov. 1 interview. Mexico will seek private investment of about $10 billion during five years to expand its natural gas pipeline network, he said.

No SMRs Now

Mexico only has 2 old nuclear reactorsWNA 13 (World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power in Mexico”, Last Updated October 2013, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-G-N/Mexico/#.UfQdJ2TwKq8))//ADMexico has two nuclear reactors generating almost 4% of its electricity.Its first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1989.There is some government support for expanding nuclear energy to reduce reliance on natural gas, but recent low gas prices have overshadowed this.[Further in the document]

Solvency

Build times

Takes 24 months to buildRosner & Goldberg, Physics Prof @ U Chicago, ’11[Robert Rosner, William E. Wrather, Distinguished Service Professor, Departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physics at The University of Chicago, Director, Energy Policy Institute, Harris School of Public Policy, Stephen Goldberg, Professor of Law Emeritus at Northwestern Law, “Small Modular Reactors – Key to Future Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S.,” Energy Policy Institute at The University of Chicago, November 2011]SMRs could potentially mitigate such a risk in several ways. First, SMRs have lower precompletion risk due to shorter construction schedules (24-36 months as compared with 48 months). Second, because of their smaller size, SMRs have lower market risk because there is significantly less power than needs to be sold as compared with GW-level plants. Finally, the modular nature of SMRs affords the flexibility to build capacity on an as-needded basis. In the case of unsubsidized financing, particularly relevant to merchant markets, utility decision makers that have significant aversion to risk of future natural gas spikes (i.e., gas prices rising to about $7/Mcf or one standard deviation above the recent average behavior of natural gas prices) would possibly view alternatives to gas-fired generation as attractive options, particularly if the investment requirements are comparable – SMRs could potentially “fit the bill.”

Funding (drastically lowballed)

We estimate funding would be approximately 900 million dollars based off of past US SMR venturesSilverstein 13 (Ken, “After Fukushima, U.S. Seeks to Advance Small Nuclear Reactors”, Forbes, Jan 15th

2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2013/01/15/after-fukushima-u-s-seeks-to-advance-small-nuclear-reactors/)//AD To that end, the Obama administration is partnering with Babcock & Wilcox and Bechtel to develop those

sm aller nuclear r eactor s for the federally-owned utility Tennessee Valley Authority. The

Department of Energy is expected to invest about $450 million in the project, which equates to

roughly half of the overall cost . Industry will pony up the other half.

Department of Energy funding for SMR’s in America is $450 million – Mexico has a smaller population and thus the plan would cost up to thisBiello 2012 (David Biello, journalist at Scientific American, April 19, 2012, Missourians for a Better Energy Future, http://www.moenergyfuture.org/news/small-reactors-make-a-bid-to-revive-nuclear-power/)Small may be beautiful for the nuclear power industry So argue a host of would-be builders of novel nuclear reactors. While the U.S. government has not given up on investing in large units that boast conventional designs, the D epartment o f E nergy has also announced the availability of $450 million in funds to support engineering and licensing of so-called " s mall m odular r eactor s ."¶

"The Obama Administration and the Energy Department are committed to an all-of-the-above energy strategy that develops every source of American energy, including nuclear power," said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in a statement announcing the funding, which aims to get such modular reactors hooked into the grid by 2022. "The Energy Department and private industry are working to position America as the leader in advanced nuclear energy technology and manufacturing."

Mexico K2 Developing World

Mexico’s involvement is key—they get the developing world on boardDuncan Wood, May 2010, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, "Environment, Development and Growth: US-Mexico Cooperation in Renewable Energies", http://sitemaker.umich.edu/ipe2012/files/usmexico_cooperation_renewable_energies.pdf)//ADAs the world debates the future of climate change in international forums, most countries are implementing their own mitigation strategies at the national and local levels while at the same time looking to their neighbors for opportunities to establish regional plans for climate change response an d energy security. In Europe, region wide‐ policy and carbon emissions reduction strategies have been in place for a number of years. Ideas for regional carbon markets in North America have been discussed for a long time, but little has been achieved. In April of 2009, however, Presidents Obama and Calderon, of the United States and Mexico respectively, signed the U.S. Mexico‐ Bilateral Framework on Clean Energy and Climate Change. The two leaders agreed on the importance of promoting clean energy, combating climate change and the value of collaborating to reach these goals. Some observers in the US may have been surprised by this development because the energy issue of which most foreign observers immediately think with regards to Mexico is, of course, oil. The continuing problems of PEMEX and declining production from its mature fields have been one of the most important issues coming out of the country in recent years. However, although it is most often seen as a classic hydrocarbon nation, Mexico has in recent years emerged as a leading country in the region, and more broadly in the developing world, in the areas of clean energy and emissions controls . As President Felipe Calderon has attempted to present himself to the world as a leader in climate change initiatives (most recently in Copenhagen in December 2009) with the idea for a Fondo Verde (Green Fund), many Mexicans expressed surprise that their country could be seen as a leader given the overwhelming national political and economic importance given to oil. But Calderon was building on a reputation established in successive international meetings, most notably in Bali in 2007 when Mexico was ranked 4th out of all nations for its commitment to mitigating climate change, by the policy group Germanwatch , in their Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI)1 . This reputation had been won by a variety of initiatives from the local to the national level, from both the public and the private sectors. Though Mexico has since slipped down the rankings to 11th place, it still maintains a favorable image in terms of its commitment to mitigating climate change, and ranks third out of all newly industrializing countries.

Mexico Says Yes

While Mexico is interested in nuclear power, in the SQUO it is relying on fossil fuelsSBWire 13-Press Release Service (“"Mexico Power Report Q3 2013" Published”, SBWire (Originally from Business Monitor International), 7/18/2013, http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/mexico-power-report-q3-2013-published-279498.htm)//ADBoston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/18/2013 -- Mexico's electricity generating capacity is struggling to keep pace with domestic demand - a fact acknowledged by the state-run Federal Electricity Commission in April 2013. While the government has

pinpointed renewable sources of energy as a target area to fill this gap and has also brought the issue of nuclear power back to the table, we believe that the low price of gas and the prospect of shale gas discoveries on Mexican soil mean that gas will continue to play a central role in the country's electricity production. The government's 2013-2017 National Energy Strategy also addresses the issue of electricity tariffs - there are plans to make them cheaper for industrial clients as a means of boosting investment and raising productivity. Local governments have also asked that they become eligible for these lower tariffs; the details of these lower tariffs have yet to be published. We remain of the view that an estimated robust 3.96% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth for power consumption in 2012 will give way to a slightly less positive performance in 2013. With increased uncertainty as a result of a slowdown in the Mexican economy weighing on the sector, we believe that consumption growth will come in at a more modest 2.44% y-o-y in 2013. Mexico's low per capita consumption and relatively high energy intensity suggest that risks for long-term

electricity demand are on the upside; the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) admitted in April 2013 that it was working at maximum capacity, with shortages of natural gas and poor maintenance of power plants two reasons behind outages . In February 2013, the new National Energy Council of Mexico presented its first National Energy Strategy , outlining energy policy for 2013- 2027. Renewables are expected to take a key role, while nuclear energy is also under consideration . We forecast that it will be gas that makes the greatest gain s; however, not least given that the government is keen to invest in shale gas exploration. We forecast that electricity generated by gas-fired power plants will increase at a

compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.43% between 2013 and 2022, and will represent 59 .1 % of electricity generation capacity by 2022. Key developments this quarter include: - The National Energy Council of Mexico presented its first National Energy Strategy for 2013-2027. Goals including generating 35% of electricity from renewable sources by 2024.- CFE announced in April 2013 that it had selected Abengoa to develop a US$14mn in a transmission project that will see two substations and a 49km transmission line.

- Sener and Spain's OHR announced plans to construct a 35-megawatt (MW) gas-fired cogeneration power plant for Pemex in April 2013.- CFE announced plans to construct four 1,000MW combined cycle power plants in Veracruz, with work scheduled to begin in 2013 in a project that has an estimated cost of US$2.8bn.

Mexico says yes—they’ve been looking to get nuclear power but keep putting it off because of natural gas pricesWNA 13 (World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power in Mexico”, Last Updated October 2013, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-G-N/Mexico/#.UfQdJ2TwKq8))//ADHigh-level government support exists for an expansion of nuclear energy, primarily to reduce dependence on natural gas, but also to cut carbon emissions - until 2011 the country's energy policy called for increasing carbon-free power generation from 27% to 35% of total by 2024. The CFE in May 2010 had four scenarios for new power generation capacity from 2019-28, ranging from a heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants to meet growing demand, to a low-carbon scenario that calls for big investments in nuclear and wind power. Under the CFE's most aggressive scenario, up to ten nuclear power plants would be built so that nuclear energy supplied nearly a quarter of Mexico's power needs by 2028, which would allow the country's carbon emissions from power generation to remain virtually unchanged from 2008 despite projections of substantially higher demand. An earlier proposal was for one new nuclear unit to come on line by 2015 with seven more to follow it by

2025 to bring nuclear share of electricity up to 12% then. Cost studies showed nuclear being competitive with gas at about US$ 4 cents/kWh in all scenarios considered. However, with low gas prices in 2010 a decision on building new nuclear capacity was delayed until 2012. CFE in November 2010 was talking about building six to eight 1400 MWe units, the first two at Laguna Verde. With the release of the 2012 energy policy, the government urged looking beyond low gas prices to consider building two more reactors at Laguna Verde, as a first step in expanding nuclear

capacity to 2026. In the longer term, Mexico may look to employ small reactors such as IRIS to provide power and desalinate seawater for agricultural use. ININ have previously presented ideas for a plant consisting of three IRIS reactors sharing a stream of seawater for cooling and desalination. With seven reverse-osmosis desalination units served by the reactors, 140,000m3 of potable water could be produced each day, as well 840 MWe.

Great potential for engagement with Mexico in energyWood 2012? [Exact date not given-author refers to events in 2012 but talks about 2013 in context of future actions] (Duncan, “Growing Potential for U.S.-Mexico Energy Cooperation”, Wilson Center Mexico Institute, http://wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/wood_energy.pdf)//AD

Looking ahead to the next six years of interaction between governments of Mexico and the United States, there is the potential for an enormously fruitful relationship in energy affairs. Much of this depends on two key factors, political will and the internal changes that are underway in Mexico’s energy sector. In the past, political sensitivities concerning U.S. involvement in the Mexican hydrocarbons industry have limited the extent of collaboration in the oil and gas sectors. This continues to be a cause for concern in any U.S.-based discussion (from either the public or private sectors) of Mexican energy policy and the

potential for collaboration, but in recent years there has been a relaxation of sensitivity in this area. Partly in response to the perceived need for international assistance in resolving Mexico’s multiple energy challenges, and partly as a result of a productive bilateral institutional relationship between federal energy agencies, there is now a greater potential for engagement than at any time in recent memory. We can identify three main areas in which bilateral energy cooperation holds great promise in the short- to medium-term. First, given the importance of the theme for both countries, there is great potential in the oil and gas industries. This lies in the prospects for investment, infrastructure and technical collaboration. Second, we can point to the electricity sector, where the creation of a more complete cross-border transmission network and working

towards the creation of a market for electric power at the regional level should be priorities for the two countries. Third, in the area of climate change policy,

existing cooperation on renewable energies and the need for a strategic dialogue on the question of carbon-emissions policy are two issues can bring benefits for both partners

Date Issue:“Secondly, as was made painfully clear to a number of private sector industrial consumers during 2012…”“…but in August of 2012 the Comisión Reguladora de Energía…”

Modeling

Expansion of SMR’s causes a resurgence of global interest in nuclear powerTaso 11 (Firas Eugen Taso, “21st Century Civilian Nuclear Power and the Role of Small Modular Reactors”, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; Tufts University, May 2011, file:///C:/Users/Adam/Downloads/UA015.012.079.00002.archival.pdf)//ADIn recent years there has been a renewed interest, both private and public according to Matthew Bunn, in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Some of them are new concepts and technologies, like the Hyperion or Toshiba 4S reactors, or existing technologies scaled down from large PWR or LWR reactors, like

the NuScale or mPower. In the eyes of some experts and proponents of nuclear power, these new designs and new approach from the industry could change the playing field and help promote a resurgence of nuclear power not just in the

United States, but worldwide, opening the field to countries that were thus far not considering nuclear for economic or capacity reasons. SMRs could , in theory, help promote nuclear power and give it the jump start that has been talked about for decades in the US and other nuclear states. In order to understand SMRs, and arguments for and against them, this section will describe the technology, look at current models and regulatory and political environment on SMRs and analyze them from benefits and costs perspectives.

China and Russia will spread dangerous SMRs globally- Causes prolif- US tech solves and is modeledFerguson 2010 (Dr. Charles D. Ferguson, President of the Federation of American Scientists, Adjunct Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and Adjunct Lecturer in the National Security Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University, May 19, 2010, Statement before the House Committee on Science and Technology for the hearing on Charting the Course for American Nuclear Technology: Evaluating the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap, http://www.fas.org/press/_docs/05192010_Testimony_HouseScienceCommHearing%20.pdf)The U nited S tates and several other countries have considerable experience in building and operating small and medium power reactors. The U.S. Navy, for example, has used small power reactors since the 1950s to provide propulsion and electrical power for submarines, aircraft carriers, and some other surface warships. China, France, Russia, and the U nited K ingdom have also developed nuclear powered naval vessels that use small reactors. Notably, Russia has deployed its KLT-40S and similarly designed small power reactors on icebreakers and has in recent years proposed building and selling barges that would carry these types of reactors for use in sea-side communities throughout the world. China has already exported small and medium power reactors. In 1991, China began building a reactor in Pakistan and started constructing a second reactor there in 2005. In the wake of the U.S.-India nuclear deal, Beijing has recently reached agreement with Islamabad to build two additional reactors rated at 650 MWe.2¶ One of the unintended consequences of more than 30 years of sanctions on India’s nuclear program is that India had concentrated its domestic nuclear industry on building small and medium power reactors based on Canadian pressurized heavy water technology, or Candu-type reactors. Pressurized heavy water reactors ( PHWRs ) pose proliferation concerns because they can be readily operated in a mode optimal for producing weapons-grade plutonium and can be refueled during power operations. Online refueling makes it exceedingly difficult to determine when refueling is occurring based solely on outside observations, for example, through satellite monitoring of the plant’s operations. Thus, the chances for potential diversion of fissile material increase. This scenario for misuse underscores the need for more frequent inspections of these facilities. But the limited resources of the International Atomic Energy Agency have resulted in a rate of inspections that are too infrequent to detect a diversion of a weapon’s worth of material.3 The opening of the international nuclear market to India may lead to further spread of PHWR technologies to more states. For example, last year, the Nuclear Power

Corporation of India, Ltd. (NPCIL) expressed interest in selling PHWRs to Malaysia.4 NPCIL is the only global manufacturer of 220 MWe PHWRs. New Delhi favors South-to-South cooperation; consequently developing states in Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and South America could become recipients of these technologies in the coming years to next few decades. Many of these countries would opt for sm all and medium power r eactor s because their electrical grids do not presently have the capacity to support large power reactors and they would likely not have the financial ability to purchase large reactors. ¶ What are the implications for the U nited S tates of Chinese and Indian efforts to sell small and medium power reactors? Because China and India already have the manufacturing and marketing capability for these reactors, the United States faces an economically competitive disadvantage. Because the U nited S tates has yet to license such reactors for domestic use, it has placed itself at an additional market disadvantage. By the time the U nited S tates has licensed such reactors, China and India as well as other competitors may have established a strong hold on this emerging market. ¶ The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission cautioned on December 15, 2008 that the “licensing of new, small modular reactors is not just around the corner. The NRC’s attention and resources now are focused on the large-scale reactors being proposed to serve millions of Americans, rather than smaller devices with both limited power production and possible industrial process applications.” The NRC’s statement further underscored that “examining proposals for radically different technology will likely require an exhaustive review” ... before “such time as there is a formal proposal, the NRC will, as directed by Congress, continue to devote the majority of its resources to addressing the current technology base.”6 Earlier this year, the NRC devoted consideration to presentations on small modular reactors from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Department of Energy, and the Rural Electric Cooperative Association among other stakeholders.7 At least seven vendors have proposed that their designs receive attention from the NRC.8¶ Given the differences in design philosophy among these vendors and the fact that none of these designs have penetrated the commercial market, it is too soon to tell which, if any, will emerge as market champions. Nonetheless, because of the early stage in development, the U nited S tates has an opportunity to state clearly the criteria for successful use of SMRs . But because of the head start of China and India, the U nited S tates should not procrastinate and should take a leadership role in setting the standards for safe, secure, and proliferation-resistant SMRs that can compete in the market. Several years ago, the United States sponsored assessments to determine these criteria.9 While the Platonic ideal for small modular reactors will likely not be realized, it is worth specifying what such an SMR would be. N. W. Brown and J. A. Hasberger of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory assessed that reactors in developing countries must:¶ • “achieve reliably safe operation with a minimum of maintenance and supporting infrastructure;¶ • offer economic competitiveness with alternative energy sources available to the candidate sites;¶ • demonstrate significant improvements in proliferation resistance relative to existing reactor systems.”10¶ Pointing to the available technologies at that time from Argentina, China, and Russia, they determined that “these countries tend to focus on the development of the reactor without integrated considerations of the overall fuel cycle, proliferation, or waste issues.” They emphasized that what is required for successful development of an SMR is “a comprehensive systems approach that considers all aspects of manufacturing, transportation, operation, and ultimate disposal.”¶

US leadership on SMR’s provides the critical first step towards establishing a market in developing countries that is resistant to proliferationRosner and Goldberg 11- Energy Policy Institute at [the University of] Chicago and the [University of Chicago] Harris School of Public Policy Studies (Robert and Stephen, "Small Modular Reactors – Key to Future Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S.", EPIC-Energy Policy Institute at Chicago, November 2011, http://www.eenews.net/assets/2013/03/13/document_gw_01.pdf)//ADPrevious studies have documented the potential for a significant export market for U.S. SMRs, mainly in lesser developed countries that do not have the demand or infrastructure to accommodate GW-scale LWRs . Clearly, the economics of SMR deployment depends not only on the cost of SMR modules, but also on the substantial upgrades in all facets of infrastructure requirements, particularly in the safety and security areas, that would have to be made, and as exemplified by the ongoing efforts in this direction by the United Arab Emirates (and, in particular, by Abu Dhabi). This is a substantial undertaking for these less developed countries. Thus, such applications may be an attractive market opportunity for FOAK SMR plants, even if the cost of such plants may not have yet achieved all of the learning benefits. The Department of Commerce has launched the Civil Nuclear Trade Initiative, which seeks to identify the key trade policy challenges and the most significant commercial opportunities. The Initiative encompasses all aspects of the U.S. nuclear industry, and, as part of this effort, the Department identified 27 countries as “markets of

interest” for new nuclear expansion. A recent Commerce Department report identified that “SMRs can be a solution for certain markets that have smaller and less robust electricity grids and limited investment capacity.” Studies performed by Argonne National Laboratory suggest that SMRs would appear to be a feasible power option for countries that have grid capacity of 2,000-3,000 MW. Exports of SMR tech nology also could play an important role in furthering non-proliferation policy objectives. The design of SMR nuclear fuel management systems, such as encapsulation of the fuel, may have non-proliferation benefits that merit further assessment. Also, the development of an SMR export industry would be step toward a U.S.-centric, bundled reliable fuel services. Exports of FOAK plants help achieve learning without the need for a full array of production incentives required

for domestic FOAK deployments. Projected, unsubsidized, electricity market prices will likely be higher in selected foreign markets, particularly

when the electricity pricing is based on liquefied natural gas import prices.49 This situation would enable SMRs to be in a more favorable competitive position. SMR exports would qualify, if needed, for export credit assistance under current U.S. government programs, but this assistance would not require the need for new federal funding.

