Public Policy Research Works
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Item A Nuclear Solution to Climate Change?(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2000-05-19) Fetter, Steve; Sailor, William C.; Bodansky, David; Braun, Chaim; van der Zwaan, BobThe U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change calls for the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous changes in climate. An ambitious target would be stabilization at an equivalent doubling of the preindustrial CO2 concentration. To achieve this, fossil-fuel carbon emissions in 2050 should not exceed their current level, despite an expected doubling or tripling in world demand for energy. Lacking a crystal ball that tells us the future, we simply select one possible scenario that achieves the emissions target. We assume that by 2050, world population and average per-capita energy consumption each rise by 50%, with annual world primary energy consumption reaching 900 EJ (exajoules, 1018 joules). A roughly equal contribution of 300 EJ each is assumed for conventional fossil fuels, for renewable and "decarbonized" fossil fuel sources, and for nuclear fission. This is a challenging scenario, especially because restraining the increase in average per-capita energy consumption in the face of the economic aspirations of developing countries will require substantial improvements in energy efficiency.Item Casualties and Damage from Scud Attacks in the 1991 Gulf War(Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993-03) Fetter, Steve; Lewis, George N.; Gronlund, LisbethThe proliferation of ballistic missiles has in recent years become a major international security concern. This increased concern is in part due to the highly visible role played by Iraqi Scud missiles during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. However, it is also due to the widespread -- but incorrect -- perception that even conventionally-armed ballistic missiles are tremendously destructive. This perception that ballistic missiles are inherently weapons of great destructive capability may have played a key role in the politics of the Gulf War. Iraq fired more than 80 modified Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, causing 31 deaths, numerous injuries, and substantial property damage. However, with the exception of the Scud that hit a barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and killed 28 U.S. soldiers, the number of casualties caused by these Scuds was much lower than was generally anticipated.Item Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of the Planned US National Missile Defense System(Union of Concerned Scientists and MIT Security Studies Program, 2000-04) Fetter, Steve; Sessler, Andrew M.; Cornwall, John M.; Dietz, Bob; Frankel, Sherman; Garwin, Richard L.; Gottfried, Kurt; Gronlund, Lisbeth; Lewis, George N.; Postol, Theodore A.; Wright, David C.The National Missile Defense system under development by the United States would be ineffective against even limited ballistic missile attacks from emerging missile states. Moreover, its deployment would increase nuclear dangers from Russia and China, and impede cooperation by these countries in international efforts to control the proliferation of long-range ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. The United States should reconsider its options for countering the threats posed by long-range ballistic missiles and shelve the current NMD plans as unworkable and counterproductive.Item The Hazard from Plutonium Dispersal by Nuclear-warhead Accidents(Taylor & Francis, 1990) Fetter, Steve; Frank, von HippelNuclear weapons are carefully designed to have an extremely low probability of exploding accidentally with an appreciable yield—even if they are involved in a high-speed crash, struck by a bullet or consumed in a fire. The principal concern when nuclear warheads are involved in such accidents is the possible dispersal of plutonium into the environment. In particular, an explosion could disperse a significant fraction of the plutonium in a warhead as particles of respirable size.Item Decarbonizing the Global Energy System: Implications for Energy Technology and Security(2005-03) Fetter, Steve; Gulden, TimSince the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988, it has engaged a substantial proportion of those individuals with relevant scientific expertise in the process of forming reasonable judgments about the effects of aggregate human activity on the composition of the earth’s atmosphere and about the resulting implications for global climate. It is now widely agreed that in concert with other so-called “greenhouse gases,” carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the burning of fossil fuels for energy is causing the earth’s climate to change. Over the last century, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased from about 300 to 375 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and global average surface temperature increased by 0.4 to 0.8 oC. In the absence of policies designed to substantially reduce global emissions, scenarios developed by the IPCC indicate that CO2 concentrations will reach 550 to 1000 ppmv in 2100 and that global average surface temperature will increase by an additional 1.5 to 6 oC (IPCC 2001a). The consequences of such a temperature increase and associated changes in precipitation patterns and other climate variables are a matter of greater uncertainty and disagreement. At the lower end of the range, it is possible that nothing of global consequence will occur, and that the regional and more localized effects will be moderate enough to be handled by natural adaptation. It also