COSTS OF
INEFFECTIVE SAFEGUARDS
Although it
is very unlikely that a safeguards system using the best available
technology and institutional mechanisms would cost more than a very
small fraction of the costs of nuclear electric power, the costs of
ineffective safeguards could be enormous. One nuclear hijacking
could lead to direct costs, in terms of the value of the materials
stolen, of a few million dollars. The costs of recovery operations
could be very large, and with little prospect of success. But the
costs of nuclear devastation in terms of property damage and human
life are incalculable.
The costs of
ineffective safeguards would be borne in part by the nuclear power
industry. If the ineffectiveness of safeguards were demonstrated,
it is probable that the public would demand very costly plant
modifications, and conceivably the shutdown of facilities deemed
especially vulnerable.
The cost of
ineffective safeguards would also be borne by the government. On
the one hand, a central task of government at all levels, namely
that of ensuring the personal security of the citizenry, would be
made much more complicated by successful nuclear thefts. On the
other hand, the government, perhaps the AEC in particular, would
quickly lose the confidence of the public.
Finally, the
costs of ineffective safeguards would be borne by the people as a
whole in two ways: in the anxiety and insecurity that successful
nuclear thefts would introduce into their lives; and in the
impossibility of meeting essential electric power
requirements without continued operation of the nuclear power
industry on a more or less business-as-usual basis, despite the
occurrence of nuclear thefts. If safeguards prove to be ineffective
in the 1980s, when nuclear fuel will be supplying one-quarter of
the electric power needs of the nation, or after the year 2000,
when over half our electric power supply may be nuclear, the most
drastic measures referred to above—which the public might
then demand—may well be impossible to implement.