Public Acceptance

SMRs solve public opposition—multiple reasons and incentivesNEA NO DATE (Nuclear Energy Agency, “Why SMRs are being developed”, Brief 7, https://www.oecd-nea.org/brief/brief-07.htmlThe incentive for the development of SMRs comes from different sources. In some countries, the R&D efforts have been the

result of economic and environmental considerations: SMRs would open up additional energy market sectors, for example heat production, which are not accessible to large reactors, while also contributing to C02 reduction; they are better adapted to low growth rates of energy demand; they are more appropriate for small electricity distribution grids, which are often found in

small or developing countries, where they are good candidates for the replacement of older fossil-fuelled plants; and they present specific economic advantages that are expected to offset economies of scale. In other cases, SMRs are being developed in answer to specific user requirements, mostly in relation to safety and public acceptance issues. The

requirements issued in different countries have a number of common points: a simpler and more rugged design; increased safety margins leading,

for example, to longer periods before operator actions are needed to rectify abnormal situations; lower risk of core damage; and minor accident consequences for the population in the case of core damage. SMRs seem to respond well to these requirements, because they allow for design simplification and for introduction of new features, such as passive

components and processes that avoid the need for early action by the operator in an abnormal situation. The design of some SMRs also makes it possible to set clearer and more precise safety criteria that may be easier for the public to understand , for example the exclusion

of any possibility of a radioactive release to the environment. Some experts contend that the engineering principles are more readily explainable to the non-specialist, which should improve public acceptance.

Safety

SMRS are extremely safeKessides 2010 (Ioannis N. Kessides, Lead Economist in the World Bank's Development Research Group, June 2012, “The Future of the Nuclear Industry Reconsidered Risks, Uncertainties, and Continued Potential,” The World Bank Development Research Group Environment and Energy Team, http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2012/06/29/000158349_20120629130837/Rendered/INDEX/WPS6112.txt)Most SMR concepts envision widespread deployment of a large number of small nuclear plants sited in diverse environments and frequently in close proximity to users. These considerations place very stringent requirements on reliability and safety performance—arguably even more exacting relative to traditional large-scale nuclear plants. The need for enhanced levels of safety has led to design options that maximize the use of inherent and passive safety features and incorporate additional layers of defense in depth (IAEA, 2009).18 These safety features can be more easily and effectively implemented in SMRs bec ause of their larger surface- to-volume ratio , reduced core power density, lower source term, and less frequent (multi-year) refueling . For example, large surface-to-volume ratios facilitate the passive (with no external source of electrical power or stored energy) removal of decay heat.¶ SMRs employ an enveloping design approach that seeks to eliminate or prevent as many accident initiators and accident consequences as possible. Any remaining plausible accident initiators and consequences are dealt with appropriate combinations of active and passive safety systems. In water-cooled SMRs, the integration of steam generators and pressurizers within the reactor vessel eliminates large-diameter pipes and penetrations in the reactor vessel, thereby reducing substantially the risk of LOCAs. Moreover, in some designs the application of in- vessel control rod drives eliminates the risk of inadvertent control rod ejections that lead to reactivity insertion accidents. Loss of coolant accidents may also be prevented with compact loop designs that employ short piping and fewer connections between components (Kuznetsov, 2009).¶ In HTGRs, the fuel particles consist of fissionable fuel kernels with tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) coating.19 The TRISO coating system constitutes a miniature pressure vessel that is capable of containing the readionuclides and gases generated by fission of the nuclear material in the kernel. One of the coating layers consists of silicon carbide (a strong refractory material) which can retain radionuclides at extremely high temperatures under all accident conditions—temperatures can remain at 1600°C for several hundred hours without loss of particle coating integrity. Furthermore, the graphite holding the TRISO-coated particles together can withstand even higher temperatures without structural damage.20 And the massive graphite structures in the core create an extremely large heat capacity. The combination of large thermal margins, low power density of the core, and relatively large length-to-diameter ratio of the core, allow for very slow and stable response to transients caused by initiating events and for passive heat removal (INL, 2011).¶

The effectiveness of passive safety features can be illustrated by comparing outcomes from probabilistic risk analysis (PRA). In 1991, a Level-2 PRA was developed for the EBR-II fast neutron spectrum experimental breeder reactor—a 21 MWe plant—to compare its operational risk to that of commercial LWR‘s for which PRA‘s were available. EBR-II employs an extensive array of passive and inherent safety measures to back up traditional active safety systems. This PRA exercise showed that for EBR-II the risk of simply violating a fuel pin technical specification (with no core damage) is less than the risk of significant core disruption for the LWRs of the time. The point of the PRA comparisons is that application of passive and inherent safety measures as incorporated in SMRs can help to overcome the increase in numbers of SMRs n eeded to deliver the same societal energy provided by a smaller number of large-sized LWRs. Similarly, preliminary Level-1 PRA results for the NuScale Power

Reactor indicate a total single-module mean CDF of 2.8x10-8/reactor-year, well below that of existing nuclear plants. And for the VK-300, the probability of severe core damage has been estimated to be less than 2.0x10-8/reactor-year (Hill et al, 1998; Kuznetsov and Gabaraev, 2007; Modarres, 2010).¶ SMRs have a smaller fuel inventory and thus a reduced source term . So on top of reduced hazard of core damage, the hazard attendant to release of radioactivity is also reduced per deployed SMR. The combination of reduced probability of core damage failure, a reduced source term, and additional fission product release barriers, could offer major advantages for emergency planning and response.

US Key

US key—most knowledge in building small, safe, and secure reactorsAdams 2010 (Rod Adams, nuclear power expert with experience designing and operating small nuclear reactors and a former Submarine Engineer Officer, March 23, 2010, “Small Modular Reactors Could Be An American Export – But We Need to Move Faster,” Atomic Insights, http://atomicinsights.com/2010/03/small-modular-reactors-could-be-an-american-export-but-we-need-to-move-faster.html)

In the March 23, 2010 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Steven Chu published an op-ed piece titled America’sNew Nuclear Option that describes the Administration’s growing interest in smaller nuclear energy systems that can be produced in factories and delivered nearly

complete to sites around the country and around the world. Here is a quote from that editorial:¶ As this paper recently reported, one of the most promising areas is small modular reactors (SMRs). If we can develop this technology in the U.S. and build these reactors with American workers, we will have a key competitive edge. ¶ Small modular reactors would be less than one-third the size of current plants. They have compact designs and could be made in factories and transported to sites by truck or rail. SMRs would be ready to “plug and play” upon arrival.¶ If commercially successful, SMRs

would significantly expand the options for nuclear power and its applications. Their small size makes them suitable to small electric grids so they are a good option for locations that cannot accommodate large-scale plants. The modular construction process would make them more affordable by reducing capital costs and construction times.¶ Their size would also increase flexibility for utilities since they could add units as demand changes, or use them for on-site replacement of aging fossil fuel plants.¶ Those are some terrific words, but the message loses some of its impact when the numbers are revealed later down the page. In the 2011 budget, the Administration requested just $39 million for a program aimed specifically at small reactors. That amount of money would not even pay for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission costs of reviewing the license for a single nuclear energy system design certification. In an agency whose

total budget request is in excess of $28,000 million ($28 billion), a $39 million line item gets lost in the decimal dust.¶ There is an old saying that is appropriate here – “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. The effort by Dr. Chu to publish a piece

favorable to small nuclear energy systems in the Wall Street Journal is commendable, but the tiny slice of resource support indicates that there is still a lot of work to be done to enable the technology to reach the market , especially when compared to the massive

number of dollars available for industrial wind deployment as a gift from taxpayers to companies like BP, Chevron, GE, FPL, and Siemens.¶ It is beyond comprehension to me that it will take us “about 10 years” (in Dr. Chu’s words) to license and deploy smaller, light water reactors that use essentially the same technology that we have been using successfully for nearly 60 years. We have the knowledge base and the manufacturing capability now ; we should build several plants in controlled locations so we can show the regulators how their safety systems work to keep the public protected.¶ Dr. Chu’s op-ed piece concludes with some additional good words about the future potential of systems using high temperature gas – one of my favorites – and fast neutrons for better fuel economy plus the use of modern modeling and simulation techniquest. Dr. Chu’s head is in the right place, but he could use some encouragement

to move more aggressively to take advantage of what is currently an American strong suit.¶ There are some Americans who know more than anyone else about what it takes to build durable, safe, secure, small reactors that use light water as a heat transfer and

moderating fluid and steam as the power section working fluid. We can improve the economics through well understood principles of series production. The Department of Energy’s budget request for FY2011 currently includes more than $1,000 million for small, light water reactors whose allowed market is limited to military vessels. It would seem that technologies used in that program could be used as the basis for prototype licenses for systems like the mPowerTM and NuScale in a process that could take far less than 10 years.¶ There are several places in the US (Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico and Alaska) where early adoption of such systems could dramatically reduce the cost of electricity, reduce the dependence on a fragile fossil fuel tether, and improve its production cleanliness. Success in those locations could lead to successes in similar markets around

the world and perhaps even in system refinements allow competitive costs in more traditional electrical power production markets. What are we waiting for?

AT Grid’s (Access and Overload)

[TAG AS NECESSARY]Barton 2011 Charles Barton, founder of the Nuclear Green Revolution blog, recognized by my peers among nuclear bloggers most of whom have technical training, and my work has been mentioned by the Wall Street Journal, MA in philosophy, April 30, 2011, “Future storm damage to the grid may carry unacceptable costs,” http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html)Amory Lovins has long argued that the traditional grid is vulnerable to this sort of damage. Lovins proposed a paradigm shift from centralized to distributed generation and from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewable based micro-generation. Critics have pointed to flaws in Lovins model. Renewable generation systems are unreliable and their output varies from locality to locality, as well as from day to day, and hour to hour. In order to bring greater stability and predictability to the grid, electrical engineers have proposed expanding the electrical transmission system with thousands of new miles of transmission cables to be added to bring electricity from high wind and high sunshine areas, to consumers. This would lead, if anything, to greater grid vulnerability to storm damage in a high renewable penetration situation. Thus Lovins renewables/distributed generation model breaks down in the face of renewables limitations. Renewables penetration, will increase the distance between electrical generation facilities and customer homes and businesses, increasing the grid vulnerable to large scale

damage, rather than enhancing reliability. Unfortunately Lovins failed to note that the distributed generation model actually worked much better with small nuclear power plants than with renewable generated electricity. Small nuclear plants could be located much closer to customer's homes, decreasing the probability of storm damage to transmission lines. At the

very worst, small NPPs would stop the slide toward increased grid expansion. Small reactors have been proposed as electrical sources for isolated communities that are too remote for grid hookups. If the cost of small reactors can be lowered sufficiently it might be possible for many and perhaps even most communities to unhook from the grid while maintaining a reliable electrical supply. It is likely that electrical power will play an even more central role in a post-carbon energy era. Increased electrical dependency requires increased electrical reliability, and grid vulnerabilities limit electrical reliability. Storm damage can disrupt electrical service for days and evenweeks. In a future, electricity dependent economy, grid damage can actually impede storm recovery efforts, making large scale grid damage semi-self perpetuating. Such grid unreliability becomes a threat to public health and safety. Thus grid reliability will be a more pressing future issue, than it has been. It is clear that renewable energy sources will worsen grid reliability, Some renewable advocates have suggested that the so called "smart grid" will prevent grid outages. Yet the grid will never be smart enough to repair its own damaged power lines. In addition the "smart grid" will be venerable to hackers, and would be a handy target to statures. A smart grid would be an easy target for a Stuxnet type virus attack. Not only does the "smart grid" not solve the problem posed by grid vulnerability to storm damage, but efficiency, another energy approach thought to be a panacea for electrical supply problems would be equally

useless. Thus, decentralized electrical generation through the use of small nuclear power plants offers real potential for increasing electrical reliability, but successful use of renewable electrical generation approaches may worsen rather than improved grid reliability.

AT: Investment

The government can approve and technological contributions is a key factor for approval of FDIState Department 2013 (“2013 Investment Climate Statement – Mexico”, http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ics/2013/204693.htmThe National Foreign Investment Commission under the Secretariat of Economy determines whether investments in restricted sectors may go forward, and has 45 working days to make a decision. Criteria for approval include

employment and training considerations, technological contributions, and contributions to productivity and competitiveness. The Commission may reject applications to acquire Mexican companies for national security reasons. The Secretariat of Foreign Relations (SRE) must issue a permit for foreigners to establish or change the nature of Mexican companies

Mexico opening energy sector to foreigners to boost productionGeller 14 (Martinne, “Mexico draws over $7 billion in foreign investment at Davos”, Reuters, Jan 24, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/24/us-davos-mexico-idUSBREA0N1GM20140124)//ADSeparately, Mexican state-run company Pemex will sign a cooperation memorandum with Russia's No.2 oil producer Lukoil (LKOH.MM) on Friday, Pemex chief executive Emilio Lozoya told Reuters, as the country is opening up its energy sector in a move to boost production.

Infrastructure investment is allowedState Department 2013 (“2013 Investment Climate Statement – Mexico”, http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ics/2013/204693.htmInfrastructure: Mexican infrastructure investment, with certain previously noted exceptions, is open to foreign investment. The Mexican government has been actively seeking an increase in private involvement in infrastructure development in numerous sectors, including transport, communications, and environment. Improving Mexico’s infrastructure is one of President Pena Nieto’s goals during his presidency. In 2011, the Public-Private Associations Law was approved by the lower house of Congress; the law had been approved by the Senate in October 2010. The Public-Private Partnership Law allows the government to enter into infrastructure and service provision contracts with private companies for up to 40 years. The law provides more legal certainty to private investors by equally distributing risks, facilitates access to bank loans, and harmonizes existing state public-partnership models under a single federal law. National and foreign investors alike will be allowed to participate in the bidding process, except in restricted sectors as set forth by the Foreign Direct Investment law.

AT Land

SMR’s solve land use concernsBullis 13- My reporting as MIT Technology Review’s senior editor for energy has taken me, among other places, to the oil-rich deserts of the Middle East and to China, where mountains are being carved away to build the looming cities (Kevin, “Can Small Reactors Ignite a Nuclear Renaissance?”, MIT Technology Review, March 28, 2013, http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512896/can-small-reactors-ignite-a-nuclear-renaissance/)//ADThe smaller size has other potential advantages. Siting a large nuclear power plant can be difficult—it requires, for example, an emergency planning zone extending 10 miles around the plant, Cryderman says. That zone could be as small as half a mile for a small modular reactor—in part because of its size and in part because the reactors have added design features. For example, while the newest reactors—such as the Westinghouse AP1000—are designed to keep the fuel cool for three days without power, small modular reactors can be designed to go without any power for weeks. He says that if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves a smaller emergency planning zone, that could allow Ameren to build nuclear power plants at old coal plant sites, simplifying grid connections and other siting issues.

AT Renewables

Only SMRs solve- renewables failBarton 2011 Charles Barton, founder of the Nuclear Green Revolution blog, recognized by my peers among nuclear bloggers most of whom have technical training, and my work has been mentioned by the Wall Street Journal, MA in philosophy, April 30, 2011, “Future storm damage to the grid may carry unacceptable costs,” http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html)Amory Lovins has long argued that the traditional grid is vulnerable to this sort of damage. Lovins proposed a paradigm shift from centralized to distributed generation and from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewable based micro-generation. Critics have pointed to flaws in Lovins model. Renewable generation systems are unreliable and their output varies from locality to locality, as well as from day to day, and hour to hour. In order to bring greater stability and predictability to the grid, electrical engineers have proposed expanding the electrical transmission system with thousands of new miles of transmission cables to be added to bring electricity from high wind and high sunshine areas, to consumers. This would lead, if anything, to greater grid vulnerability to storm damage in a high renewable penetration situation. Thus Lovins renewables/distributed generation model breaks down in the face of renewables limitations. Renewables penetration, will increase the distance between electrical generation facilities and customer homes and businesses, increasing the grid vulnerable to large scale damage , rather than enhancing reliability. Unfortunately Lovins failed to note that the distributed generation model actually worked much better with small nuclearpower plants than with renewable generated electricity. Small nuclear plants could be located much closer to customer's homes, decreasing the probability of storm damage to transmission lines. At the very worst, small NPPs would stop the slide toward increased grid expansion. Small reactors have been proposed as electrical sources for isolated communities that are too remote for grid hookups. If the cost of small reactors can be lowered sufficiently it might be possible for many and perhaps even most communities to unhook from the grid while maintaining a reliable electrical supply. It is likely that electrical power will play an even more central role in a post-carbon energy era. Increased electrical dependency requires increased electrical reliability, and grid vulnerabilities limit electrical reliability. Storm damage can disrupt electrical service for days and evenweeks. In a future, electricity dependent economy, grid damage can actually impede storm recovery efforts, making large scale grid damage semi-self perpetuating. Such grid unreliability becomes a threat to public health and safety. Thus grid reliability will be a more pressing future issue, than it has been. It is clear that renewable energy sources will worsen grid reliability, Some renewable advocates have suggested that the so called "smart grid" will prevent grid outages. Yet the grid will never be smart enough to repair its own damaged power lines. In addition the "smart grid" will be venerable to hackers , and would be a handy target to statures. A smart grid would be an easy target for a Stuxnet type virus attack. Not only does the "smart grid" not solve the problem posed by grid vulnerability to storm damage, but efficiency, another energy approach thought to be a panacea for electrical supply problems would be equally useless. Thus, decentralized electrical generation through the use of small nuclear power plants offers real potential for increasing electrical reliability, but successful use of renewable electrical generation approaches may worsen rather than improved grid reliability.

***AT: No Resources***

Thorium (yes, thorium reactors are molten sodium reactors) is everywhere-it’s more abundant and safer than Uranium-it can’t be used to make nukes, the waste lasts 1/1000th of the time and can produce more energy than uraniumJohnson 12— (Eric, "Does Abandoned Idaho Mine Hold Key to Energy Independence?", KOMO News, 10 Nov. 2012, http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Solution-to-worlds-energy-problems-Thorium-lie-in-abandoned-Idaho-mine-178283791.html)//AD LEMHI PASS, Idaho -- Head out to the mountains of Lemhi Pass in central Idaho and you'll find an old, abandoned mining camp, and a dreamer named DeWorth Williams. "There's enough Thorium here to power the United States for 500 years," Williams said. But it's in this mining camp, with its abandoned bunk houses and long-forgotten roads, that the idea of a Thorium-powered world died 40 years ago. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, there was hope that humanity was on the cusp of something incredible: We were going to split the atom to create limitless electricity, and as a result, there would be world

peace. America had a choice to make in the 1950s and 60s: Get nuclear power from Uranium , or from a now mostly forgotten element called 'Thorium'. In theory, Throrium is more plentiful, more efficient, and far safer than Uranium. They actually made a reactor fueled by Thorium at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. It worked . And so, we came to a fork in the road of history: Uranium or Thorium? There's a

hint of bitterness in DeWorth Williams' voice today when he says, "in the end it was Uranium that was selected, because the government wanted to build bombs ." The problem with Thorium was that you couldn't make enriched Plutonium as a by-product. But with Uranium you could, and with enriched Plutonium, they could make nuclear bombs . The rest, as they say, is history. But what if we had gone with Thorium? What would the world be like today? John Kutsch, director of the Thorium Energy Alliance says plainly, "The lost opportunity for a half century of not

using this for commercial purposes is almost unfathomable." Former NASA engineer and nuclear technologist Kirk Sorenson agrees. "I think if the road of Thorium would have been pursued with the kind of resources that had been devoted to other ideas, we would have seen Thorium reactors coming on in the 1990's... and we would have been completely energy independent by the early 2000's," Sorenson said. Ultimately, in 1972, the Thorium mining operation in Idaho was shut down. The stuff was now worthless. But DeWorth Williams climbed around in the mountains, staked claims, and bought up hundreds of veins of the stuff, just in

case. It's the purest, richest stash of Thorium known in the world, although that isn't to say it doesn't exist elsewhere. In India for instance, there is plenty of Thorium, but it's mixed in with sand, and the process of removing it from that sand is expensive. Thorium is, of course, radioactive. There are signs on the mountain reminding you of that as you walk around. We took some chunks of rock from the mountain in Idaho to Boise geologist Rich Reed. Using a spectrometer to measure the radiation, the thing practically squealed when Reed pointed it at the rock. "This stuff is hot... you've got some hot stuff there," Reed said. Today in the aftermath of Fukushima and 3-Mile Island, with the reputation of nuclear power at an all-time low, men like Kirk Sorensen and John Kutsch are bringing the nuclear energy dream back from the dead, powered this time by Thorium. "If we are able to realize the energy from

Thorium, it really will be the end of energy crisis on Earth for the rest of human history," Sorensen said. Kutsch added: " It's absolutely not an exaggeration to say that Thorium used in molten salt reactors can save and change the world ." Molten salt reactors use a complex process that is almost completely opposite of a light water reactor. "With a light water reactor you're always trying to keep it under control ... and keep it managed," Sorensen said. " With a molten salt reactor , you're always trying to keep it on. So almost the minute you stop trying to keep a molten salt reactor running, it starts to shut off." So essentially , in simple terms, just turn off the power and disasters like Fukushima are avoided. Experts say the molten salt reactor , powered by Thorium, can produce 90-times as much energy as Uranium, the waste lasts only 1/1000th as long , and they talk about a revolution in the use of electric cars powered by cheap, Thorium-produced energy. But there are non-believers. "I don't believe in Thorium reactors as being a new, different, or likely part of nuclear power's future," said David Lochbaum, Director of the Nuclear Safety Project. "But for disclosure, I also don't believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or that Elvis works at a Burger King in Michigan." Lochbaum says there are still dangers. "The Thorium reactors still produce a lot of energy for a small amount of material, and if you don't properly deal with that, you can overheat and damage the fuel and release large amounts of radiation." Sorensen replies: "Yes, they do produce large amounts of heat, that's why we're interested in them! They produce more heat per unit mass than anything we've ever come across in the world!" So why aren't we using Thorium now? China and India are already diving into Thorium. But in the U.S., Thorium believers say it's a combination of factors -- the largest being the sheer cost of researching, and building enough molten salt reactors to power America. They say that at this point there isn't enough political fortitude and real

determination on the part of the public to make the Thorium dream a reality. In the meantime, Williams wonders with the potential for limitless energy that's cheap and safe with no pollution, how can we not afford to find out? "Automatically, you think, 'Why isn't this happening?' " he said. "And so it's here... it's ready to happen."

