Fantastic news from our Russian friends, after all who wouldn’t want such a stable country and individual to be a nuclear power?!
Russia to build nuclear power station in Venezuela
I’m sure that our IPCC climatologist friends will agree that all countries and governments are created equal, and an enlightened individual such as Chavez deserves to control such power.
the Air Vent 
WHO IS MORE DANGEROUS?
a.) Chavez
b.) Al Gore
c.) Obama
Unfortunately, mere citizens of today probably don’t know the answer! Nor do I.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
China has nukes, North Korea supposedly has nukes, Pakistan has nukes…..These aren’t exactly friends or stable countries. We are talking about 65 year old technology, it can’t be stopped from reaching every undesirable recipient eventually.
Besides, Venezuela is a Democracy, right? Haha…
The danger (to us at least) isn’t from some small state or country however nasty and corrupt it might be. Any such nuclear attack would result in devastating repercussions and dictators tend to value their own skins. If larger countries, like China or Russia, attacked us that would be nuclear war and game over. The danger is from stateless fanatical groups getting hold of a nuclear weapon. They don’t have the ability to build one and would have to steal it or buy it.
A nuclear power plant in Iran or Venezuela is the least of our worries as it would be very difficult to extract plutonium from one while under NPT inspection. I doubt that Russia wants to see other countries develop/obtain nuclear weapons any more than we do.
The underlying problem is that America has become the worst aggressor and smaller countries like Iran really need the deterrent of a nuke to stop America from bombing or invading them. Consider Iraq for a recent example. Consider that we are now funding efforts to overthrow the governments in several countries we don’t like. The CIA got rid of the democratically elected Mosaddegh in Iran: we might have had a very different government there now without that action.
You only have to read the comments on some blogs to see the fanatics here often suggest vitrifying some country or other. Apparently it OK for Americans to say that but reason for invasion if others do.
Chavez will control nothing … the Russian engineers he’ll be forced to use to replace the fuel and do anything but daily routine work will control it.
ps. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
I’m not sure, but I think VZ alrady has a small research reactor of the sort the US was passing out in the 50’s and 60’s to their loyal friends.
And Emil’s comment sure doesn’t square with my two years there in Maracaibo. Lots of very well educated and motivated folks to get things done right.
We need to stop worrying about every little country having access to nuclear power and figure out how we’re going to deal with a world where everyone finally has access to it. Financially, it would be nice if we weren’t so politically against nuclear power and could get in the business of selling this to the rest of the world.
Adrian;
Your progressivist history lessons are showing. American “aggression” is the least of the problems of tyrannies like Iran.
@Tom Bakewell:
it’s not about competence, but about contracts and international law: if the Russians are going to build a nuclear power plant some place, they will be responsible with whatever gets out of it, and they will keep tabs on the spent fuel better than that organization from Vienna.
I will be very surprised if Chavez is still in power when the reactor is ready for operation. Public opinion appears to be swinging against him. The economy gets worse all the time; at some point (I hope soon) people there will have had enough.
Emil,
that is a nice statement of faith in the Russians who required large amounts of money from the US to help tighten their security to prevent losses of their OWN fissionables not too long ago.
Could you provide us with some hard facts supporting your warm and fuzzy feeling?
Adrian,
Ahmadinejad is a fundamentalist Shia who believes that causing a worldwide catastrophe will bring his Hidden Imam back sooner. He is President partly because the ruling Imam’s mostly believe the same. Handing a few nukes to the Jihadis to plant in Israel and the US would be one possible plan to cause this world wide catastrophe.
@Kuhnkat:
Iran is heavily self-preservationist. They know damn well that launching a nuke anywhere will lead to their imminent destruction. Pakistan, india, israel, they’re basically surrounded by nukes.
As for sneaking a nuclear weapon into israel or the us, I just don’t see it happening. They’re two incredibly secure countries.
I’m not worried about an Iran with or without nuclear weapons, and nothing indicates that they’re about to get any.
Jeff, I think it’s unhelpful and wrong to conflate nuclear power and nuclear proliferation. Over 30 countries worldwide have nuclear power, most of them do not have nuclear weapons and have no ambitions in that direction. Countries that do have nuclear weapons ambitions currently are run by governments considerably more extreme than Chavez. I think the faster we can give third world countries copious energy supplies, the sooner they will become like first world countries (politically as well as economically). There is nothing like widespread prosperity for reducing radicalism.
