One of the main reasons the Arab world is able to exert so much continuous pressure on Israel and why the rest of the world listen to them is their sources of oil and natural gas. Oil and natural gas are international power. Not only that, Israel, like the rest of the world will suffer markedly from Global Warming created by burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Therefore, you may be interested in a study I just sent to a government agency in the US looking for public comments on energy.
Matania

US should markedly expand nuclear power to reduce global warming.

We have to plan our electrical power needs realistically and devoid of emotionalism. We oppose nuclear power mostly because of our misplaced fear. Public misperception is the biggest hindrance to nuclear power and impacts also many energy professionals. Environmental groups contribute to the problem.

As an electrical engineer for 20 years I supported nuclear power. But I started to oppose it during my doctoral studies of Environmental Science at UCLA. Afterwards, when I was the manager of the Solar and Wind Energy programs at the California Energy Commission I opposed nuclear power and worked very hard to advanced alternative energies. I continued to oppose nuclear power because of all the concerns surrounding it. I was mistaken; I did not see the total story.

It took me a long struggle to realize that I was mistaken to oppose nuclear power. I saw only its potential negatives, did not study the full global energy picture, and I was overoptimistic about the adoption of energy efficiency and alternative energies. And most important, I mistakenly believed that Global Warming was a future event that would not impact global climate for several generations. Like many environmentalists I thought we had time to do things according to our dreams without pain: develop alternative energies, incorporate conservation and energy efficiency, take time to minimize our fossil fuels use, eliminate nuclear power, and I did not anticipate the explosion of energy demand in the developing world. I, like many, read about these problems but did not want to accept our global reality.

GW is the overwhelming primary issue of our time, and it is time critical. It is now very clear that GW is already here, is causing unstable weather globally with much damage, and will increase its ravage of many areas of our globe. The recent final report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was quite specific about the coming increased damage to our global climate and the pending severe impacts on most nations, including the US. Our sad experience with just one storm, the destruction of New Orleans by Katrina showed us the power of nature to cause untold damage in life and property. We must look at the global energy picture to grasp the increased need for nuclear power, despite its limitations.

The most significant advantage of nuclear power is the potential to reduce carbon emissions: “A threefold expansion of [global] nuclear power could contribute significantly to staving off climate change by avoiding one billion to two billion tons of carbon emissions annually” (MIT panel). No other technology that I can see has the potential to reduce GW gases so significantly in the same time frame. We do not have the time to wait in order to avoid some of the most damaging aspects of advancing GW!
In recent years about 70% of US electricity was generated by CO2- emitting fossil fuels, 20% by nuclear power.

The most serious limitation to nuclear power expansion is negative public perception. The public fear of nuclear power is misplaced. Safety record of the 104 nuclear power stations in the US is very high. In addition, improved design of nuclear power stations and strict government supervision can reduce markedly all limitations:
The main limitations and mitigations are listed below:

Danger of nuclear radiation from plant accident:
The only significant nuclear accidents have been the Three Miles Island in the US, which did not emit any nuclear material, and the Chernobyl in the previous USSR. The damage from Chernobyl was on a large scale, it was due mainly to lack of a containment building above the nuclear plant which is mandatory on all nuclear power stations in the West.
New fail-safe system to power down runaway reactor is now superior not requiring external machinery.
Also control technology has advanced markedly in the last thirty years with the advance in electronics, and will increase the safety margin of new plants. In addition new nuclear plants can be placed far from population centers and use high voltage DC lines to transfer the power with low losses.

Inadequate nuclear waste disposal:
Although we still do not have a final solution to nuclear waste storage, all the commercial nuclear waste is stored safely at each nuclear station site. It occupies extremely small space and operated safely for the last fifty years. In addition, a new technology was developed that extract many times the energy from the nuclear material thus reducing the waste by a major factor.

Nuclear weapon proliferation:
Nuclear weapon proliferation is not effected by increased use of nuclear power in the US. Three quarter of the nuclear plants are operating outside of the US. Nations develop nuclear power if we want it or not.

Impact of terrorism:
New underground design reduces the potential for terrorist attack on nuclear installation. Heavier steel reinforced concrete over all critical plant equipment will increase safety. We should use National Guard to protect our national energy centers to decrease national vulnerability.