Relations Link

CC Coop Solves Relations

Cooperation on combating climate change allows relations to expand and take on new meaningsBarry 13—Tom Barry is a senior policy analyst at the Center for International Policy, where he directs the TransBorder project. Barry specializes in immigration policy, homeland security, border security and the outsourcing of national security. Barry’s latest book is "Border Wars," from MIT Press in September 2011 (Tom, “Changing Perspectives on U.S.-Mexico Relations”, North American Congress on Latin America, May 3, 2013, https://nacla.org/news/2013/5/2/changing-perspectives-us-mexico-relations)//ADThe lead items of the Los Pinos meeting are ones that have long dominated U.S.-Mexico presidential meetings: immigration, border control, economic integration, and drug-related security. The presidents will achieve some camaraderie chatting about the domestic political obstacles

that complicate their plans for national and international progress. In the pleasant, climate-controlled setting of Los Pinos, it’s unlikely that Peña Nieto and Obama will address in any depth, if at all, what will soon become the top agenda item of most binational and multilateral meetings: the scourge of climate change . Climate Change If Obama and Peña Nieto were to talk about common concerns while on the border instead of in sitting rooms of the White House and Los

Pinos, they would see a common future in the river that divides the two nations. Climate change-aggravated drought has reduced the Río Bravo to a viscous, milky green trickle. Groundwater reserves in the greater borderlands are being quickly depleted, and farmers, ranchers, and city planners on both sides of the border are battling over rapidly diminishing supplies in the first skirmishes of the water wars that will surely soon overshadow the drug wars as the main threat to regional stability. A

common commitment by Obama and Peña Nieto for each government to do its part to mitigate and

mutually adjust to climate change —which doesn’t respect border lines or border security

fortifications— would be a sign that binational relations can move beyond being merely economic partners and fighting on the same side of the drug war. The sad plight of the once glorious Río Bravo should not further divide the two nations, but bring the communities to the north and those to the south together as neighbors and part of the larger North American community with shared interests and responsibilities.

AT

Fukushima

First, extend our Wheeler 10 evidence proving that SMRs a safer and second Rosner and Goldberg in 2011 say that:Rosner and Goldberg 11- Energy Policy Institute at [the University of] Chicago and the [University of Chicago] Harris School of Public Policy Studies (Robert and Stephen, "Small Modular Reactors – Key to Future Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S.", EPIC-Energy Policy Institute at Chicago, November 2011, http://www.eenews.net/assets/2013/03/13/document_gw_01.pdf)//ADThe events at the Fukushima nuclear plant in the aftermath of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake, while not yet fully assessed, may prove to be a mixed blessing for SMRs. On the one hand,

the experience at Fukushima could underscore the benefits of SMR technology: smaller source terms, easier decay heat removal, passive cooling, and below-grade construction . On the other hand, heightened public concerns

about nuclear safety in general could be a disincentive for private capital investment in SMR development

Waste

Extend Williams 13—MSSMR’s cut waste to 1/1000th of current reactors

The waste issue doesn’t apply to SMR’s—they’re more efficient and come with a containment device for wasteSilverstein 13 (Ken, “After Fukushima, U.S. Seeks to Advance Small Nuclear Reactors”, Forbes, Jan 15th

2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2013/01/15/after-fukushima-u-s-seeks-to-advance-small-nuclear-reactors/)//AD Smaller reactors, though, have a place: They might not only serve niche markets but they could also replace at least some of those bigger and more centralized nuclear

generation. The right-sized reactors are expected to operate at high efficiencies and to have built-in advantages, ultimately giving those investments a respectable

return. Such units, for example, generally come with a nuclear waste storage containment device . The facilities could also be used to create drinkable water supplies in those countries where such a resource is in short supply

2AC Block Skeletons

Nuclear Terrorism

AT: No threat from Mexico

1) Extend the Early et al 2009 evidence about how the presence of the old reactors incentivizes nuclear terrorism—Mexico has 2 old reactors now, and being on the border of the US they make a tempting target for terrorists

2) Our plan mitigates risk from other countries too—American leadership spurs global adoption of safe SMR tech

Expansion of SMR’s causes a resurgence of global interest in nuclear power—countries would adopt SMR techTaso 11 (Firas Eugen Taso, “21st Century Civilian Nuclear Power and the Role of Small Modular Reactors”, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; Tufts University, May 2011, file:///C:/Users/Adam/Downloads/UA015.012.079.00002.archival.pdf)//ADIn recent years there has been a renewed interest, both private and public according to Matthew Bunn, in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Some of them are new concepts and technologies, like the Hyperion or Toshiba 4S reactors, or existing technologies scaled down from large PWR or LWR reactors, like

the NuScale or mPower. In the eyes of some experts and proponents of nuclear power, these new designs and new approach from the industry could change the playing field and help promote a resurgence of nuclear power not just in the

United States, but worldwide, opening the field to countries that were thus far not considering nuclear for economic or capacity reasons. SMRs could , in theory, help promote nuclear power and give it the jump start that has been talked about for decades in the US and other nuclear states. In order to understand SMRs, and arguments for and against them, this section will describe the technology, look at current models and regulatory and political environment on SMRs and analyze them from benefits and costs perspectives.

A. Extend the Loudermilk 11, Wheeler 10, and Taylor 13 cards—SMR’s are resistant to proliferation

B. Molten Sodium SMR’s are uniquely key to preventing dangerous nuclear material from spreading

MS-SMR’s cannot be used to make nuclear weaponsJohnson 12— (Eric, "Does Abandoned Idaho Mine Hold Key to Energy Independence?", KOMO News, 10 Nov. 2012, http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Solution-to-worlds-energy-problems-Thorium-lie-in-abandoned-Idaho-mine-178283791.html)//AD LEMHI PASS, Idaho -- Head out to the mountains of Lemhi Pass in central Idaho and you'll find an old, abandoned mining camp, and a dreamer named DeWorth Williams. "There's enough Thorium here to power the United States for 500 years," Williams said. But it's in this mining camp, with its abandoned bunk houses and long-forgotten roads, that the idea of a Thorium-powered world died 40 years ago. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, there was hope that humanity was on the cusp of something incredible: We were going to split the atom to create limitless electricity, and as a result, there would be world

peace. America had a choice to make in the 1950s and 60s: Get nuclear power from Uranium , or from a now mostly forgotten element called 'Thorium'. In theory, Throrium is more plentiful, more efficient, and far safer than Uranium. They actually made a reactor fueled by Thorium at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. It worked . And so, we came to a fork in the road of history: Uranium or Thorium? There's a

hint of bitterness in DeWorth Williams' voice today when he says, "in the end it was Uranium that was selected, because the government wanted to build bombs ." The problem with Thorium was that you couldn't make enriched Plutonium as a by-product. But with Uranium you could, and with enriched Plutonium, they could make nuclear bombs . The rest, as they say, is history. But what if we had gone with Thorium? What would the world be like today? John Kutsch, director of the Thorium Energy Alliance says plainly, "The lost opportunity for a half century of not using this for commercial purposes is almost unfathomable." Former NASA engineer and nuclear technologist Kirk Sorenson agrees. "I think if the road of Thorium would have been pursued with the kind of resources that had been devoted to other ideas, we would have seen Thorium reactors coming on in the 1990's... and we would have been completely energy independent by

the early 2000's," Sorenson said. Ultimately, in 1972, the Thorium mining operation in Idaho was shut down. The stuff was now worthless. But DeWorth Williams climbed around in the mountains, staked claims, and bought up hundreds of veins of the stuff, just in case. It's the purest, richest stash of Thorium known in the world, although that isn't to say it doesn't exist elsewhere. In India for instance, there is plenty of Thorium, but it's mixed in with sand, and the process of removing it from that sand is expensive. Thorium is, of course, radioactive. There are signs on the mountain reminding you of that as you walk around. We took some chunks of rock from the mountain in Idaho to Boise geologist Rich Reed. Using a spectrometer to measure the radiation, the thing practically squealed when Reed pointed it at the rock. "This stuff is hot... you've got some hot stuff there," Reed said. Today in the aftermath of Fukushima and 3-Mile Island, with the reputation of nuclear power at an all-time low, men like Kirk Sorensen and John Kutsch are bringing the nuclear energy dream back from the dead, powered this time by Thorium. "If we are able to realize the energy from Thorium, it really will be the end of energy crisis on Earth for the rest of human history," Sorensen said. Kutsch added: "It's absolutely not an exaggeration to say that Thorium used in molten salt reactors can save and change the world." Molten salt reactors use a complex process that is almost completely opposite of a light water reactor. "With a light water reactor you're always trying to keep it under control... and keep it managed," Sorensen said. "With a molten salt reactor, you're always trying to keep it on. So almost the minute you stop trying to keep a molten salt reactor running, it starts to shut off." So essentially, in simple terms, just turn off the power and disasters like Fukushima are avoided. Experts say the molten salt reactor, powered by Thorium, can produce 90-times as much energy as Uranium, the waste lasts only 1/1000th as long, and they talk about a revolution in the use of electric cars powered by cheap, Thorium-produced energy. But there are non-believers. "I don't believe in Thorium reactors as being a new, different, or likely part of nuclear power's future," said David Lochbaum, Director of the Nuclear Safety Project. "But for disclosure, I also don't believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or that Elvis works at a Burger King in Michigan." Lochbaum says there are still dangers. "The Thorium reactors still produce a lot of energy for a small amount of material, and if you don't properly deal with that, you can overheat and damage the fuel and release large amounts of radiation." Sorensen replies: "Yes, they do produce large amounts of heat, that's why we're interested in them! They produce more heat per unit mass than anything we've ever come across in the world!" So why aren't we using Thorium now? China and India are already diving into Thorium. But in the U.S., Thorium believers say it's a combination of factors -- the largest being the sheer cost of researching, and building enough molten salt reactors to power America. They say that at this point there isn't enough political fortitude and real determination on the part of the public to make the Thorium dream a reality. In the meantime, Williams wonders with the potential for limitless energy that's cheap and safe with no pollution, how can we not afford to find out? "Automatically, you think, 'Why isn't this happening?' " he said. "And so it's here... it's ready to happen."

PTX

2AC

Possible Frontlines

Political Capitol is a useless theory for trying to measure the passage of bills—there’s no way to measure it, it’s constantly shifting and it’s not even realHirsh 13- Chief correspondent for National Journal, former Newsweek reporter (Michael, “There’s No Such Thing as Political Capital”, National Journal, February 7, 2013 http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207)//ADThe real problem is that the idea of political capital—or mandates, or momentum—is so poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it wrong. “Presidents usually over-estimate it,” says George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. “The best kind of political capital—some sense of an electoral mandate to do something—is very rare. It almost never happens. In 1964, maybe. And to some degree in 1980.” For that reason, political capital is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It conveys the idea that we know more than we really do about the ever-elusive concept of political power, and it discounts the way unforeseen events can suddenly change everything. Instead, it suggests, erroneously, that a political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, just as someone might have real investment capital—that a particular leader can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any given moment in history. Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him? Obama has neither at present. And unless a surge in the economy—at the moment, still stuck—or some other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that the closer Obama gets to the 2014 election, the less he will be able to get done. Going into the midterms, Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him (and the Democrats) stronger. But the abrupt emergence of the immigration and gun-control issues illustrates how suddenly shifts in mood can occur and how political interests can align in new ways just as suddenly. Indeed, the pseudo-concept of political capital masks a larger truth about Washington that is kindergarten simple: You just don’t know what you can do until you try. Or as Ornstein himself once wrote years ago, “Winning wins.” In theory, and in practice, depending on Obama’s handling of any particular issue, even in a polarized time, he could still deliver on a lot of his second-term goals, depending on his skill and the breaks. Unforeseen catalysts can appear, like Newtown. Epiphanies can dawn, such as when many Republican Party leaders suddenly woke up in panic to the huge disparity in the Hispanic vote. Some political scientists who study the elusive calculus of how to pass legislation and run successful presidencies say that political capital is, at best, an empty concept, and that almost nothing in the academic literature successfully quantifies or even defines it. “It can refer to a very abstract thing, like a president’s popularity, but the re’s no mechanism there. That makes it kind of useless,” says Richard Bensel, a government professor at Cornell University . Even Ornstein concedes that the calculus is far more complex than the term suggests. Winning on one issue often changes the calculation for the next issue; there is never any known amount of capital. “The idea here is, if an issue comes up where the conventional wisdom is that president is not going to get what he wants, and he gets it, then each time that happens, it changes the calculus of the other actors” Ornstein says. “If they think he’s going to win, they may change positions to get on the winning side. It’s a bandwagon effect.”

Obama is out of political capital—he knows this and has shifted his focus to foreign policy—he won’t be backing any bills in CongressLee 14-Wall Street Journal (Carol, “After Muted Triumphs at Home, Obama Seeks Progress Abroad”, WSJ, 2/14/14, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/02/14/after-muted-triumphs-at-home-obama-seeks-progress-abroad/)//ADA White House that spent much of its energy, and political capital, in 2013 trying to create that very scenario had a relatively stoic reaction. “An end to that kind of brinksmanship for now is a very welcome thing,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said before adding: “It says something about the expectations that the American people have of Congress that people notice when Congress actually doesn’t do direct harm to the economy.” Yet in another sign it’s a second term, the status quo that the White House claims as a victory at home falls short of Mr. Obama’s foreign-policy goals. That’s in part why the president is spending Valentine’s Day on a sprawling Palm Springs, Calif., resort with plans for multiple rounds of

golf and some quality time with…the king of Jordan. Mr. Obama is beginning to turn his sights on foreign policy more than we’ve seen recently.

It’s a typical shift for presidents in their final years in office. But for Mr. Obama, it may be the one area where he can achieve significant goals. In September, during a speech at the United Nations, Mr. Obama outlined his top three focal points on foreign policy in his second term – Iran, Syria and Middle East peace. Now that U.S. policy with each has reached an important moment – talks with Iran over a long-term nuclear deal begin next

week, a deadline is approaching in Middle East peace talks, and Syria continues to deteriorate – the president plans to get more personally involved in the process. That’s where King Abdullah II of Jordan comes in. He’s Mr. Obama’s first in a string of sit-downs with leaders from the region. Mr. Obama has little to hope for in a robust legislative agenda this year, particularly now that House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) has cast doubt on any passage of immigration reform. The White House’s emphasis on executive action so far hasn’t yielded the kind of major change Mr. Obama initially arrived in Washington promising.

Upcoming elections mean that the Republican Party is in a full blown civil war—if their own party leaders can’t sway them then neither could ObamaCohen 14-CNN (Tom, “Election-year logic explains GOP dysfunction”, CNN, February 14, 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/13/politics/gop-dysfunction/index.html?hpt=po_c2)//ADWashington (CNN) -- To understand how messed up Republican politics are these days, examine two votes in Congress this week that

demonstrated the level of GOP dysfunction amid the confusing dynamics of an election year in Washington. On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner and 27 other Republicans voted to allow the federal borrowing limit to increase, joining nearly unanimous Democratic support to pass the debt-ceiling measure over the opposition of the other 199 GOP members. The next day, Senate

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and 11 GOP colleagues voted with the Democratic majority to reject an attempted filibuster of the same legislation by fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Minutes later, all 12 of the GOP senators who helped defeat the filibuster bid voted with Cruz and the rest of the Senate Republicans against final approval of the debt-ceiling plan, which passed anyway due to unanimous Democratic support. In other words,

Republican leaders in Congress sided with Democrats to push through legislation opposed by most of their colleagues. In the Senate, they then voted against the proposal that their earlier support ensured would pass. Here's the really strange part -- it all makes sense, at least in the context of a divided Republican Party less than nine months

before congressional elections in which every House seat and 36 of the 100 Senate seats will be contested. The situations in the House and Senate differed in

specifics but shared a common root -- more extreme conservatives foiled plans by GOP leaders to avoid a politically damaging showdown over the debt ceiling while still registering Republican opposition to increased federal borrowing. According to public statements, nobody wanted another debt-ceiling stalemate like those of the past three years that unsettled financial markets and caused the first downgrade of the U.S. credit rating in 2011. A recent CNN/ORC International poll found that 54% of respondents would blame congressional Republicans for a failure to raise the debt ceiling, while 29% would blame President Barack Obama and 12% would blame both. Fresh memories of public blame for the 16-day government shutdown in October also motivated Republican leaders to try to steer clear of another standoff. However, conservative disdain for anything smelling of more federal borrowing -- especially in an election year -- torpedoed Boehner's efforts to forge a compromise that would include some deficit-reduction provisions. His final attempt was to tack on a politically popular proposal that repealed cuts to military pensions in the recent budget agreement. When Boehner's caucus rejected it, the Ohioan decided to violate his own rule by holding a vote on a "clean" debt-ceiling plan with no accompanying spending cuts, which passed on Tuesday because of strong Democratic support. The House result offered McConnell a face-saving chance to avoid any Senate Republicans from having to vote for the debt-ceiling measure. He and other GOP leaders urged their colleagues to let Democrats pass the House version while Republicans opposed it, but Cruz's filibuster bid meant that at least five GOP votes would be needed to prevent another Washington impasse. In a dramatic moment Wednesday on the Senate floor, McConnell and fellow GOP leader Sen. John Cornyn of Texas cast the two votes needed to reach the threshold of 60 to overcome the filibuster attempt. Other GOP colleagues then changed their votes to provide some political cover, but the damage was done. Both McConnell and Cornyn -- longtime conservatives considered Obama's harshest Senate foes -- face primary challenges from further to the right this year. Shortly after Wednesday's votes, the campaign of McConnell's primary opponent in Kentucky, tea party conservative Matt Bevin, highlighted how the senator helped defeat the filibuster against the debt limit measure. Some GOP colleagues praised Boehner and McConnell for putting party welfare ahead of personal political risk. "It was a very courageous act, especially Sen. McConnell, who we all know is in a very tough race," said GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, one of the Republicans who changed his vote to help overcome the filibuster bid. "He's the elected Republican leader and it's up to him to cast the right vote." Fellow Republican Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska said the debt-ceiling issue had to be resolved to prevent harmful financial and political fallout. "That's just the reality," he said. "You can deal with it with 60 votes or a majority, but at the end of the day, you had to deal with it." Cruz was unapologetic, attacking his fellow Republicans and Democrats as unresponsive to the rising federal debt. "Today was a classic victory for Washington establishment interests, and the people who lost today were the American people," he said. As expected, Democrats offered a different assessment. "It is encouraging that some of my Republican colleagues seem to be regaining their grip on sanity this week," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said before Wednesday's votes, while fellow Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri told MSNBC that

Republicans have "a real civil war on their hands." "They have rigid ideologues that are pushing a very

narrow agenda, a very narrow view of what America is, and then they've got a lot of Republicans that are not that extreme, and they're in a big battle right now," she said. "And you see it every day around here." To CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger, Cruz put his own agenda of appealing to the tea party right ahead of the GOP leadership's strategy. She noted he did the same thing to cause last year's government shutdown by trying to link federal spending to efforts to dismantle Obama's signature health care reforms, which conservatives detest. Republicans still smarting from that defeat "are looking at Ted Cruz today and going, 'Oh my God, didn't you learn the lesson of the government shutdown?'" Borger said, adding that "it's about him."