conceivable—particularly at the high end of the temperature range—that abrupt, nonlinear and fundamental changes could be triggered, such as a sudden change in large-scale ocean currents, with truly massive and potentially catastrophic consequences for human societies. The IPCC has identified the possibility of extreme danger, but has been and will remain unable to reach consensus on its exact character, magnitude, probability and timing.Item Alternatives to NMD(Lawyers Alliance for World Security, 2000) Fetter, Steve; Mendelsohn, JackIn Chapter VI, Steve Fetter and Jack Mendelsohn outline Alternatives to NMD. There exists an effective alternative to NMD for dealing with the potential ballistic missile threat: strengthening the interlocking and complementary barriers to proliferation created by deterrence, arms control (including transparency measures), economic incentives, cooperative programs, export controls, preemption and civil defense.Item "Not So Fast: Comments on 'Estimates of Performance and Cost for Boost Phase Intercept' presented to the Marshall Institute’s Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy by Greg Canavan on 24 September 2004"(2005-01) Fetter, Steve; Oelrich, IvanDr. Greg Canavan’s paper, “Estimates of Performance and Cost for Boost Phase Intercept,” [http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=262] examines some implications of constellation size and interceptor cost and weight for the total costs and feasibility of a space-based boost-phase interceptor (SBI) system. The paper argues, in general, that a “concentrated” system, that is, one that is tailored to defend against missiles launched from a small geographic area, can be substantially cheaper than is currently believed. North Korea might be considered “small.” The paper states that reductions in expected cost come about from a combination of lower estimates of SBIs mass, lower estimates of individual satellite cost, and a constellation that requires fewer interceptors because it covers only a restricted range of latitudes. We believe that mass and cost estimates are wrong and the simple model of satellite coverage exaggerates the effect of concentration. All the errors together lead to an extreme underestimation of the cost. The paper’s SBI masses are based on unproven and very optimistic estimates of kill vehicle masses; its per satellite costs are based on unrealistic learning curve performance; and a more accurate model of satellite orbits shows that the benefits of concentration are somewhat smaller than the paper’s simple model suggests.Item Why Were Scud Casualties So Low?(Nature Publishing Group, 1993-01-28) Fetter, Steve; Lewis, George N.; Gronlund, LisbethPatriot missiles were returned to the Gulf last week. But they were not the reason for the unexpectedly low casualty rate when Saddam attacked Israel with Scud missiles in 1991. Iraq fired more than 80 modified Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. These attacks caused 31 deaths, numerous injuries, and substantial property damage. With the exception of the Scud that hit a barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and killed 28 U.S. soldiers, however, the number of deaths and serious injuries caused by each Scud appear to be much lower than one would have expected based on the results of previous ballistic missile attacks. The relatively low casualty rate has been cited by several analysts as evidence of the success of the Patriot missile defense system. Others have argued that the same casualty data suggests that the Patriot may not have been very successful.Item Long-term Radioactive Waste from Fusion Reactors: Part II(Elsevier, 1990) Fetter, Steve; Cheng, E. T.; Mann, F. M.In Part I we calculated 10 CFR 61 "Class-C" specific activity limits for all long-lived radionuclides with atomic number less than 88 (Ra). These calculations were based on the whole-body dose. We also estimated the production of these radionuclides from all naturally occurring elements with atomic numbers less than 84 (Po) in the first wall of a typical fusion reactor, and thereby derived concentration limits for these elements in first-wall materials, if the first wall is to be suitable for Class-C disposal. In Part II we use the "effective dose equivalent" (EDE), which is a much better indication of the risk from radiation exposure than the whole-body dose, to calculate specific activity limits for all long-lived radionuclides up to Cm-248. In addition, we have estimated the production of long-lived actinides and fission products from possible thorium and uranium impurities in first-wall structures. This completes our study of long-lived radionuclides that are produced from all elements that occur in the earth's crust at average concentrations greater than one part per trillion.Item National Missile Defense and the Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy(Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2001) Fetter, Steve; Glaser, Charles L.If U.S. national missile defense (NMD) were only about countering ballistic missiles deployed by rogue states, then whether to deploy limited NMD would be a “normal” national security issue. The military-technical question would concern feasibility: Would the missile defense work against the small missile forces that a few states may eventually deploy? The military-political questions would concern the risks to the United States of being vulnerable to rogue-state missiles and the amount Washington should be willing to pay for insurance against these risks. What makes NMD special is its unavoidable connection to U.S. strategic nuclear policy and to the United States’ political relationships with Russia and China.