Richard L. Garwin

Richard L. Garwin is the Former Chair of the Department of State's Arms Control and Non-proliferation Advisory Board, a Member of the Defense Science Board of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and a member of the Rumsfeld Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States.September 16, 2002.

• Director, Union of Concerned Scientists

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Richard L. Garwin is a member of the board of the Union of Concerned Scientists: Garwin "has done a wide range of research in fundamental and applied physics. He was involved with the development of the first thermonuclear weapons and the first photo-intelligence satellites and is a leading expert on many arms control matters. He has served on the President's Scientific Advisory Committee, the Defense Science Board, and, most recently, on the Rumsfeld Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. He is also Fellow Emeritus at IBM, where he was on the scientific staff for the bulk of his career, and is now the Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book (with Georges Charpak) is Megawatts and Megatons: The Future of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons."

In an April 9, 2001 speech for the Nuclear Control Institute titled [1] "Can the World Do Without Nuclear Power? Can the World Live With Nuclear Power?" Garwin agrees nuclear power provides only 20% of the world’s electricity which is only 1/3 of all power (i.e. 6% nuclear). At that rate of use there's a fifty year supply of Uranium Oxide - the only fuel used today for nuclear reactors. If nuclear power were to be substituted for fossil fuels 300 nuclear power plants today would become 9000 and there would only be a two year supply.

No problem for Garwin though. There's "promising" future sources of uranium though. Not cold fusion, sea water! No matter the concentration is only 3 parts per billion requiring phenomenal amounts of water movement for small amounts of Uranium. He reports from some well financed public science project in Japan which has "proven" with myriad assumptions, it could be done.

Waste, its potential bomb making danger, is his main concern. Since a single bomb would be devastating, having too many little reactors would result in a greatly increased risk of terrorism. A world building boom of Yucca Mountains (controlled by Watson Center researched / IBM computers??) is his solution.

Yes, he does admit it would all be dangerous, and make energy geometrically more expensive, but global warming is so much worse that we must start now.

For a photo of Richard Garwin and nuclear pacifist George Bush see [2].

For a profound lesson in public manipulation notice Nuclear Control Institute' membership in the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition [3].

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