Russia Sanctions

The sanctions don’t actually do anything, they are completely symbolicWalsh 14-CNN Politics (Deirdre, “House committee resolution urges sanctions against Russia”, 3/5/14, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/05/house-committee-to-vote-on-russia-sanctions-resolution/)//ADIt urges the administration to work with "our European allies and other countries" to "impose visa, financial, trade, and other sanctions on senior Russian officials, majority state-owned banks

and commercial organizations, and other state agencies, as appropriate." The measure would not carry the force of law, but would

instead express House sentiment on the matter, according to committee chairman Ed Royce , who added that

he expects bipartisan support when the panel puts it up for a vote as early as Thursday.

Iran Sanctions

Republican Senator says Iran Sanctions won’t get a voteMcAuliff 14 (Michael, “Top Foreign Relations Republican Predicts Iran Sanctions Won't Get A Vote”, Huffington Post, February 26, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/26/bob-corker-iran-sanctions_n_4861429.html)//ADWASHINGTON -- The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is admitting that the GOP push to attach Iran sanctions to a veterans benefits bill will not succeed. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) are

leading the effort to pass new Iran sanctions, even though the White House has warned that such a move could make war more likely. The Obama administration has little to worry about, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) suggested Wednesday. "It doesn't look to me like we're going to get a vote," Corker told several reporters on Capitol Hill . Many Democrats have signaled support for new sanctions, but

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) backed away from taking a vote, deferring to White House concerns that it could harm ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran. Reid has criticized the Republican attempt to force a vote on sanctions as politicizing the issue. Besides the veterans bill, GOP senators tried earlier in the week to attach sanctions to measures aimed at curbing sexual assault in the military. Corker declined to criticize that effort, saying the matter needs to be debated, but he offered no endorsement of his colleagues' specific tactic.

Second-Senate specific evidence, also, Obama vetoes anywayBendery and Johnson 14 (Jennifer and Luke, “Iran Sanctions Bill 'On Ice' As Momentum Fades In Senate”, Huffington Post, January 30, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/30/iran-sanctions-bill_n_4696197.html)//ADWASHINGTON -- It took a presidential veto threat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's refusal to budge, but it appears a contentious Iran sanctions bill has been laid to rest. "The sanctions bill is on ice while the diplomatic process plays out," said a senior Senate Democratic aide.

"The fact that cosponsors of the bill are now publicly distancing themselves from the measure shows just how hasty and ill-conceived this effort has been." Another Senate Democratic leadership aide wouldn't go so far as to call the

legislation dead, but conceded, "Its forward momentum has been stopped and even reversed."Both aides requested anonymity in order to speak candidly. The bipartisan bill had been gaining steam over the past two months, picking up a whopping 58 cosponsors -- including 15 Democrats. The measure would boost sanctions on Iran unless it agrees to halt all of its uranium enrichment. But the White House has been pushing back hard against any congressional action on Iran sanctions, warning it could thwart a delicate deal in place between Iran and six world powers. Under that six-month deal, Iran would scale back its uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. Iranian leaders have already warned that any new sanctions would sink the deal, which would leave the U.S. with few options for resolving concerns with Iran apart from going to war. The White House pressure has

paid off. Reid has refused to bring the bill up for a vote, and during Tuesday's State of the Union, Obama made it clear he would veto the measure if it even made it to his desk. Since then, at least three Democratic cosponsors of the bill have walked back their support for taking it up. Several senators acknowledged Thursday that the bill isn't going anywhere, at least not anytime soon.

Obama can veto

There’s no UQ for their impacts, we have sanctioned Iran before and they haven’t declared war. If they were right then we should have already had a war when we passed sanctions in the past.

There would be no reason for Iran to declare war-they know that Israel would nuke them if they actually started something and they’re not suicidal. They have nothing to gain.

CIR

Immigration Reform won’t pass—Republican primaries mean no vote until after NovemberFerenstein 14 (Gregory, “A New Poll Showing Why Immigration Reform Probably Won’t Pass This Year”, Tech Crunch, February 23, 2014, http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/23/immigration-reform-not-pass-2014/)//ADUnfortunately, 2014 is an election year and Republican incumbents could face a backlash at the polls if they

compromised to pass a comprehensive bill. Republicans and Democrats disagree whether the 11 million low-skilled

undocumented immigrants should be given a path to citizenship or mere permanent residence. Republican Congressman Darrell Issa , who is in charge of writing the high-tech immigration reform bill in the House of Representatives, told us earlier this year that comprehensive immigration reform isn’t likely to happen until at least after the 2014 mid-term elections, because it’s too politically risky for Republicans to compromise on a bil l that may have to have some path-to-

citizenship provision.

Immigration Reform won’t pass—the House is holding it hostage to demands Democrats are unlikely to agree toSinha 14-CNN (Anita, “Immigration Reform Is at a Standstill but There's Still Work to Be Done”, CNN, February 24, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anita-sinha/immigration-reform_b_4840585.html)//ADComprehensive immigration reform may be the most ill-fated three words on Capitol Hill . The Senate passed a

bill last summer, and depending on the week the issue on the House side is either dead on arrival or may see the light of day. While there has yet to be a bill from the House , earlier this month the GOP released its " Immigration Reform Principles ." This one-page

document starts with the principle that "border security and interior enforcement must come first," and ends with the statement that "none of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented." Despite the fact that President Obama continues to deport non-citizens at a record-breaking pace -- nearing two million deportations since he took

office -- l awmakers from the relucta nt to obstructionist continue to emphasize the border and enforcement, with some even saying that they don't trust the President to enforce immigration laws.

Both sides don’t want CIR to pass—Republicans worry about primaries and Democrats score points at home the longer nothing happensRogers 14-Washington Post (Ed, “The Insiders: Immigration reform unlikely until 2015”, Washington Post, February 10, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/02/10/the-insiders-immigration-reform-unlikely-until-2015/)//ADThere is a lot of speculation these days about Republicans’ intentions and motives regarding immigration reform. There is also a lot of blame directed at Republicans for not passing any

immigration reform bills in the House, but in fact there are two reasons immigration reform isn’t on a faster track . The first reason is Republicans and the second reason is Democrats. Among Republicans, if you combine those who are hostile to just about any comprehensive immigration reform measure with those who are fearful that addressing the contentious issue could produce a problem in their primaries , you have a blocking position in the House. If you then add the Republican members who are open to immigration reform but think it isn’t worth the trouble in an election year, you end up with a majority of the GOP. Most Republicans want to focus on the two issues that voters care most about – Obamacare and the economy – and that will be hard to change. It is inaccurate to suggest that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has stopped or disengaged from a process that was going to produce comprehensive reform in the short term. I think that Republicans who are willing to work on immigration reform, especially using a piece-meal approach, probably represent a majority of the caucus. But those members of Congress, along with Boehner, know they cannot negotiate with those who don’t support any immigration reform this year, whatever their reason for wanting to delay. Even trying to talk about the issue with visceral opponents of comprehensive reform is almost

impossible. You can’t reason with a blaring horn. The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Rep. Greg

Walden (R-Ore.), summed up the Republican position pretty clearly when he suggested that very little can

happen on immigration reform until at least the 2014 primary season is over later this summer . He also

made it clear that he believes the issue is important, even if voters aren’t demanding short-term action. He reminds us that Congress is tasked with dealing not just with those things that are

urgent or constantly making headlines, but with all the “issues that matter.” Then you have the Democrats, who are happy with the status quo of Republicans being on the back foot. In fact, the Democrats are so certain of Republican intransigence that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was able to taunt Republicans on Sunday’s “ Meet the Press,” essentially daring them to pass an immigration reform law now that won’t go into effect until after President Obama leaves office. Democrats masterfully orchestrated the passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate that has no chance in the House. Republican inactivity allows them to continue to demagogue on the issue to mostly Hispanic audiences, who rightly think policy reform is needed. So with Republicans against or fearful of enacting reform and Democrats gleeful that Republican intransigence is a fact of life, you have a perfect prescription for nothing to happen . But Boehner knows his caucus, and he knows this issue is important. He’ll likely let the committee work continue through the spring and summer and

reach a decision around July on whether the House will move something to the floor in the fall. Given the fear and loathing that surrounds this issue among Republicans in the House and Senate, the best political decision for Republicans may be to wait until after their majority in the House has been confirmed and they have (at the very least) strengthened their position in the Senate. Maybe immigration reform should be an issue left for 2015 – after the 2014 midterms and before the 2016 presidential campaign kicks off.

Turn – immigration reform tanks wages hurts the economy McCann, Capital Equipment Financing Company President, 2013, (Steve, Projects focused in Third World Countries, "The Victims of Immigration Reform", American Thinker, 6-27, Christian Lisik) www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/the_victims_of_immigration_reform.html Assuming there are 15 million illegal immigrants in the country and 80% (12 million) would be a net of of working age and that 20% of that group are currently counted in the BLS statistics, therefore, 9.6 million more people would be added to the published working age population -- if the current legislation is signed into law. The overall current working age population of 245.4 million would therefore increase to 255.0 potential job seekers available for 143.9 million jobs. (a shortfall of 111.1 million). Per the current method of calculating the unemployment rate the current published rate of 7.6% would immediately increase to 9.1%. Another factor is average weekly earnings of those employed. In May of 2006 the average weekly wage was $650.56 (inflation adjusted) versus $676.36 today, or an average real gain of less than 0.5% per year. This stagnation occurred for two reasons: 1) the composition of the job market and 2) the increased competition for jobs engendered by the growth in the working age population. Since May of 2006, this nation has lost 4.4 million jobs in the high paying goods producing sector. Meanwhile an additional 3.1 million jobs were created in the low paying sectors of the health care and leisure and hospitality industry. Since 2006, the working age population has increased by17 million while there has been a net decrease of 100 thousand jobs -- a prime factor in the stagnate weekly earning as supply has outstripped demand for employees. ` If the working age population were increased by another 10+ million due to the immediate legalization of undocumented immigrants, the pressure on wages would increase dramatically, potentially lowering the weekly earnings by as much as 2-3% per year. The long term ramifications are considerably worse as the current proposed legislation would open the flood gates to massive new chain immigration and a still unsecured border allowing (per the Congressional Budget Office) up to 75% of the current level of illegal immigration to continue unabated far into the future. Some estimates have put this combination of factors would result in nearly 40 million new immigrants over the next twenty plus years. To make matters worse, this administration is determined to undermine any significant economic growth by

announcing new restrictions of energy use and production. This combined with excessive taxation, regulations and mandates further exacerbates the inability of American companies to be competitive and create jobs in the United States -- just as the labor force will grow by leaps and bounds.

Trade Promotion Authority

Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate aren’t going to let this throughSiekierski 14-iPolitics; independent Canadian news source (BJ, “Democrats line up against Trade Promotion Authority, threaten TPP”, February 12, 2014, http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/02/12/democrats-line-up-against-trade-promotion-authority-threaten-tpp/)//ADIt just became a lot more unlikely that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be completed under the Obama administration. On Wednesday, the Washington Post

reported House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi echoing the objections of fellow Democrat — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — to what’s known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). TPA, also referred to as Fast Track Authority, allows for negotiated trade agreements to be put to Congress for a yes or no vote, without any possibility for amendment. It’s essential for American trade partners to guarantee concessions they’ve won at the

negotiating table — in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, for example — won’t be undone by Congress. Opponents, however, argue it’s undemocratic. “No on Fast Track — Camp-Baucus – out of the question,” Pelosi is reported to have said on Wednesday, referring to a bipartisan legislative effort by

Democratic Senator Max Baucus and Republic Congressman Dave Camp.

House and Senate Dems OpposedCourson 14-CNN (Paul, “House Dems disagree with Obama on trade issue”, CNN, February 13, 2014, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/13/house-dems-disagree-with-obama-on-trade-issue/)//ADHouse Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has flatly rejected the current bill before Congress , highlighting her

opposition during a labor rally this week and repeating it to reporters Thursday at the House retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore. “ Camp-Baucus in its present form is unacceptable to me,” Pelosi said, referring to the bipartisan sponsors of the bill, GOP Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and former Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, who was chairman of the Finance Committee. Pelosi insisted her opposition “is not a rejection of the President’s trade agenda; it’s a rejection of the current form of Camp-

Baucus." "We want to export products overseas, not transport jobs overseas ," she said. Pelosi's rejection follows a similar one by the top Democrat in the Senate. "Everyone would be well advised just to not push this right now, " Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said last month, after Obama mentioned the priority during his State of the Union address.

No Impact—the Trans Pacific Partnership isn’t going to be finished any time soon so passing our plan now is irrelevantReuters 2014 (“Pacific Trade Talks End Inconclusively”, New York Times, February 25, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/business/pacific-trade-talks-end-inconclusively.html)//ADSINGAPORE — Ministers in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks said Tuesday that they had yet to reach agreement on tariffs and other market access issues, with the timing of a completed deal looking increasingly unclear. “Market access is in some respects the heart and soul of any trade agreement, so until that’s done, we don’t have an agreement,” Tim Groser, New Zealand’s trade minister, told a news conference after the talks. Ministers emphasized that they had made significant

progress during four days of meetings in Singapore but said the talks ended with no clear time frame to clinch the agreements. The American-backed deal aims to cut tariffs and set common standards on other trade issues across countries that represent almost 40 percent of the global economy. The countries are Australia,

Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Long-running differences on tariffs on imported goods, particularly between the United States and Japan, are proving difficult to overcome .

Two sets of meetings between the Japanese and American delegations during the talks produced no breakthrough. Other thorny issues include intellectual property and the rules for state-owned enterprises and government procurement. “If you ask whether all outstanding issues have been resolved, it is also a common recognition that they still remain,” Akira Amari, Japan’s economics minister, said before the final part of the talks. Mustapa Mohamed, Malaysia’s international trade and industry minister, said that participants were all showing flexibility but that some issues were tough to move on. “There are things which can be done, there are others which cannot be done, and we’ve been telling our partners what is doable and what is not doable,” he said. There had been expectations that the deal could be concluded in time for President Obama’s visit to Asia in

April. It is unclear whether the ministers will meet again before that trip. “We’ve made no further plans at this point in terms of the next meetings,” said Michael Froman, the United States trade representative. Another issue is whether the United States government will be able to establish so-called trade promotion authority, which would deny the American lawmakers the opportunity to amend the agreement. Mr. Obama has faced opposition from his Democratic Party over the matter, while other participating countries are said to be worried that, without the authority, Congress could make major changes to any deal. Ministers said trade promotion authority had not been discussed during the meeting because it was a domestic American political issue. Expectations that others might soon join the talks — South Korea and Taiwan have expressed interest — were also dismissed as premature. “Right now, all of us are focused on closing among the 12 before we consider taking additional members,” Mr. Froman said.

ENDA

ENDA won’t pass—Boehner flat out rejected any chance of it passing and won’t schedule to appear before the HouseReynolds 14 (Daniel, John Boehner: 'No Way' ENDA Will Pass This Year”, Advocate, January 30, 2014, http://www.advocate.com/politics/politicians/2014/01/30/john-boehner-no-way-enda-will-pass-year)//ADThe Employment Non-Discrimination Act has no likelihood of passing this year, says John Boehner. The House speaker told the LGBT Equality Caucus that there was “no way” ENDA would pass, during his first-ever meeting with the group of lawmakers last week. Rep. Mark Takano, a gay congressman and cochair of the caucus, related the exchange Tuesday to the Washington Blade after President Obama’s State of the Union address. “A number of us did meet with, actually the caucus met with Speaker Boehner,” Takano said. “He said no way was it going to get done in this session . ” However, Takano classified the conference between the Republican speaker and the caucus, a group of over 100 lawmakers seeking LGBT equality, as “a historic sort of meeting.” Boehner’s remarks reveal that he will most likely not schedule ENDA, which would provide antidiscrimination protections for LGBT workers nationwide, for a vote on the House floor in 2014 . Last April the act had easily passed in the Senate with a vote of 64-32. But in November Boehner voiced his belief that ENDA was “unnecessary . ” “I am opposed to discrimination of any kind in the workplace or anyplace else, but I think this legislation … is unnecessary and would provide a basis for frivolous lawsuits,” he said in a press conference that month. “People are already protected in the workplace.”

An Executive Order to take care of ENDA has already been green litJohnson 14 (Chris, “Perez says ENDA executive order under consideration”, Washington Blade, February 12, 2014, http://www.washingtonblade.com/2014/02/12/perez-says-enda-directive-issue-contemplated/)//ADLabor Secretary Thomas Perez said Wednesday the issue of an executive order prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination among federal contractors is something ”we continue to contemplate and work on” as he declined to comment on whether his department could implement the order. Under questioning by the Washington Blade, Perez said during a surprise appearance at the regular White House news briefing that he’s aware of the long-sought directive to protect workers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. “I can’t get into what ifs,” Perez said. “I’m certainly aware of the executive order that was proposed that you’re talking about, and the president takes a back seat to no one in his commitment for equal access to opportunity for people regardless of race,

religious, sexual orientation or gender identity. And it’s an issue that we continue to contemplate and work on.” Sources close to the administration have already

told the Washington Blade the Labor Department, as well as the Justice Department, have already green-lighted the executive order for the White House . Also during the briefing, Perez was asked by the Blade whether the Labor Department would apply Executive Order 11246 — the existing directive that prohibits gender discrimination among federal contractors — to transgender workers in the wake of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s decision two years ago in Macy v. Holder. “That issue is under review in the aftermath of the Macy decision,” Perez said. “I’ve asked my staff to expedite that review so that we can bring that issue to a conclusion at the Department of Labor.” Asked when the process of review would come to an end, Perez said, “I’m hoping it will to come to an end as soon as possible.”

Tax Reform

Tax reform will never see the light of day—our plan is irrelevant to its passageBenen 14 (Steve, “Why is tax reform ‘dead on arrival’?”, MSNBC, 2/27/14, http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-tax-reform-dead-arrival)//ADWhat’s more, I agree with Tim Noah that Camp deserves at least some credit for putting pen to paper and making specific ideas available for public scrutiny: “Camp deserves praise for doing something Mitt Romney never dared to do as a presidential candidate in 2012. He identifies specific tax breaks that he would eliminate in order to replace the revenue lost in lowering top

rates.” But if we chose to be realistic, it doesn’t much matter whether Camp’s plan has merit or not. Senate Minority

Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced that tax reform is dead in this Congress – and he made the declaration before the plan was even unveiled. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was even more dismissive . Big banks would face a new tax on lending. Taxes paid to state and local governments would no longer be deductible. The earned income credit for low-wage workers would be converted to a more limited deduction on payroll taxes. The mortgage deduction and retirement savings breaks would be curtailed. [Camp] unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the 70,000-page federal tax code on Wednesday that would collapse seven personal income tax brackets to two and lower the corporate rate to 25 percent from 35 percent. But the seeds of the

plan’s destruction might be found in the fine print. When asked about the proposal’s details on Wednesday, House Speaker John A. Boehner replied, “Blah, blah, blah, blah.” That’s not some rude characterization of Boehner’s response; that was literally what Boehner said in response to a reporter’s question. A year ago, congressional Republicans made tax reform their top priority. This week, GOP leaders scoffed at the idea of even trying to get a bill done. What happened? House Republicans originally gave tax reform the special H.R. 1

designation – a symbolic bill number intended to convey its significance – with the intention of unveiling Camp’s plan in the fall of 2013. But by November, the GOP’s priorities had shifted. They no longer wanted to tackle the difficult task of working with Democrats on an overhaul of tax code; they instead wanted to complain about “Obamacare.” Shifting their attention to policy work would have, the party decided, been an unwelcome distraction. Three months later, there’s even less of a Republican appetite to do real work on this or any other issue. For GOP officials, the electoral pieces for 2014 have already fallen into place – they’re very likely to keep their House majority; a Senate majority is within reach; the public has largely forgotten about their government shutdown; and

polls show Republicans persevering despite broad unpopularity. So why rock the boat by governing? For party leaders, it’s easier to just run out the clock, working the assumption that the public won’t punish them for doing nothing constructive for the last few years. Sure, GOP lawmakers could try to accomplish something, but the effort would almost certainly divide Republicans, and there’s no guarantee they’d get a bill done , anyway.

