On January 1, Charles D. Ferguson became president of the Federation of American Scientists, a nongovernmental organization founded in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists to promote humanitarian uses of science and technology. Ferguson worked at FAS 10 years ago as director of its nuclear policy project, and he returns after working from 2004 to 2009 at the Council on Foreign Relations as part of the Independent Task Force on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy. Science News assistant managing editor Kristina Bartlett Brody asked Ferguson to discuss nuclear energy and nonproliferation.
How does nuclear energy fit in the overall energy picture today?
To put this in somewhat stark terms, it seems that often the debate is either death by climate change or death by nuclear war. It seems that dire at times. So, we’re all looking around for solutions, and there’s a recognition that there’s no one so-called silver bullet, but there are strong advocates who say that nuclear power must play a major role in combating climate change … because an operating nuclear power plant does not emit greenhouse gases.… Now, people in the nonproliferation community tend to think that if we go down that path, we’re going to have more and more countries with nuclear power plants and in essence latent nuclear weapons programs. Are we going to be in what [nonproliferation expert] Albert Wohlstetter warned of 30 years ago, “life in a nuclear armed crowd”?