Jeff,
Your implicit argument that nuclear power shouldn’t be allowed everywhere means
– that it can’t be regarded as a one-size-fits-all solution for the climate/energy conundrum we find ourselves in.
– that you take the proliferation risk of nuclear power seriously.
Bart,
I’m not a fan of nuclear power, but it is the only working solution you can choose from to emit significantly less CO2. The good news is countries like Venezuela are so repressed they don’t emit much CO2!
Even the IPCC can ignore them, unless they have more on their agenda than they state.
Re: Amabo (Oct 15 18:55), Iran’s rulers have stated that they’d rather see Iran burn than miss the chance to pull down the West and bring the Mahdi. The populace doesn’t much agree, of course.
Brian H,
You wrote. “Iran’s rulers have stated that they’d rather see Iran burn than miss the chance to pull down the West and bring the Mahdi.”
Some reference showing which, if any, of Iran’s rulers ever said that would be helpful.
It might help if you would brush up on history from a number of sources. There are always religious nuts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the country they live in will act out their follies.
“Millions of Americans believe that the Bible predicts the future and that we are living in the last days. Their beliefs are rooted in dispensationalism, a particular way of understanding the Bible’s prophetic passages, especially those in Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. They make up about one-third of America’s 40 or 50 million evangelical Christians and believe that the nation of Israel will play a central role in the unfolding of end-times events.”
Ref http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/End-Times/On-The-Road-To-Armageddon.aspx
So there are millions of Americans who are trying to get all Jews into Israel and takeover (steal) the rest of Palestine, even though the prophesies they believe in also state the Jews would then be killed. Of course, Armageddon wouldn’t be pleasant for a lot of other people too. So why go on about the Mahdi?
Adrian;
Khameni, founder of the Islamic Republic, explicitly, and Rafsanjani more recently.
Nationalism is a sin in Islam, doncha know? It’s all for Allah über alles!
Typo above: Khomeini, not Khamanei.
Adrian,
The post is about Nukes in crazy dictatorships, not about religion. Please don’t take it there any more.
Jeff,
You wrote. “The post is about Nukes in crazy dictatorships, not about religion. Please don’t take it there any more.”
Well I’m glad you don’t think Iran’s government is crazy. Seems to me hard to separate crazy government from fanatical religious types. I’ll just leave it that Brian H’s quotes were incorrect.
Why are you not a fan of nuclear power? The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is totally fail safe, could burn up existing radwaste and produce power at not much more than 2c/kWh according to the latest estimate. And do this from plentiful thorium not uranium.
Further, cheap power would help less advanced countries to become wealthier and reduce the chance of fighting over oil and other resources. That LFTRs don’t produce CO2 is not that critical to me as I don’t believe AGW causes significant warming, but could help sell it to the greens who are against all nuclear power.
If nuclear power doesn’t become widespread in the near to mid term future we will have a lot more to worry about than Venezuela.
Re: Adrian Ashfield (Oct 17 23:18), No, not incorrect, Adrian. Just vociferously denied and covered up by the mullahs and the Left’s Appeasement Chorus. Sing out, now!
Yawn.
As for nuclear power, anyone actually wanting cheap peaceful fission power would make thorium reactors. Especially since thorium is plentiful just about everywhere.
@23:
Are you implying that no western nuclear nations want peaceful fission power? 🙂
I’m pretty sure a nation that wants cheap and reliable power would go for uranium reactors. They’re more abundant and therefore the expertise is easier to come by. (Which are the issues I would look for when it comes to building power-infrastructure.)
as for #22, yes, very persuasive. Yawn indeed.
What is the problem with building a nuclear reactor that can be used to provide electricity to the Venezuelan people? The last time I looked all nations were allowed to build reactors as long as they complied with various NPT restrictions. If the US, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, France, UK, Brazil, Pakistan, India, Israel, Iran, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Germany, etc., can have nuclear power plants what would justify preventing Venezuela from building one?
“Your progressivist history lessons are showing. American “aggression” is the least of the problems of tyrannies like Iran.”
How exactly do you think that the mullahs got control of Iran in the first place? The US overthrew Iran’s legitimate government and put into its place a tyrant who killed off any moderate dissent with America’s blessing. When he fell there were no moderates to take his place and the extremists filled the vacuum.