Worse, if they succeeded, it might offer an election-year win for President Obama, the very idea of which is a non-starter.

Tax Reforms won’t pass—bi partisan agreement that there won’t be a voteShaw 14 (John, “US's Reid, McConnell Agree Tax Reform Won't Happen In 2014”, Forex (Foreign Exchange) TV [Economic newspaper], February 25, 2014, http://www.forextv.com/forex-news-story/us-s-reid-mcconnell-agree-tax-reform-won-t-happen-in-2014)//ADWASHINGTON (MNI) - In a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that Congress should pass comprehensive tax reform this year, but won't be able to [pass tax reform]. Not

surprisingly, in back-to-back briefings, Reid and McConnell came to the same conclusion on the doomed fate of tax reform - for opposite reasons. Speaking first after a Senate Democratic luncheon, Reid said passing tax

reform should have been done "years ago" but it will be "extremely difficult" to accomplish this year because of Republican obstruction. He said he will allow the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden, to approach tax reform in the way that he believes appropriate. "We're starting

over again," Reid said, adding he has "no preconceptions" about what a tax reform bill should look like. Speaking next after a Senate Republican luncheon, McConnell said tax reform is necessary but said it won't happen because President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have said that tax reform should generate an additional $1 trillion in revenues over a decade. "I have no hope for that (tax reform) happening this year," McConnell said.

Debt Limit

Both the House and the Senate passed the debt limit—their DA is irrelevant and is NOT a voting issueCohen 14-CNN (Tom, “Senate passes debt-ceiling plan in blow to tea party”, CNN, February 13, 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/12/politics/senate-debt-ceiling/index.html)//ADWashington (CNN) -- The Senate voted Wednesday to avert at least one chronic Washington political crisis for

more than a year. With a snowstorm bearing down on the capital, it approved a House-passed measure that allows the government to borrow more money to pay its bills through March 2015. President Barack Obama signaled that he would sign the legislation, so the Senate vote was the last hurdle to resolving the debt ceiling issue until after the November congressional elections. "I'm pleased that Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to pay for what they've already spent, and remove the threat of default from our economy once and for all," Obama said in a statement, adding that he hoped "this puts an end to politics by brinkmanship."

Farm Bill

Farm Bill passed-DA is goneRampton 14 (Roberta, “Obama signs sprawling farm bill, lauds rural progress”, February 7, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/07/us-usa-agriculture-obama-idUSBREA161WF20140207)//AD(Reuters) - In a large barn smelling faintly of horses, President Barack Obama signed the $956 billion farm bill into law on Friday, comparing the five-year law to "a Swiss Army knife" because of the variety of ways it can support jobs in America. "It multi tasks," Obama said, describing how the law supports

not only farmers and ranchers but poor families on food stamps, researchers working on biofuels, and businesses developing and exporting new products from rural America. Obama signed the bill - which the Congressional Budget Office says will save $16.6 billion over 10 years compared to current funding - at Michigan State University, the oldest land-grant university in the nation. Using a different measure, lawmakers have estimated the savings at $23 billion.

Veterans Bill

Republicans blocking Veterans Bill—plan passage irrelevant Benen 14 (Steve, “Senate GOP blocks veterans’ bill”, MSNBC, February 27, 2014, http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/senate-gop-blocks-veterans-bill)//ADAs a rule, legislation related to veterans’ benefits tends to garner bipartisan support, but as we were reminded this afternoon, there are exceptions. Senate Republicans stopped Democrats from advancing a bill that would have expanded healthcare and education programs for veterans. In a 56-41 vote Thursday, the motion to waive a budget point of order against the bill failed. Democrats didn’t have the 60 votes needed to overcome the Republican roadblock. Only two of the Senate’s 45 Republicans – Sens. Dean

Heller (Nev.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) – voted with the Democratic majority. That was obviously not enough to end the GOP’s obstruction.

Minimum Wage

Minimum wage bill won’t pass—being stonewalledBenen 14 (Steve, “Minimum wage going nowhere fast”, MSNBC, February 25, 2014, http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/minimum-wage-going-nowhere-fast)//ADSenate Democrats hoped to bring a minimum-wage increase to the floor in December. Then in January. The latest plan was to try again next week, but now that’s off, too. The problem isn’t a lack of will; it’s a lack of votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. Senate Democrats have again delayed debating a proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 hourly, postponing work on one of President Barack Obama’s top priorities. Democrats had hoped to debate the legislation before the Senate’s mid-March recess. Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, the bill’s author, said Tuesday they now expect to consider it

after lawmakers return in late March. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Republican obstruction on nominations was slowing the chamber’s work. But the delay also comes as Democrats seem not to have the 60 votes needed to overcome GOP efforts to scuttle the legislation. There are currently 55 members of the Senate Democratic caucus. As of now, 54 of them support the minimum-wage increase (all except Arkansas’ Mark Pryor). That means, in order for the Senate to be allowed to vote on a popular piece of legislation, it would take just six Republicans to end their party’s obstructionism

and let the chamber vote yea or nay. This afternoon, we learned those six votes do not yet exist. In the meantime, have you noticed the growing group of conservative policymakers who want to lower the minimum wage to zero? The newest member of the group made his posiiton clear on Friday. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) let loose on his minimum wage views Friday, saying it’s not “the government’s business” to be setting that policy. […] “At a time when jobs are at a premium in this country, the last thing you want to be doing is

putting policies into place that would kill jobs,” Perry said. Following up on an item from a month ago, this seems to be an increasingly common position for Republicans to take. For most of the last generation, the political fight over the minimum wage has been fairly narrow – when to raise, by how much,

whether to index it to inflation, etc. – but as GOP politics in general have moved further to the right, the debate now includes plenty of notable figures who don’t think the minimum wage should exist at all. It’s not just Perry – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.),

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), among others, have all said recently they’re not only opposed to Democratic calls for a wage increase, but they’re also comfortable with scrapping the law altogether.

No UQ-Min Wage Increase for government works passedSahadi 14-CNN (Jeanne, “Obama signs order on minimum wage”, CNN, February 12, 2014, http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/12/news/economy/obama-executive-order-minimum-wage/index.html)//ADPresident Obama mandated the increase, from the country's federal minimum wage of $7.25, by signing an executive order on Wednesday.The new $10.10 hourly wage will be indexed to inflation after the first year, and it will apply to contracts and subcontracts that provide the federal government with concessions, services and construction. It will not, however, cover workers employed by businesses that provide goods, such as supplies, to Uncle Sam.

Thumper-Defense Budget

Obama’s not spending his PC on ___________, his focus is on the defense budgetCBS News 14 (“Battle begins on defense budget spending; Obama plan seeks to curtail army to pre-WWII size”, February 25, 2014, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/battle-begins-on-defense-budget-spending-obama-plan-seeks-to-curtail-army-to-pre-wwii-size/)//ADThe Obama administration wants to build a 21st century military, but it may have to go to war with Congress to get its plan approved. The pushback began quickly on Monday as the Pentagon revealed next year's proposed budget, which would shrink the Army to its smallest size since the 1930s before World War II. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the Senate Armed Services

Committee chairman, has called the changes "a huge challenge." Some of these changes have been coming for years -- getting the military out of war mode and reshaping it into a modernized force, and that means smaller and more high-tech, but it could come at the expense of some of the men and women who serve. The announcement at first didn't sound that dramatic. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said,

"We are repositioning to focus on the strategic challenges and opportunities that will define our future." As Hagel began outlining sharp spending cuts in the Pentagon's

new budget, concern and dismay spread from Washington, D.C., to military bases across the country. "What we're trying to do is solve our financial problems on the backs of our military," Rep. Howard “Buck†McKeon, R-Calif., the House Armed Services Committee chairman, said. "And that can't be done." �

CP’s

China

2AC

The US must maintain leadership in nuclear power—China doesn’t focus on safetyCullinane ‘11[Scott Cullinane is a graduate student at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=319:america-falling-behind-the-strategic-dimensions-of-chinese-commercial-nuclear-energy&catid=118:content&Itemid=376]

Due to a confluence of events the United States has recently focused more attention on nuclear weapons policy than it has in previous years; however, the proliferation of commercial nuclear technology and its implications for America’s strategic position have been largely ignored. While the Unites States is currently a participant in the international commercial nuclear energy trade, America’s own domestic construction of nuclear power plants has atrophied severely and the US risks losing its competitive edge in the nuclear energy arena .¶ Simultaneously, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has made great strides in closing the nuclear energy development gap with America . Through a combination of importing tech nology, research from within China itself, and a disciplined policy approach the PRC is increasingly able to leverage the export of commercial nuclear power as part of its national strategy. Disturbingly, China does not share America’s commitment to stability , transparency, and responsibility when exporting nuclear technology. This is a growing strategic weakness and risk for the United States. To remain competitive and to be in a position to offset the PRC when required the American government should encourage the domestic use of nuclear power and spur the forces of technological innovation.¶ History has recorded well American wartime nuclear developments which culminated in the July 1945 Trinity Test, but what happened near Arco, Idaho six years later has been overlooked. In 1951, scientists for the first time produced usable electricity from an experimental nuclear reactor. Once this barrier was conquered the atom was harnessed to generate electricity and permitted America to move into the field of commercial nuclear power. In the next five years alone the United States signed over 20 nuclear cooperation agreements with various countries. Not only did the US build dozens of power plants domestically during the 1960s and 1970s, the US Export-Import Bank also distributed $7.1 billion dollars in loans and guarantees for the international sale of 49 reactors. American built and designed reactors were exported around the world during those years. Even today, more than 60% of the world’s 440 operating reactors are based on technology developed in the United States. The growth of the US civilian nuclear power sector stagnated after the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 – the most serious accident in American civilian nuclear power history. Three Mile Island shook America’s confidence in nuclear power and provided the anti-nuclear lobby ample fuel to oppose the further construction of any nuclear power plants. In the following decade, 42 planned domestic nuclear power plants were cancelled, and in the 30 years since the Three Mile Island incident the American nuclear power industry has survived only through foreign sales and merging operations with companies in Asia and Europe. Westinghouse sold its nuclear division to Toshiba and General Electric joined with Hitachi. Even the highest levels of the American government came to cast nuclear power aside. President Bill Clinton bragged in his 1993 State of the Union Address that “we are eliminating programs that are no longer needed, such as nuclear power research and development.” ¶ America’s slow pace of reactor construction over the past three decades has stymied innovation and caused the nuclear sector and its industrial base to shrivel. While some aspects of America’s nuclear infrastructure still operate

effectively, many critical areas have atrophied. For example, one capability that America has entirely lost is the means to cast ultra heavy forgings in the range of 350,000 – 600,000 pounds, which impacts the construction of containment vessels, turbine rotors, and steam generators. In contrast, Japan, China, and Russia all possess an ultra heavy forging capacity and South Korea and India plan to build forges in this range. Likewise, the dominance America enjoyed in uranium enrichment until the 1970s is gone. The current standard centrifuge method for uranium enrichment was not invented in America and today 40% of the enriched uranium US power plants use is processed overseas and imported. Another measure of how much the US nuclear industry has shrunk is evident in the number of companies certified to handle nuclear material. In the 1980s the United States had 400 nuclear suppliers and 900 holders of N-stamp certificates (N-stamps are the international nuclear rating certificates issued by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers). By 2008 that number had reduced itself to 80 suppliers and 200 N-stamp holders. A recent Government Accountability Office report, which examined data from between 1994 and 2009, found the US to have a declining share of the global commercial nuclear trade. However, during that same period over 60 reactors were built worldwide. Nuclear power plants are being built in the world increasingly by non-American companies.¶ The American nuclear industry entered the 1960s in a strong position, yet over the past 30 years other countries have closed the development gap with America. The implications of this change go beyond economics or prestige to include national security . These changes would be less threatening if friendly allies were the ones moving forward with developing a nuclear export industry;however, the quick advancement of the PRC in nuclear energy changes the strategic calculus for America. ¶ The shifting strategic landscape¶ While America’s nuclear industry has languished, current changes in the world’s strategic layout no longer allow America the option of maintaining the status quo without being surpassed. The drive for research, development, and scientific progress that

grew out of the Cold War propelled America forward, but those priorities have long since been downgraded by the US government. The economic development of formerly impoverished countries means that the US cannot assume continued dominance by default. The rapidly industrializing PRC is seeking its own place among the major powers of the world and is vying for hegemony in Asia; nuclear power is an example of their larger efforts to marshal their scientific and economic forces as instruments of national power. ¶ The rise of China is a phrase that connotes images of a backwards country getting rich off of exporting cheap goods at great social and environmental costs. Yet, this understanding of the PRC has lead many in the United States to underestimate China’s capabilities. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has undertaken a comprehensive long-term strategy to transition from a weak state that lags behind the West to a country that is a peer-competitor to the United States. Nuclear technology provides a clear example of this. ¶ In 1978, General Secretary Deng Xiaoping began to move China out of the destructive Mao era with his policies of 'reform and opening.' As part of these changes during the 1980s, the CPC began a concerted and ongoing effort to modernize the PRC and acquire advanced technology including nuclear technology from abroad. This effort was named Program 863 and included both legal methods and espionage. By doing this, the PRC has managed to rapidly catch up to the West on some fronts. In order to eventually surpass the West in scientific development the PRC launched the follow-on Program 973 to build the foundations of basic scientific research within China to meet the nation’s major strategic needs. These steps have brought China to the cusp of the next stage of technological development, a stage known as “indigenous innovation.”¶ ¶ In 2006 the PRC published their science and technology plan out to 2020 and defined indigenous innovation as enhancing original innovation, integrated innovation, and re-innovation based on assimilation and absorption of imported technology in order improve national innovation capability. The Chinese seek to internalize and understand technological developments from around the world so that they can copy the equipment and use it as a point to build off in their own research. This is a step beyond merely copying and reverse engineering a piece of technology. The PRC sees this process of absorbing foreign technology coupled with indigenous innovation as a way of leapfrogging forward in development to gain the upper hand over the West. The PRC’s official statement on energy policy lists nuclear power as one of their target fields. When viewed within this context, the full range of implications from China’s development of nuclear technology becomes evident. The PRC is now competing with the United States in the areas of innovation and high-technology, two fields that have driven American power since World War Two. China’s economic appeal is no longer merely the fact that it has cheap labor, but is expanding its economic power in a purposeful way that directly challenges America’s position in the world.¶ ¶ The CPC uses the market to their advantage to attract nuclear technology and intellectual capital to China. The PRC has incentivized the process and encouraged new domestic nuclear power plant construction with the goal of having 20 nuclear power plants operational by 2020. The Chinese Ministry of Electrical Power has described PRC policy to reach this goal as encouraging joint investment between State Owned Corporations and foreign companies. 13 reactors are already operating in China, 25 more are under construction and even more reactors are in the planning stages. ¶ In line with this economic policy, China has bought nuclear reactors from Westinghouse and Areva and is cooperating with a Russian company to build nuclear power plants in Taiwan. By stipulating that Chinese companies and personnel be involved in the construction process, China is building up its own domestic capabilities and expects to become self-sufficient. China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation has

partnered with Westinghouse to build a new and larger reactor based on the existing Westinghouse AP 1000 reactor.

This will give the PRC a reactor design of its own to then export. If the CPC is able to combine their control over raw materials, growing technical know-how, and manufacturing base, China will not only be a powerful economy, but be able to leverage this power to service its foreign policy goals as well.¶ Even though the PRC is still working to master third generation technology, their scientists are already working on what they think will be the nuclear reactor of the future. China is developing Fourth Generation Fast Neutron Reactors and wants to have one operational by 2030. Additionally, a Chinese nuclear development company has announced its intentions to build the “world’s first high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor” in Shandong province which offers to possibility of a reactor that is nearly meltdown proof. A design, which if proved successful, could potentially redefine the commercial nuclear energy trade.¶ The risk to America¶ The international trade of nuclear material is hazardous in that every sale and transfer increases the chances for an accident or for willful misuse of the material. Nuclear commerce must be kept safe in order for the benefits of nuclear power generation to be realized. Yet, China has a record of sharing dangerous weapons and nuclear material with unfit countries. It is a risk for America to allow China to become a nuclear exporting country with a competitive technical and scientific edge. In order to limit Chinese influence and the relative attractiveness of what they can offer, America must ensure its continuing and substantive lead in reactor technology.¶ ¶ The PRC’s record of exporting risky items is well documented. It is known that during the 1980s the Chinese shared nuclear weapon designs with Pakistan and continues to proliferate WMD-related material. According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to Congress, China sells tech nologies and components in the Middle East and South Asia that are dual use and could support WMD and missile programs. Jane’s Intelligence Review reported in 2006 that China,¶ Despite a 1997 promise to Washington to halt its nuclear technology sales to Iran, such

assistance is likely to continue. In 2005, Iranian resistance groups accused China of selling Iran beryllium, which is useful for making nuclear triggers and maraging steel (twice as hard as stainless steel), which is critical for fabricating centrifuges needed to reprocess uranium into bomb-grade material. ¶ China sells dangerous materials in order to secure its geopolitical objectives, regardless if those actions harm world stability. There is little reason to believe China will treat the sale of nuclear reactors any differently. Even if the PRC provides public assurances that it will behave differently in the future, the CPC has not been truthful for decades about its nuclear material and weapons sales and hence lacks credibility. For example, in 1983 Chinese Vice Premier Li Peng said that China does not encourage or support nuclear proliferation. In fact, it was that same year that China contracted with Algeria, then a non-NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] state, to construct a large, unsafeguarded plutonium production reactor. In 1991 a Chinese Embassy official wrote in a letter to the The Washington Post that 'China has struck no nuclear deal with Iran.' In reality, China had provided Iran with a research reactor capable of producing plutonium and a calutron, a technology that can be used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade. It has been reported that even after United Nation sanctions were put on Iran, Chinese companies were discovered selling “high-quality carbon fiber” and “pressure gauges” to Iran for use in improving their centrifuges.¶ In 2004 the PRC joined the Nuclear Suppliers Groups (NSG), gaining international recognition of their growing power in the nuclear field. In spite of this opportunity for China to demonstrate its responsibility with nuclear energy, it has not fulfilled it NSG obligations. The PRC has kept the terms of its nuclear reactor sale to Pakistan secret and used a questionable legal technicality to justify forgoing obtaining a NSG waiver for the deal. Additionally, China chose to forgo incorporating new safety measures into the reactors in order to avoid possible complications.¶ A further consequence of China exporting reactors is that these countries may wish to control the fuel cycle which provides the uranium to power their new reactors. The spread of fuel cycle technology comes with two risks: enrichment and reprocessing. Uranium can be enriched to between 3% and 5% for reactor use, but the process can be modified to produce 90% enriched uranium which is weapons-grade. Even if a country only produces low enriched uranium they could easily begin enriching at a higher level if they so choose. Every new country that nuclear technology or information is spread to exponentially increases the risk of material being stolen, given to a third party or being used as the launching point for a weapons program. China’s history of proliferation and willingness to engage economically with very unsavory governments seems likely to increase the risks involving nuclear material.

Natural Gas

Fracking Bad

Fracking wastes a lot of water—cross apply the Desal advantageMcGraw [No date] (Seamus, “Is Fracking Safe? The Top 10 Controversial Claims About Natural Gas Drilling”, Popular Mechanics, http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/coal-oil-gas/top-10-myths-about-natural-gas-drilling-6386593#slide-2)//ADThere is no question that hydraulic fracturing uses a lot of water: It can take up to 7 million gallons to frack a single well, and at least 30 percent of that water is lost forever , after being trapped deep in the shale. And while there

is some evidence that fracking has contributed to the depletion of water supplies in drought-stricken Texas, a study by Carnegie Mellon University indicates the Marcellus region has plenty of water and, in most cases, an adequate system to regulate its usage. The amount of water required to drill all 2916 of the Marcellus wells permitted in Pennsylvania in the first 11 months of 2010 would equal the amount of drinking water used by just one city, Pittsburgh, during the same period, says environmental engineering professor Jeanne VanBriesen, the study's lead author. Plus, she notes, water withdrawals of this new industry are taking the place of water once used by industries, like steel manufacturing, that the state has lost. Hydrogeologist David Yoxtheimer of Penn State's Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research

gives the withdrawals more context: Of the 9.5 billion gallons of water used daily in Pennsylvania, natural gas development consumes 1.9 million gallons a da y (mgd); livestock use 62 mgd; mining, 96 mgd; and industry, 770 mgd.

Natural gas extraction and processing is terrible for people’s health—dangerous toxins, carcinogens, endocrine systemsHoffman 2013 (Joe, “Potential Health and Environmental Effects of Hydrofracking in the Williston Basin, Montana”, Geology and Human Health, September 16, 2013, http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/health/case_studies/hydrofracking_w.html)//ADA 2011 article in the journal, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, examined the potential health impacts of oil and gas drilling in relation to the chemicals used during

drilling, fracking, processing, and delivery of natural gas . The paper compiled a list of 632 chemicals (an incomplete list due to

trade secrecy exemptions) identified from drilling operations throughout the U.S. Their research found that 75% of the chemicals could affect the skin, eyes, and other sensory organs, and the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. Approximately 40–50% could affect the brain/nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems, and the kidneys; 37% could affect the endocrine system; and 25% could cause cancer and mutations . Health impacts from fracking are only now being examined by health experts, since such large-scale drilling is a recent phenomenon.

Exposure to toxic chemicals even at low levels can cause tremendous harm to humans; the endocrine system is sensitive to chemical exposures measuring in parts-per-billions, or less . Nevertheless, many of the health risks from the toxins used during the fracking process do not express themselves immediately, and require studies looking into long-term health effects. Despite the complexities of the on-site mixtures of chemicals and their specific contributions to health and environmental problems involved in fracking--conventional drilling practices are more old school and do have known health consequences. Researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado, analyzed existing research of exposure to conventional petroleum hydrocarbons in occupational settings, and residences near refineries, in conjunction with known pollutants associated with fracking (nonconventional), in order to assess health risks to those residents living near fracking

operations. Their basic conclusions were: the closer you live to drilling operations, the greater your health risk. Sounds obvious, but if you were to sue an oil company for the suspected killing a loved one via cancer, you would need a little more legal ammunition than "it just makes common sense" against an army of corporate lawyers. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has yet to investigate the potential impacts of fracking, the director of CDC's National Center for Environmental Health and the agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Christopher J. Portier, PhD, has called for health studies to be published. A 2012 paper was published in the journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, examining the composition of state and federal advisory committees tasked to consider the potential environmental and health effects of fracking in the Marcellus shale region. The researchers found that there was not one health expert among the 52 people comprising the various state and federal commissions and boards, even though public health was specified in the executive orders creating the committees.

Topicality

2AC

CI

Economic engagement includes energy and environmental cooperation.Hormats, Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, 2012(Robert D., “U.S. Economic Engagement with the Asia Pacific”, December 7, http://www.state.gov/e/rls/rmk/2012/201746.htm Accessed 7/6/13 GAL)

During the U.S.-ASEAN Summit last month, President Obama and ASEAN leaders also launched what we called the “U.S.-ASEAN Expanded Economic Engagement” Initiative to promote economic cooperation between the United States and ASEAN. This initiative, which we

called the “E3,” will focus on enhancing ASEAN members’ capacity for advancing cooperation in many areas that we think will further enhance trade. In addition, an exciting new area for our outreach is in the energy sector . At the East Asian Summit, President Obama and

his counterparts from Brunei and Indonesia announced the U.S.-Asia Pacific Comprehensive Energy Partnership. The Partnership will offer a framework for expanding energy and environmental cooperation to advance efforts to ensure affordable, secure, and cleaner energy throughout the region. We will foster active private sector

involvement in the partnership, which will focus on the four key areas of renewable and clean energy , markets and interconnectivity, the emerging role of natural gas, and sustainable development. And the U.S. Government will add support to the effort through utilizing various U.S. government agencies, including the Export-Import Bank, OPIC, and TDA, in order to promote the use of American technology, services, and equipment in the energy infrastructure area and also to provide financing for American companies that wish to become engaged in these projects.

1AC v2

Advantage 1: WarmingA. Glacier loss from climate change increases the risk of nuclear conflict—water

supplies and shifting borders escalate tensionsSharma 10 (Rajeev Sharma, journalist-author who has been writing on international relations, foreign policy, strategic affairs, security and terrorism for over two decades, 2/25/2010, "Climate Change = War?" The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2010/02/25/climate-change-war/)For all the heat generated by discussions of global warming in recent months, it is an often overlooked fact that climate change has the potential to create border disputes that in some cases could even provoke clashes between states. Throw in to the mix three nuclear-armed nations with a history of

disagreements, and the stakes of any conflict rise incalculably . Yet such a scenario is becoming increasingly likely as glaciers around the world melt , blurring international boundaries . The chastened United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, still doesn’t dispute that glaciers are melting; the only question is how fast. The phenomenon is already pushing Europeans and Africans to redraw their borders. Switzerland and Italy, for example, were forced to introduce draft resolutions in their respective parliaments for fresh border demarcations after alpine glaciers started melting unusually quickly. And in Africa, meanwhile, climate change has caused rivers to change course over the past few years. Many African nations have rivers marking international boundaries and are understandably worried about these changing course and therefore cutting into their borders. Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan are just some of the African countries that have indicated apprehension about their international boundaries. But it is in Asia where a truly nightmarish

scenario could play out between India, Pakistan and China–nuclear weapon states that between them have the highest concentration of glaciers in the world outside the polar regions . A case in point is the Siachen Glacier in the Karakoram range, the largest glacier outside the polar region, which is the site of a major bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan . According to scientific data, Siachen Glacier is melting at the rate of about 110 meters a year–among the fastest of any glacier s in the world. The glacier ’s melting ice is the main source of the Nubra River , which itself drains into the Shyok River. These are two of the main rivers in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. The Shyok also joins the Indus River, and forms the major source of water for Pakistan. It is clear, then, why the melting of

glaciers in the Karakoram region could have a disastrous impact on ties between India and Pakistan. French geologists have already predicted the Indus will become a seasonal river by 2040, which would unnerve Pakistan as its ‘granary basket,’ Punjab, would become increasingly drought-prone and eventually a desert–all within a few decades. It takes no great leap of imagination to see the potential for conflict as the two nations resort to military means to control this water source. Meanwhile, glacier melting could also be creating a potential flashpoint between India and China . The melting Himalayan glaciers will inevitably induce change s to the McMahon Line , the boundary that separates India and China. Beijing has already embarked upon a long-term strategy of throttling of India’s major water source in the north-east–the Brahmaputra River that originates in China.

B. Nuclear power key to solve for warming – top economist concedes, renewables can’t compete—tech is not moving fast enough

Harvey, Environment Correspondent, ‘12

[Fiona, “Nuclear power is only solution to climate change, says Jeffrey Sachs”, The Guardian, 5-3-12,http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/03/nuclear-power-solution-climate-change, RSR]Combating climate change will require an expansion of nuclear power , respected economist Jeffrey

Sachs said on Thursday, in remarks that are likely to dismay some sections of the environmental movement. Prof Sachs said atomic energy was needed because it provided a low-carbon source of power, while renewable energy was not making up enough of the world's energy mix and new technologies such as carbon capture and storage were not progressing fast enough. "We won't meet the carbon targets if nuclear is taken off the table," he said. He said coal was likely to continue to be cheaper than renewables and other low-carbon forms of energy, unless the effects of the climate were taken into account.

Advantage 2: DesalinationD. SMRs key to desalination

Solan 2010 (David Solan, Director, Energy Policy Institute, Associate Director, Center for Advanced Energy Studies, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Boise State University, June 2010, “ECONOMIC AND EMPLOYMENT IMPACTS OF SMALL MODULAR NUCLEAR REACTORS,” Energy Policy Institute, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/EPI_SMR_ReportJune2010.pdf)Besides electricity generation, additional applications may be well-suited for SMR systems in the future. While the applicability of nuclear energy to additional applications is not dependent on facility size, the actual use of large nuclear facilities does not occur due to economic considerations. Currently, only a few countries utilize nuclear energy for non-generation purposes, primarily desalination and district heating (IAEA, 2008). A brief overview of the application possibilities for SMRs is

provided below.¶ Desalination. The IAEA has identified desalination as possibly the leading non-electric civilian use for nuclear energy. Water scarcity is becoming an increasingly problematic global issue in both developed and developing countries. As noted in an IAEA (2007) report,¶ Because of population growth, surface water resources are increasingly stressed in many parts of the world, developed and developing regions alike. Water stress is counter to sustainable development; it engenders disease; diverts natural flows, endangering flora and fauna of rivers, lakes wetlands, deltas and oceans; and it incites regional conflicts over water rights. In the developing world, more than one billion people currently lack access to safe drinking water ; nearly two and a half billion lack access to adequate sanitation services. This would only get worse as populations grow. Water stress is severe in the developed world as well....In light of these trends, many opportunities in both developed and developing countries are foreseen for supply of potable water generated using nuclear process heat or off-peak electricity (p. 23).¶ The desalination of sea water requires large amounts of energy and is not dependent on a particular fuel for heat or electricity. The IAEA (2000) defines nuclear desalination as “the production of potable water from sea water in a facility in which a nuclear reactor is used as the source of energy for the desalination process” (p. 3). The three technologies that comprise nuclear desalination are nuclear, the desalination method,

and the system that couples them together (IAEA, 2000). The feasibility of integrated nuclear desalination plants has been proven with over 175 reactor-years of experience worldwide (IAEA, 2007a). ¶ Large-scale, proven commercial technologies for desalination can be grouped into distillation processes and the reverse osmosis process. Distillation technologies require heat to create steam which condenses and separates fresh water from brine. Reverse osmosis requires only electricity to push fresh water from the higher pressure saltwater side of a semi-permeable membrane to the lower pressure freshwater side. An IAEA study (2007a) on the economics of nuclear desalination reported that “ SMRs offer the largest potential as coupling options to nuclear

desalination systems in developing countries ” (p. 4). Furthermore, the study found that the costs for nuclear desalination are roughly similar to that of natural gas desalination, and could be substantially lower depending on fuel costs (IAEA, 2007a). Based on a preliminary assessment of the global desalination market through 2030, particularly in developing countries,

desalination has the potential to provide a strong market for SMRs if they can successfully compete with conventional nuclear plants and other sources of generation (Arthur, 2010).

E. Water is key to all life—additionally, fossil fuels are the biggest cause of the loss of potable water

NASCA 2004 (National Association for Scientific and Cultural Appreciation, 2004, “Water shortages - Only a matter of time,” http://www.nasca.org.uk/Strange_relics_/water/water.html)Water Shortage According to the latest estimates nearly 70% of the Earth’s population will struggle to find an adequate water supply by the year 2025 . Many authorities now believe that tension over water consumption will be the major catalyst for the wars of the future . Water shortage. It’s just around the corner. Water is one of the prime essentials for life as we know it. The plain fact is - no water, no life! This becomes all the more worrying when we realise that the worlds supply of drinkable water will soon diminish quite rapidly. In

fact a recent report commissioned by the U nited N ations has emphasised that by the year 2025 at least 66%

of the worlds population will be without an adequate water supply. Incalculable damage. As a disaster in the making water shortage ranks in the top category. Without water we are finished , and it is thus imperative that we protect the mechanism through which we derive our supply of this life giving fluid . Unfortunately the exact opposite is the case. We are doing incalculable damage to the planets capacity to generate water and this will have far ranging consequences for the not too distant

future. Bleak future The United Nations has warned that burning of fossil fuels is the prime cause of water shortage . While there may be other reasons such as increased solar activity it is clear that this is a situation over which we can exert a great deal of control. If not then the future will

be very bleak indeed! Already the warning signs are there. Drought conditions. The last year has seen devastating heatwaves in many parts of the world including the USA where the state of Texas experienced its worst drought on record. Elsewhere in the United States forest fires rage d out of control, while other regions of the globe experienced drought conditions that were even more severe. Parts of Iran, Afgahnistan, China and other neighbouring countries experience d their worst droughts on record . These conditions also extend ed throughout many parts of Africa and it is clear that if circumstances remain unchanged we are facing a disaster of epic proportions. Moreover it will be one for which there is no easy answer. Dangers. The spectre of a world water shortage evokes a truly frightening scenario. In fact the United Nations warns that disputes over water will become the prime source of conflict in the not too distant future. Where these shortages become ever more acute it could forseeably lead to the brink of nuclear conflict. On a lesser scale water, and the price of it, will acquire an importance somewhat like the current value placed on oil. The difference of course is that while oil is not vital for life, water most certainly is! Power shift. It seems clear then that in future years countries rich in water will enjoy an importance that perhaps they do not have today. In these circumstances power shifts are inevitable, and this will undoubtedly create its own strife and tension. Nightmare situation. In the long term the implications do not look encouraging. It is a two edged sword. First the shortage of water, and then the increased stresses this will impose upon an already stressed world of politics. It means that answers need to be found immediately. Answers that will both ameliorate the damage to the environment, and also find new sources of water for future consumption. If not, and the problem is left unresolved there will eventually come the day when we shall find ourselves with a nightmare situation for which there will be no obvious answer.

Advantage 3: Nuclear SecurityFirst-proliferation

The US taking the lead in a global nuclear industry is key to ensuring that nuclear power is developed safelyFerguson 2010 (Dr. Charles D. Ferguson, President of the Federation of American Scientists, Adjunct Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and Adjunct Lecturer in the National Security Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University, May 19, 2010, Statement before the House Committee on Science and Technology for the hearing on Charting the Course for American Nuclear Technology: Evaluating the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap, http://www.fas.org/press/_docs/05192010_Testimony_HouseScienceCommHearing%20.pdf)The U nited S tates and several other countries have considerable experience in building and operating small and medium power reactors. The U.S. Navy, for example, has used small power reactors since the 1950s to provide propulsion and

electrical power for submarines, aircraft carriers, and some other surface warships. China, France, Russia, and the U nited K ingdom have also

developed nuclear powered naval vessels that use small reactors. Notably, Russia has deployed its KLT-40S and similarly designed small power reactors on icebreakers and has in recent years proposed building and selling barges that would carry these types of reactors for use in sea-side communities throughout the

world. China has already exported small and medium power reactors. In 1991, China began building a reactor in Pakistan and started constructing a second reactor there in 2005. In the wake of the U.S.-India nuclear deal, Beijing has recently reached agreement with Islamabad to build two additional reactors rated at 650 MWe.2¶ One of the unintended consequences of

more than 30 years of sanctions on India’s nuclear program is that India had concentrated its domestic nuclear industry on building small and medium power reactors based on Canadian pressurized heavy water technology , or Candu-type

reactors. Pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) pose proliferation concerns because they can be readily operated in a mode optimal for producing weapons-grade plutonium and can be refueled during power operations . Online refueling makes it exceedingly difficult to determine when refueling is occurring

based solely on outside observations, for example, through satellite monitoring of the plant’s operations. Thus, the chances for potential diversion of fissile material increase. This scenario for misuse underscores the need for more frequent inspections of these facilities. But the limited resources of the International Atomic Energy Agency have resulted in a rate of inspections that are too infrequent to detect a diversion of a weapon’s worth of material.3 The opening of the international nuclear market to India may lead to further spread of PHWR technologies to more states. For example, last year, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, Ltd. (NPCIL) expressed interest in selling PHWRs to

Malaysia.4 NPCIL is the only global manufacturer of 220 MWe PHWRs. New Delhi favors South-to-South cooperation; consequently developing states in Southeast Asia , sub-Saharan Africa , and South America could become recipients of these technologies in the coming years to next few decades. Many of these countries would opt for small and medium power reactors because their electrical grids do not presently have the capacity to support large power reactors and they would likely not have the financial ability to purchase large reactors. ¶ What are the implications for the U nited S tates of Chinese and Indian efforts to sell small and medium power reactors? Because China and India already have the manufacturing and marketing capability for these reactors, the United States faces an economically competitive disadvantage. Because the United States has yet to license such reactors for domestic use, it has placed itself at an additional market disadvantage. By the time the United States has licensed such reactors, China and India as well as other competitors may have established a strong hold on this emerging market.¶ The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission cautioned on December 15, 2008 that the “licensing of new, small modular reactors is not just around the corner. The NRC’s attention and resources now are focused on the large-scale reactors being proposed to serve millions of Americans, rather than smaller devices with both limited power production and possible industrial process applications.” The NRC’s statement further underscored that “examining proposals for radically different technology will likely require an exhaustive review” ... before “such time as there is a formal proposal, the NRC will, as directed by Congress, continue to devote the majority of its resources to addressing the current technology base.”6 Earlier this year, the NRC devoted consideration to presentations on small modular reactors from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Department of Energy, and the Rural Electric Cooperative

Association among other stakeholders.7 At least seven vendors have proposed that their designs receive attention from the NRC.8¶ Given the differences in design philosophy among these vendors and the fact that none of these designs have penetrated the commercial market, it is too soon to tell which, if

any, will emerge as market champions. Nonetheless, because of the early stage in development, the U nited S tates has an opportunity to state clearly the criteria for successful use of SMRs . But bec au se of the

head start of China and India, the U nited S tates should not procrastinate and should take a leadership role in setting the standards for safe, secure, and proliferation-resistant SMRs that can compete in the market. Several years ago, the United States sponsored assessments to determine these criteria.9 While the Platonic ideal for small modular reactors will likely not be realized, it is worth specifying what such an SMR would be. N. W. Brown and J. A. Hasberger of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory assessed that reactors in developing countries must:¶ • “achieve reliably safe operation with a

minimum of maintenance and supporting infrastructure;¶ • offer economic competitiveness with alternative energy sources available to the candidate sites;¶ • demonstrate significant

improvements in proliferation resistance relative to existing reactor systems.”10¶ Pointing to the available technologies at that time from Argentina, China, and Russia, they determined that “these countries tend to focus on the developmen t of the reactor without integrated considerations of the overall fuel cycle, proliferation , or waste issues .” They emphasized that what is required for successful development of an SMR is “a comprehensive systems approach that considers all aspects of manufacturing, transportation, operation, and ultimate disposal.”¶ Considering proliferation resistance, their preferred approach is to eliminate the need for on-site refueling of the reactor and to provide for waste disposal away from the client country. By eliminating on-site refueling the recipient country would not need to access the reactor core, where plutonium—a weapons-usable material—resides. By removing the reactor core after the end of service life, the recipient country would not have access to fissile material contained in the used fuel. Both of these proposed criteria present technical and political challenges.Projects with small capital outlay are typically more attractive to private investors operating in liberalized markets where indices like the net present value (NPV), the internal rate of return (IRR) and the payback time are of critical importance. Incremental capacity additions would generally lead to a smoother debt stock profile—i.e., lower financial distress of the project. For particular scenarios of SMR deployment interest during construction could be as low as half of a large reactor based project with equivalent total capacity.

Second-Terrorism

Old reactor types are vulnerable to terrorismEarly, et al., 2009(Bryan (Former Research Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs), Matthew Fuhrmann (Professor in Political Science at Texas A&M) and Quan Li (Professor in Political Science at Texas A&M), “Atoms for Terror: The Determinants of Nuclear/Radiological Terrorism”, Social Science Research Network, RSR)The presence and size of a civilian nuclear infrastructure affect terrorist groups’ cost-benefit calculus in

several respects. First, as many pundits agree, gaining access to the NR materials represents the most important hurdle for terrorist groups seeking to engage in NR terrorism. The presence and size of a civilian nuclear infrastructure increase the availability of fissile materials (e.g., plutonium or highly-enriched uranium, HEU) and radioactive materials (e.g., Cesium-137 and Strontium-90), all of which could be used in NR terror attacks.18 According to various studies, these materials are widely available in countries with nuclear programs and sometimes poorly guarded.19 Being both rational and cost sensitive, terrorists will be tempted to either steal NR materials or purchase them illicitly when they are cheap and/or

readily available. Since terrorists have significantly greater access to nuclear and radiological materials in countries with

civil nuclear infrastructures, the probability that they will employ NR [nuclear] terrorism in these states increases.20 Although terrorists could acquire NR materials in one country and use them in another, it is easier to use the materials in the same country where they are acquired. Transporting NR across borders involves additional costs and raises the likelihood that the materials will be interdicted. Groups are cognizant of this consideration and often look for NR materials in the country that they wish to attack.

Nuclear terrorism has devastating long term consequencesHellman 8 (Martin E. Hellman, emeritus prof of engineering @ Stanford, “Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence” SPRING 2008 THE BENT OF TAU BETA PI, http://www.nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf)

The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the public’s mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article

focuses primarily on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe of immense proportions: “A 10-kiloton bomb detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever.” [Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The likelihood of such an attack is also significant . Former Sec retary of Def ense William Perry has estimated the chance of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, “We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a low-probability event, but we can’t live in a world where it’s anything but extremely low-probability.” [Hegland 2005]. In a survey of 85 national security experts , Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20 percent for the “probability of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years ,” with 79 percent of the respondents believing “it more likely to be carried out by terrorists ” than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I

support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanism s for a full-scale nuclear war , the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce which- ever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g., nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). his article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full- scale nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact, society’s almost total neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important. The cosT of World War iii The danger associated with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of

nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III. Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World War. World War II’s fatalities were double or triple that number—chaos prevented a more precise deter- mination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapola- tion of the effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Con- gress, General Douglas MacArthur, stated, “Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. … If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide.” Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ex- pressed a similar view: “If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed ” [McNamara 1986, page 6]. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagan’s belief that nuclear weapons were “totally irrational, totally inhu- mane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” [Shultz 2007] Official studies, while couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World War III would exact: “The resulting deaths would be far beyond any precedent. Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S. deaths from 35 to 77 percent (i.e., 79-160 million dead) … a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care … millions of people might starve or freeze during the follow- ing winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. … further millions … might eventually die of latent radiation effects.” [OTA 1979, page 8] This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that as- sumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous nuclear explosions and their resultant fire- storms could usher in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the face of the earth , much as many scientists now believe the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007] suggests that even a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states,

such as India and Pakistan, could have devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities. While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engi- neering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing World War III is a necessity —not an option .

SMRs solve - they’re buried underground, heavily layered and no on-site refuelingLoudermilk 2011(Micah, research associate with the Energy & Environmental Security Policy program at National Defense University, “Small Nuclear Reactors and US Energy Security: Concepts, Capabilities, and Costs”, Journal of Energy Security, 5-31-11, http://www.ensec.org/index.php?view=article&catid=116%3Acontent0411&id=314%3Asmall-nuclear-reactors-and-us-energy-security-concepts-capabilities-and-costs&tmpl=component&print=1&page=&option=com_content&Itemid=375, accessed 8-1-12, RSR)As to the small reactors themselves, the designs achieve a degree of proliferation-resistance unmatched by large reactors . Small enough to be fully buried underground in independent silos, the concrete surrounding the reactor vessels can be layered much thicker than the traditional domes that protect conventional reactors without collapsing. Coupled with these two levels of superior physical protection is the traditional security associated with reactors today. Most sm all r eactor s also are factory-sealed with a supply of fuel inside. Instead of refueling reactors onsite, SMRs are returned to the factory, intact, for removal of spent fuel and refueling. By closing off the fuel cycle, proliferation risks associated with the nuclear fuel running the reactors are mitigated and concerns over the widespread distribution of nuclear fuel allayed .

SolvencyPlan: The Unites States Federal Government should increase its economic engagement towards Mexico by assisting Mexico with development and implementation of molten salt small modular reactorsWe reserve the right to clarify

C. Investment will produce nuclear power in MexicoAlonso et. al. 11—Researchers at the National Nuclear Research Institute of Mexico (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares) ( Gustavo Alonso, Javier C. Palacios, Jose R. Ramirez, Luis C. Longoria, Edmundo del Valle, " Alternatives of Financing for New Nuclear Reactors in Mexico ", IAEA, 2011, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/P1500_CD_Web/htm/pdf/topic2/2S07_G.%20Alonso.pdf)//AD5. DEPLOYMENT BY USING CREDIT RESOURCES For this alternative, there will be two sources of financing, one from international credit institutions that will contribute with an 85% of the lump sum and the second will be a national credit institution that will afford the other 15%. Discount rates considered in this case are as

follows: for the international credit according to the global market is 8%, and for the national credit a 12% discount rate is used. In this case the national scheme used is one called Financing Public Infrastructure (in Spanish Obra Pública Financiada), where the national credit institutions will support the civil

works and the international credit institutions will support the Nuclear and generator islands . Under this scheme

the credit institutions or the reactor vendors through the credit support will finance the nuclear power plant construction up to be in commercial operation . In that moment the utility will start to pay the credit according to the payment schedule. The main international credit assumptions are: • Payment credit period: 15 years. • 30 payments, each one every 6 months (does not include any payment during construction). • Grace period: 6 months after commercial operation. • Annual discount rate in dollars: 8%. The main national credit assumptions are: • Payment credit period: 5 years. Using again the information about the expending and income and the payment of the loans, international and international, the cumulative cash flow can be calculate, which is shown in Figure 2. It considers the three different overnight cost used in this study. To have a positive cash flow is mandatory to the approval of a project under this financing scheme. It is achieved for the 2500 US$/kW and 3000 US$/kW overnight costs considered in this study. Therefore under this two overnight cost scenarios the nuclear power plant deployment will be feasible. For the 3500 US$/kW overnight cost there is a small negative cash flow (15,009,082.00 US$ per year) during the first five years, after that time the national debt is already paid and the cash flow start to be positive. Although, it still can be a suitable candidate but could be subject to other constraints. Fig. 2. Cumulative cash flow from credit resources for different overnight cost 4. DISCUSSION

A diversification strategy can give greater protection against the volatility prices of primary fuels. It also eliminates the international dependence to only one natural gas provider among other benefits. In

Mexico several studies already consider nuclear energy an option to be considered as part of the electricity expansion, it makes a viable option from several different points of views. It can help to reduce or mitigate carbon emissions helping to alleviate climate change and also is already a competitive economical option in the long run.

D. Small modular reactors offer advantages in security and safetyWheeler 10- Former Senior Reactor Operator; Nuclear Workforce Planning & Workforce Development Expert (John, “Small Modular Reactors May Offer Significant Safety and Security Enhancements”, November 22, 2010, Clear Trend, http://thisweekinnuclear.com/?p=1193With this in mind, s mall m odular re actor s offer several big advantages that make them safer: They are smaller, so the amount

of radioactivity contained in each reactor is less. So much less in fact, that even if the worse case reactor accident occurs, the amount of radioactive material released would not pose a risk to the public. In nuclear lingo we say SMRs have a

smaller “source term.” This source term is so small we can design the plant and emergency systems to virtually eliminate the need for emergency actions beyond the physical site boundaries . Then, by controlling access to the site boundary, we can eliminate the

need for off-site protective actions (like sheltering or evacuations). These smaller reactors contain less nuclear fuel. This smaller amount of fuel (with passive cooling I’ll

mention in a minute) slows down the progression of reactor accidents. This slower progression gives operators more time to take action to keep the reactor cool. Where operators in large reactors have minutes or hours to react to events, operators of SMRs may have hours or even days . This means the chance of a reactor

damaging accident is very, very remote. Even better, most SMRs are small enough that they cannot

over heat and melt down. They get all the cooling they need from air circulating around the reactor. This is a big deal because if SMRs can’t melt down, then they can’t release radioactive gas that would pose a risk to the public. Again, this means the need for external emergency actions is virtually eliminated. Also, some SMRs are not water cooled; they use gas, liquid salt, or liquid metal coolants that operate at low pressures . This lower operating pressure means that if radioactive gases build up inside the containment building there is less pressure to push the gas out and into the air. If there is no pressure to push radioactive gas into the environment and all of it stays inside the plant, then it poses no risk to the public . SMRs are small enough to be built underground . This means they will have a smaller physical footprint that will be easier to defend against physical attacks. This provides additional benefits of lower construction costs because earth, concrete and steel are less costly than elaborate security systems in use today, and lower operating costs (a smaller footprint means a smaller security force). In summary, small modular nuclear reactors offer potential safety and security advantages over larger commercial reactors because they can be designed (1) to have smaller source terms, (2) to have accident scenarios that progress more slowly, (3) to be meltdown proof, (4) to operate at lower pressures, and (5) to have smaller security footprints. These safety and security advantages can result in considerable cost advantages. A large percentage of a nuclear plant’s operating expenses go into emergency planning and security . It is possible that four or five SMRs packaged together to provide the equivalent of a large nuclear unit could operate with a smaller staff size and lower costs. However, because existing rules were written for larger reactors, some changes to NRC regulations will be required for SMRs to take full advantage of their inherent safety and security features. There are groups already working on these

changes. These safety and security advantages offered by SMRs, when combined with lower initial capital costs, shorter construction times, and scalability, may tip the scales in favor of a new generation of small, factory built modular reactors.

1AC v1

Harms

Scenario 1-State Conflict

E. Glacier loss from climate change increases the risk of nuclear conflict—water supplies and shifting borders escalate tensions

Sharma 10 (Rajeev Sharma, journalist-author who has been writing on international relations, foreign policy, strategic affairs, security and terrorism for over two decades, 2/25/2010, "Climate Change = War?" The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2010/02/25/climate-change-war/)For all the heat generated by discussions of global warming in recent months, it is an often overlooked fact that climate change has the potential to create border disputes that in some cases could even provoke clashes between states. Throw in to the mix three nuclear-armed nations with a history of

disagreements, and the stakes of any conflict rise incalculably . Yet such a scenario is becoming increasingly likely as glaciers around the world melt, blurring international boundaries . The chastened United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, still doesn’t dispute that glaciers are melting; the only question is how fast. The phenomenon is already pushing Europeans and Africans to redraw their borders. Switzerland and Italy, for example, were forced to introduce draft resolutions in their respective parliaments for fresh border demarcations after alpine glaciers started melting unusually quickly. And in Africa, meanwhile, climate change has caused rivers to change course over the past few years. Many African nations have rivers marking international boundaries and are understandably worried about these changing course and therefore cutting into their borders. Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan are just some of the African countries that have indicated apprehension about their international boundaries. But it is in Asia where a truly nightmarish

scenario could play out between India, Pakistan and China –nuclear weapon states that between them have the highest concentration of glaciers in the world outside the polar regions. A case in point is the Siachen Glacier in the Karakoram range, the largest glacier outside the polar region, which is the site of a major bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan . According to scientific data, Siachen Glacier is melting at the rate of about 110 meters a year–among the fastest of any glaciers in the world. The glacier’s melting ice is the main source of the Nubra River, which itself drains into the Shyok River. These are two of the main rivers in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. The Shyok also joins the Indus River, and forms the major source of water for Pakistan. It is clear, then, why the melting of

glaciers in the Karakoram region could have a disastrous impact on ties between India and Pakistan . French geologists have already predicted the Indus will become a seasonal river by 2040, which would unnerve Pakistan as its ‘granary basket,’ Punjab, would become increasingly drought-prone and eventually a desert–all within a few decades. It takes no great leap of imagination to see the potential for conflict as the two nations resort to military means to control this water source. Meanwhile, glacier melting could also be creat ing a potential flashpoint between India and China. The melting Himalayan glaciers will inevitably induce changes to the McMahon Line , the boundary that separates India and China. Beijing has already embarked upon a long-term strategy of throttling of India’s major water source in the north-east–the Brahmaputra River that originates in China.

Scenario 2-Biodiversity

F. Warming collapses half of all speciesStern 7 – Professor of Economics and GovernmentNicholas- Head of the British Government Economic Service, Former Head Economist for the World Bank, I.G. Patel Chair at the London School of Economics and Political Science, “The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review”, The report of a team commissioned by the British Government to study the economics of climate change led by Siobhan Peters, Head of G8 and International Climate Change Policy Unit, Cambridge University Press, p. 79-81Climate change is likely to occur too rapidly for many species to adapt. One study estimates that around 15 – 40% of species face extinction with 2°C of warming . Strong drying over the Amazon , as predicted by some climate models, would result in dieback of forest with the highest biodiversity on the planet. The warming of the 20th century has already directly affected ecosystems. Over the past 40 years, species have been moving polewards by 6 Km on average per decade, and seasonal events, such as flowering or egg-laying, have been occurring several days earlier each decade.72 Coral bleaching has become increasingly prevalent since the 1980s. Arctic and mountain ecosystems are acutely vulnerable – polar bears, caribou and white spruce have all experienced recent declines.73 Climate change has already contributed to the extinction of over 1 % of the world’s amphibian species from tropical

mountains.74 Ecosystems will be highly sensitive to climate change (Table 3.4). For many species, the rate of warming will be too rapid to withstand. Many species will have to migrate across fragmented landscapes to stay within their “climate envelope” (at rates that many will not be able to achieve). Migration becomes more difficult with faster rates of warming . In some cases, the “climate envelope” of a species may move beyond reach, for example moving above the tops of mountains or beyond coastlines. Conservation reserves may find their local climates becoming less amenable to the native species. Other pressures from human activities, including land-use change, harvesting/hunting, pollution and transport of alien species around the world, have already had a dramatic effect on species and will make it even harder for species to cope with further warming. Since 1500, 245 extinctions have been recorded across most major species groups, including

mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and trees. A further 800 known species in these groups are threatened with extinction.7 A warming world will accelerate species extinctions and has the potential to lead to the irreversible loss of many species around the world, with most kinds of animals and plants affected (see below). Rising levels of carbon dioxide have some direct impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity,76 but increases in temperature and changes in rainfall will have even more profound effects.

Vulnerable ecosystems are likely to disappear almost completely at even quite moderate levels of warming . 77 The Arctic will be particularly hard hit, since many of its species, including polar bears and seals, will be very sensitive to the rapid warming

predicted and substantial loss of sea ice (more detail in Chapter 5).78 1°C warming . At least 10% of land species could be fac ing extinction , according to one stud y.79 Coral reef bleaching will become much more frequent, with slow recovery, particularly in the southern Indian Ocean, Great Barrier Reef and the Caribbean . 80 Tropical

mountain habitats are very species rich and are likely to lose many species as suitable habitat disappears. 2°C warming . Around 15 – 40% of land species could be fac ing extinction, with most major species groups affected , including 25 – 60% of mammals in South Africa and 15 – 25% of butterflies in Australia. Coral reefs are expected to bleach annually in many areas, with most never recover ing , affecting tens of millions of people that rely on coral reefs for their livelihood or food supply.81 This level of warming is expected to lead to the loss of vast areas of tundra and forest – almost half the low tundra and

about one-quarter of the cool conifer forest according to one study. 82 3°C warming . Around 20 – 50% of land species could be facing extinction. Thousands of species may be lost in biodiversity hotspots around the world , e.g. over 40% of endemic species in some biodiversity hotspots such as African national parks and Queensland rain forest. 83 Large areas of coastal wetlands will be permanently lost because of sea level rise (up to one-quarter according to some estimates), with acute risks in the Mediterranean, the USA and South East Asia. Mangroves and coral reefs

are at particular risk from rapid sea level rise (more than 5 mm per year) and their loss would remove natural coastal defences in many regions. Strong drying over the Amazon, according to some climate models, would result in dieback of forest with the highest biodiversity on the planet. 84 Temperatures could rise by more than 4 or 5°C if emissions continue unabated, but the full range of consequences at this level of warming have not been clearly articulated to date.

Nevertheless, a basic understanding of ecological processes leads quickly to the conclusion that many of the ecosystem effects will become compounded with increased levels of warming , particularly

since small shifts in the composition of ecosystems or the timing of biological events will have knock-on effects through the food- chain (e.g. loss of pollinators or food supply).85

G. Biodiversity and warming act synergistically to put life at riskRaj 12 (Dr. P.J. Sanjeeva Raj, consultant ecologist and the Professor and Head of the Zoology Department of the Madras Christian College (MCC), “Beware the loss of biodiversity”, September 23, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/beware-the-loss-of-biodiversity/article3927062.ece) Professor Edward O. Wilson, Harvard visionary of biodiversity, observes that the current rate of

biodiversity loss is perhaps the highest since the loss of dinosaurs about 65 million years ago during the Mesozoic era, when

humans had not appeared. He regrets that if such indiscriminate annihilation of all biodiversity from the face of the

earth happens for anthropogenic reasons, as has been seen now, it is sure to force humanity into an

emotional shock and trauma of loneliness and helplessness on this planet. He believes that the current wave of biodiversity loss is sure

to lead us into an age that may be appropriately called the “Eremozoic Era, the Age of Loneliness.” Loss of biodiversity is a much greater threat to human survival than even [ and] climate

change . Both could act, synergistically too, to escalate human extinction faster .

Biodiversity is so indispensable for human survival that the U nited N ations General Assembly has

designated the decade 2011- 2020 as the ‘Biodiversity Decade’ with the chief objective of enabling

humans to live peaceably or harmoniously with nature and its biodiversity. We should be happy that during October 1-19, 2012, XI

Conference of Parties (CoP-11), a global mega event on biodiversity, is taking place in Hyderabad, when delegates from 193 party countries are expected to meet. They will review the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which was originally introduced at the Earth Summit or the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is the nodal agency for CoP-

11. Today, India is one of the 17 mega-diverse (richest biodiversity) countries. Biodiversity provides all basic needs for our healthy survival —

oxygen, food, medicines, fibre, fuel, energy, fertilizers, fodder and waste-disposal, etc. Fast vanishing

honeybees, dragonflies, bats, frogs, house sparrows, filter (suspension)-feeder oysters and all

keystone species are causing great economic loss as well as posing an imminent threat to human

peace and survival. The three-fold biodiversity mission before us is to inventorise the existing biodiversity, conserve it, and, above all, equitably share the sustainable benefits out of it.

Inherency

A. While Mexico is interested in nuclear power, in the SQUO it is relying on fossil fuels

SBWire 13-Press Release Service (“"Mexico Power Report Q3 2013" Published”, SBWire (Originally from Business Monitor International), 7/18/2013, http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/mexico-power-report-q3-2013-published-279498.htm)//ADBoston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/18/2013 -- Mexico's electricity generating capacity is struggling to keep pace with domestic demand - a fact acknowledged by the state-run Federal Electricity Commission in April 2013. While the government has

pinpointed renewable sources of energy as a target area to fill this gap and has also brought the issue of nuclear power back to the table, we believe that the low price of gas and the prospect of shale gas discoveries on Mexican soil mean that gas will continue to play a central role in the country's electricity production. The government's 2013-2017 National Energy Strategy also addresses the issue of electricity tariffs - there are plans to make them cheaper for industrial clients as a means of boosting investment and raising productivity. Local governments have also asked that they become eligible for these lower tariffs; the details of these lower tariffs have yet to be published. We remain of the view that an estimated robust 3.96% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth for power consumption in 2012 will give way to a slightly less positive performance in 2013. With increased uncertainty as a result of a slowdown in the Mexican economy weighing on the sector, we believe that consumption growth will come in at a more modest 2.44% y-o-y in 2013. Mexico's low per capita consumption and relatively high energy intensity suggest that risks for long-term

electricity demand are on the upside; the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) admitted in April 2013 that it was working at maximum capacity, with shortages of natural gas and poor maintenance of power plants two reasons behind outages . In February 2013, the new National Energy Council of Mexico presented its first National Energy Strategy , outlining energy policy for 2013- 2027. Renewables are expected to take a key role, while nuclear energy is also under consideration . We forecast that it will be gas that makes the greatest gain s; however, not least given that the government is keen to invest in shale gas exploration. We forecast that electricity generated by gas-fired power plants will increase at a

compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.43% between 2013 and 2022, and will represent 59 .1 % of electricity generation capacity by 2022. Key developments this quarter include: - The National Energy Council of Mexico presented its first National Energy Strategy for 2013-2027. Goals including generating 35% of electricity from renewable sources by 2024.- CFE announced in April 2013 that it had selected Abengoa to develop a US$14mn in a transmission project that will see two substations and a 49km transmission line.

- Sener and Spain's OHR announced plans to construct a 35-megawatt (MW) gas-fired cogeneration power plant for Pemex in April 2013.- CFE announced plans to construct four 1,000MW combined cycle power plants in Veracruz, with work scheduled to begin in 2013 in a project that has an estimated cost of US$2.8bn.

Plan

The Unites States Federal Government should invest in nuclear technology to create small modular reactors in Mexico We reserve the right to clarify(Also, we’re going to refer to small modular reactors as SMR’s)

Solvency

H. Nuclear power key to solve for warming – top economist concedes, renewables can’t compete—tech is not moving fast enough

Harvey, Environment Correspondent, ‘12[Fiona, “Nuclear power is only solution to climate change, says Jeffrey Sachs”, The Guardian, 5-3-12,http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/03/nuclear-power-solution-climate-change, RSR]Combating climate change will require an expansion of nuclear power , respected economist Jeffrey

Sachs said on Thursday, in remarks that are likely to dismay some sections of the environmental movement. Prof Sachs said atomic energy was needed because it provided a low-carbon source of power, while renewable energy was not making up enough of the world's energy mix and new technologies such as carbon capture and storage were not progressing fast enough. "We won't meet the carbon targets if nuclear is taken off the table," he said. He said coal was likely to continue to be cheaper than renewables and other low-carbon forms of energy, unless the effects of the climate were taken into account.

I. Mexican climate policy is modeled globally but Mexico’s current climate policies are controversial

Vance 12- Erik is a freelance science writer based in Mexico City (Erik, “Mexico passes climate-

change law”, Nature, April 20, 2012, http://www.nature.com/news/mexico-passes-climate-change-

law-1.10496)//ADHe compares the bill to a skeleton on which many other laws must be hung. One of those is Mexico’s REDD + policy (for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). The policy creates a monetary value for carbon in forests, and attempts to give people living in those regions a financial incentive to preserve rather than cut down virgin forest — either by being paid to save the trees or by harvesting

sustainably. But REDD programmes have been dogged by controversy over the models used to calculate the value of carbon in forests, and over

how the scheme is run. “The projected carbon savings are created through modelling. And those models have a lot of uncertainty,” says Ana Peña del Valle, a scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the country’s largest university. “We have quite a bit of concern with the way the risks related to REDD are shared between sellers and buyers.

Because so far, the risk schemes are focused more on protecting the buyers.” Despite concerns about Mexico’s ability to enforce the legislation , experts point out that the bill can already be seen as a successful response to the 2010 UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún. “Mexico was widely credited for helping to rescue the international effort in Cancún . But some noted the lack of corresponding action domestically . Now Mexico

has something to show at home too,” says Diringer.

J. Investment will produce nuclear power in MexicoAlonso et. al. 11—Researchers at the National Nuclear Research Institute of Mexico (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares) ( Gustavo Alonso, Javier C. Palacios, Jose R. Ramirez, Luis C. Longoria, Edmundo del Valle, " Alternatives of Financing for New Nuclear Reactors in Mexico ", IAEA, 2011, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/P1500_CD_Web/htm/pdf/topic2/2S07_G.%20Alonso.pdf)//AD5. DEPLOYMENT BY USING CREDIT RESOURCES For this alternative, there will be two sources of financing, one from international credit institutions that will contribute with an 85% of the lump sum and the second will be a national credit institution that will afford the other 15%. Discount rates considered in this case are as

follows: for the international credit according to the global market is 8%, and for the national credit a 12% discount rate is used. In this case the national scheme used is one called Financing Public Infrastructure (in Spanish Obra Pública Financiada), where the national credit institutions will support the civil

works and the international credit institutions will support the Nuclear and generator islands . Under this scheme

the credit institutions or the reactor vendors through the credit support will finance the nuclear power plant construction up to be in commercial operation. In that moment the utility will start to pay the credit according to the payment schedule. The main international credit assumptions are: • Payment credit period: 15 years. • 30 payments, each one every 6 months (does not include any payment during construction). • Grace period: 6 months after commercial operation. • Annual discount rate in dollars: 8%. The main national credit assumptions are: • Payment credit period: 5 years. Using again the information about the expending and income and the payment of the loans, international and international, the cumulative cash flow can be calculate, which is shown in Figure 2. It considers the three different overnight cost used in this study. To have a positive cash flow is mandatory to the approval of a project under this financing scheme. It is achieved for the 2500 US$/kW and 3000 US$/kW overnight costs considered in this study. Therefore under this two overnight cost scenarios the nuclear power plant deployment will be feasible. For the 3500 US$/kW overnight cost there is a small negative cash flow (15,009,082.00 US$ per year) during the first five years, after that time the national debt is already paid and the cash flow start to be positive. Although, it still can be a suitable candidate but could be subject to other constraints. Fig. 2. Cumulative cash flow from credit resources for different overnight cost 4. DISCUSSION

A diversification strategy can give greater protection against the volatility prices of primary fuels. It also eliminates the international dependence to only one natural gas provider among other benefits. In

Mexico several studies already consider nuclear energy an option to be considered as part of the electricity expansion, it makes a viable option from several different points of views. It can help to reduce or mitigate carbon emissions helping to alleviate climate change and also is already a competitive economical option in the long run.

K. Small modular reactors offer advantages in security and safetyWheeler 10- Former Senior Reactor Operator; Nuclear Workforce Planning & Workforce Development Expert (John, “Small Modular Reactors May Offer Significant Safety and Security Enhancements”, November 22, 2010, Clear Trend, http://thisweekinnuclear.com/?p=1193With this in mind, s mall m odular re actor s offer several big advantages that make them safer: They are smaller, so the amount

of radioactivity contained in each reactor is less. So much less in fact, that even if the worse case reactor accident occurs, the amount of radioactive material released would not pose a risk to the public. In nuclear lingo we say SMRs have a

smaller “source term.” This source term is so small we can design the plant and emergency systems to virtually eliminate the need for emergency actions beyond the physical site boundaries . Then, by controlling access to the site boundary, we can eliminate the

need for off-site protective actions (like sheltering or evacuations). These smaller reactors contain less nuclear fuel. This smaller amount of fuel (with passive cooling I’ll

mention in a minute) slows down the progression of reactor accidents. This slower progression gives operators more time to take action to keep the reactor cool. Where operators in large reactors have minutes or hours to react to events, operators of SMRs may have hours or even days . This means the chance of a reactor damaging accident is very, very remote. Even better, most SMRs are small enough that they cannot

over heat and melt down. They get all the cooling they need from air circulating around the reactor. This is a big deal because if SMRs can’t melt down, then they can’t release radioactive gas that would pose a risk to the public. Again, this means the need for external emergency actions is virtually eliminated. Also, some SMRs are not water cooled; they use gas, liquid salt, or liquid metal coolants that operate at low pressures . This lower operating pressure means that if radioactive gases build up inside the containment building there is less pressure to push the gas out and into the air. If there is no pressure to push radioactive gas into the environment and all of it stays inside the plant, then it poses no risk to the public . SMRs are small enough to be built underground . This means they will have a smaller physical footprint that will be easier to defend against physical attacks. This provides additional benefits of lower construction costs because earth, concrete and steel are less costly than elaborate security systems in use today, and lower operating costs (a smaller footprint means a smaller security force). In summary, small modular nuclear reactors offer potential safety and security advantages over larger commercial reactors because they can be designed (1) to have smaller source terms, (2) to have accident scenarios that progress more slowly, (3) to be meltdown proof, (4) to operate at lower pressures, and (5) to have smaller security footprints. These safety and security advantages can result in considerable cost advantages. A large percentage of a nuclear plant’s operating expenses go into emergency planning and security . It is possible that four or five SMRs packaged together to provide the equivalent of a large nuclear unit could operate with a smaller staff size and lower costs. However, because existing rules were written for larger reactors, some changes to NRC regulations will be required for SMRs to take full advantage of their inherent safety and security features. There are groups already working on these

changes. These safety and security advantages offered by SMRs, when combined with lower initial capital

costs, shorter construction times, and scalability, may tip the scales in favor of a new generation of small, factory built modular reactors.

Advantage 1: Water Desalinization

F. SMRs key to desalinationSolan 2010 (David Solan, Director, Energy Policy Institute, Associate Director, Center for Advanced Energy Studies, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Boise State University, June 2010, “ECONOMIC AND EMPLOYMENT IMPACTS OF SMALL MODULAR NUCLEAR REACTORS,” Energy Policy Institute, http://www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org/images/EPI_SMR_ReportJune2010.pdf)Besides electricity generation , additional applications may be well-suited for SMR system s in the future. While the applicability of nuclear energy to additional applications is not dependent on facility size, the actual use of large nuclear facilities does not occur due to economic considerations. Currently, only a few countries utilize nuclear energy for non-generation purposes, primarily desalination and district heating (IAEA, 2008). A brief overview of the application possibilities for SMRs is

provided below.¶ Desalination. The IAEA has identified desalination as possibly the leading non-electric civilian use for nuclear energy. Water scarcity is becoming an increasingly problematic global issue in both developed and developing countries. As noted in an IAEA (2007) report,¶ Because of population growth , surface water resources are increasingly stressed in many parts of the world, developed and developing regions alike. Water stress is counter to sustainable development; it engenders disease; diverts natural flows , endangering flora and fauna of rivers, lakes wetlands, deltas and oceans; and it incites regional conflicts over water rights. In the developing world, more than one billion people currently lack access to safe drinking water ; nearly two and a half billion lack access to adequate sanitation services. This would only get worse as populations grow. Water stress is severe in the developed world as well ....In light of these trends, many opportunities in both developed and developing countries are foreseen for supply of potable water generated using nuclear process heat or off-peak electricity (p. 23).¶ The desalination of sea water requires large amounts of energy and is not dependent on a particular fuel for heat or electricity. The IAEA (2000) defines nuclear desalination as “the production of potable water from sea water in a facility in which a nuclear reactor is used as the source of energy for the desalination process” (p. 3). The three technologies that comprise nuclear desalination are nuclear, the desalination method,

and the system that couples them together (IAEA, 2000). The feasibility of integrated nuclear desalination plants has been proven with over 175 reactor-years of experience worldwide (IAEA, 2007a). ¶ Large-scale, proven commercial technologies for desalination can be grouped into distillation processes and the reverse osmosis process. Distillation technologies require heat to create steam which condenses and separates fresh water from brine. Reverse osmosis requires only electricity to push fresh water from the higher pressure saltwater side of a semi-permeable membrane to the lower pressure freshwater side. An IAEA study (2007a) on the economics of nuclear desalination reported that “ SMRs offer the largest potential as coupling options to nuclear

desalination systems in developing countries ” (p. 4). Furthermore, the study found that the costs for nuclear desalination are roughly similar to that of natural gas desalination, and could be substantially lower depending on fuel costs (IAEA, 2007a). Based on a preliminary assessment of the global desalination market through 2030, particularly in developing countries,

desalination has the potential to provide a strong market for SMRs if they can successfully compete with conventional nuclear plants and other sources of generation (Arthur, 2010).

Water is key to all life—additionally, fossil fuels are the biggest cause of the loss of potable waterNASCA 2004 (National Association for Scientific and Cultural Appreciation, 2004, “Water shortages - Only a matter of time,” http://www.nasca.org.uk/Strange_relics_/water/water.html)Water Shortage According to the latest estimates nearly 70% of the Earth’s population will struggle to find an adequate water supply by the year 2025 . Many authorities now believe that tension over water consumption will be the major catalyst for the wars of the future . Water shortage. It’s just around the corner. Water is one of the prime essentials for life as we know it. The plain fact is - no water, no life ! This becomes all the more worrying when we realise that the worlds supply of drinkable water will soon diminish quite rapidly. In

fact a recent report commissioned by the U nited N ations has emphasised that by the year 2025 at least 66% of the worlds population will be without a n adequate water supply . Incalculable damage. As a disaster in the making water shortage ranks in the top category. Without water we are finished , and it is thus

imperative that we protect the mechanism through which we derive our supply of this life giving fluid . Unfortunately the exact opposite is the case. We are doing incalculable damage to the planets capacity to generate water and this will have far ranging consequences for the not too distant

future. Bleak future The United Nations has warned that burning of fossil fuels is the prime cause of water shortage . While there may be other reasons such as increased solar activity it is clear that this is a situation over which we can exert a great deal of control. If not then the future will

be very bleak indeed! Already the warning signs are there. Drought conditions. The last year has seen devastating heatwaves in many parts of the world including the USA where the state of Texas experienced its worst drought on record. Elsewhere in the United States forest fires rage d out of control, while other regions of the globe experienced drought conditions that were even more severe. Parts of Iran, Afgahnistan, China and other neighbouring countries experience d their worst droughts on record . These conditions also extend ed throughout many parts of Africa and it is clear that if circumstances remain unchanged we are facing a disaster of epic proportions. Moreover it will be one for which there is no easy answer. Dangers. The spectre of a world water shortage evokes a truly frightening scenario. In fact the United Nations warns that disputes over water will become the prime source of conflict in the not too distant future. Where these shortages become ever more acute it could forseeably lead to the brink of nuclear conflict. On a lesser scale water, and the price of it, will acquire an importance somewhat like the current value placed on oil. The difference of course is that while oil is not vital for life, water most certainly is! Power shift. It seems clear then that in future years countries rich in water will enjoy an importance that perhaps they do not have today. In these circumstances power shifts are inevitable, and this will undoubtedly create its own strife and tension. Nightmare situation. In the long term the implications do not look encouraging. It is a two edged sword. First the shortage of water, and then the increased stresses this will impose upon an already stressed world of politics. It means that answers need to be found immediately. Answers that will both ameliorate the damage to the environment, and also find new sources of water for future consumption. If not, and the problem is left unresolved there will eventually come the day when we shall find ourselves with a nightmare situation for which there will be no obvious answer.

NEGATIVEJust in case

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Not cheaper—to get any reduction you have to make a bunchRosner and Goldberg 11- Energy Policy Institute at [the University of] Chicago and the [University of Chicago] Harris School of Public Policy Studies (Robert and Stephen, "Small Modular Reactors – Key to Future Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S.", EPIC-Energy Policy Institute at Chicago, November 2011, http://www.eenews.net/assets/2013/03/13/document_gw_01.pdf)//ADThe SMR community (developers, suppliers, and potential customers) have quoted estimates that the plant cost of SMRs (all-in

capital costs) would be in the range of $6,000 per kW, comparable to the unit cost of large LWRs . Achieving significant reductions in these estimates requires the fabrication of many modules on manufacturing plant assembly lines. This would enable manufacturing and assembly processes to be optimized to minimize labor requirements and shorten assembly times.77 The process of optimization has been referred to as “learning by doing,” whereby lessons are learned from the manufacture and assembly of each module, which can be then passed along in the form of

productivity gains or other cost savings in successive modules. Current large LWRs, such as the AP 1000, already incorporate a significant degree of modular construction techniques. Because of the smaller size of components, SMRs provide increased opportunity for modularization and factory manufacturing.

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No inherency for global nuclear power

Global SMR development is inevitableTucker 2011 (William Tucker, nuclear energy researcher and author of Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey, March 2011, “America's Last Nuclear Hope,” American Spectator, http://spectator.org/archives/2011/03/21/americas-last-nuclear-hope/print)That America is going to miss the revival of nuclear power that is reaching into the remote st corners of the globe is now almost a foregone conclusion. While the rest of the world is discovering what will undoubtedly be the principal source of power by the end of the 21st century, Americans are preoccupied with how many picocuries of tritium are leaking out of Vermont Yankee or whether we'll ever get around to deciding what to do with Yucca Mountain. There are 60 new reactors under construction around the world in countries as diverse as Brazil, Argentina, Lithuania, India, and Sri Lanka. Twenty are being built in China alone. Kenya, Indonesia, Morocco, Bangladesh -- all have entered into agreements with one provider nation or another to begin plans on their own nuclear program. ¶ Thirty years ago, the big three American companies -- General Electric, Westinghouse, and Babcock & Wilcox -- dominated the international market, building reactors in Europe and Asia. Today the field is completely dominated by foreign giants. Areva, 80 percent owned by the French government, is building in China, India, and Finland. Westinghouse, bought by Toshiba in 2008, has projects all around the globe. General Electric, still in the field but running in last place, recently partnered with Hitachi in the hope of reviving its fortunes. Russia's Rosatom has deals with Vietnam, India, Egypt, Brazil, and Venezuela. The biggest shock came when the United Arab Emirates put out bids to build four reactors in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Areva and Westinghouse figured to be the contenders but both were upended by Korea, which only started building its own reactors five years ago. The Koreans won a $20 billion contract in late 2009, the largest international construction job in history. Yet all this will change once again when China enters the international market with its own design (reverse-engineered from Westinghouse) somewhere around 2013. France, which prides itself on being 80 percent nuclear, is already fearful that it will be closed out of the market by the rising Asian competition.¶ So how can America possibly fit into the highly competitive race to provide what is surely going to be the dominant energy source of the 21st century? Believe it or not, we still have a chance -- with small reactors . ¶ LAST MARCH, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in which he praised small modular reactors (SMRs) as "America's New Nuclear Option," Secretary of Energy Steven Chu acknowledged that America is in danger of falling behind other countries. "Our choice is clear," he wrote. "Develop these technologies today or import them tomorrow." In fact, America is the only major nuclear country that does not even have the capacity to forge the three-story steel vessel heads at the heart of large reactors and will have to import them as well. But Chu saw an opportunity in the new small designs. "If we can develop this technology in the U.S. and build these reactors with American workers, we will have a key competitive edge."

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US FDI can’t invest in Mexican nuclear powerState Department 2013 (“2013 Investment Climate Statement – Mexico”, http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ics/2013/204693.htm)

The 1993 Foreign Investment Law is the basic statute governing foreign investment in Mexico. The law is consistent with the foreign investment chapter of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement). It provides national (i.e. non-discriminatory) treatment for most foreign investment, eliminates performance requirements for most foreign investment projects, and liberalizes criteria for automatic approval of foreign investment. The Foreign Investment Law identifies 704 activities, 656 of which are open for 100 percent FDI stakes. There are 20 activities in which foreigners may only invest 49 percent; 13 in which Foreign Investment National Commission approval is required for a 100percent stake; five reserved only for Mexican nationals; and 10 reserved for the government of Mexico. Below is a summary of activities subject to investment restrictions:

Sectors Reserved for the State in Whole or in Part:

A. Petroleum and other hydrocarbons;

B. Basic petrochemicals;

C. Telegraphic and radio telegraphic services;

D. Radioactive materials;

E. Electric power generation, transmission, and distribution;

F. Nuclear energy;

G. Coinage and printing of money;

H. Postal service;

I. Control, supervision and surveillance of ports of entry

Sectors Reserved for Mexican Nationals:

A. Retail sales of gasoline and liquid petroleum gas;

B. Non-cable radio and television services;

C. Development Banks (law was modified in 2008);

D. Certain professional and technical services;

E. Domestic transportation for passengers, tourism and freight, except for messenger or package delivery services.