There are 440 nuclear power stations globally, 104 in the US. Nuclear power now supplies 16% of global electric energy. Global nuclear power expansion is a fact and is beyond U.S. control; eighteen of the 27 nuclear power plants now under construction are in Asia. The US can not dictate how much nuclear power will spread around the world, but if we cooperate with global nuclear power development, and help create global safety standards, we will increase the global safety and most importantly, help reduce GW progress.

Conclusion:
Nuclear power should replace much of the coal and natural gas power plants in the US in the coming years because:
It will reduce significantly generation of GW gases.
It will reduce our dependence on foreign natural gas. Additional natural gas must be imported.
Reduce our bloated balance of payment, a major part of which is for foreign fuel.
Retain more of our energy cost in the US, thus helping our economy

Matania Ginosar
Dr. of Environmental Science and Engineering
November 27, 2007

Last week I wrote my assessment of the Iranian effort to produce nuclear weapons and my proposition that we probably have no choice and would have to preempt Iran with a destruction of its nuclear facilities and its key military installation. I do not recommend invasion or use of ground troops.
Now, please read below a summary of what a previous head of the Israeli secret service, the Mossad, is saying on gathering intelligence and how to approach the enemy and see how it reflects on my recommendation.
Matania

Jerusalem Issue Brief
Institute for Contemporary Affairs
Vol. 7, No. 20 5 November 2007

The Challenge of Intelligence Assessment
Regarding International Terrorist Organizations

Shabtai Shavit
Head of Mossad 1989- 96

• In the past, intelligence assessments dealt with sovereign countries. Today, in the era of global terrorism, we are dealing with Muslim fundamental terrorist organizations, entities without territories or sovereignty, entities without any hierarchy, with no uniforms, reporting systems, recruiting centers, or training camps.

• Furthermore, in the past, conventional wars were relatively short events that occurred as an interval between periods of peace or coexistence or cold war. Today, the Western world, Israel included, lives in a state of constant war. The threat is permanent, while it changes faces, locations, strategies, methodologies, and capabilities - and you have to assess it while fighting them.

• Signal intelligence and imagery offer excellent intelligence, but you cannot ask any questions and get any answers. Thus, through human intelligence you are better able to understand your enemy and the threat he poses far better than through any other means of intelligence gathering. But penetrating these groups is very hard. We are dealing with families, blood connections, and a religious culture that is impossible for a foreigner to penetrate.

• If Iran acquires a nuclear capability, is it going to activate it or not? Will a nuclear Iran be pragmatic or messianic? For the intelligence officer this question is academic. Any intelligence officer would recommend that the state should prepare for the worst-case scenario and not for any lesser eventuality.

• Should fighting terrorism be based on reaction or on pre-emption. Since there is an ongoing war, since the threat is permanent, since the intention of the enemy in this case is to annihilate you, the right doctrine is one of pre-emption and not of reaction. When we are dealing with an enemy which plans all the time and waits only for the opportunity in order to attack, what is the point even morally to wait and only do something when he comes to attack?

Shabtai Shavit held a variety of senior positions within the Mossad for over 32 years, including head of the agency between 1989 and 1996. Since 2001 he has been the Chairman of the Board of the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, advisor to Israel's National Security Council, and advisor to the Subcommittee on Intelligence of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. This Jerusalem Issue Brief is based on his presentation to the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem on September 6, 2007.

I started writing this email more than a month ago and have great difficulty sending it out because I hate violence and war, but I have to express these views since I have also special awareness of the horrendous impacts of nuclear weapons. During my work for the US military I took special courses to understand the impact of nuclear weapons on the equipment I designed for our military forces. I also gave many lectures across the country about nuclear weapons during the Regan and Bush 1 Administrations while I was working against the escalation of nuclear weapons. Which leads me to the following conclusions: almost anything is better than a nuclear war.

Two years ago I wrote you that Iran is the most dangerous nation we are facing because of their nuclear weapons program, and support of terrorism, also that the only non military way we can stop them is massive, coordinated international economic and political pressure.

Two years passed by and nothing was done of any use to pressure Iran. The US could not get international support to create effective pressure. Iran escalated its development of nuclear weapons with all the might it has. Recently the US started a unilateral economic pressure on Iran’s Elite military force, but that is meaningless.
It is useless because Iran has vast financial reserves from the steep rise in oil prices, now $90 a barrel. And Iran does not care about the suffering of its population.

Iran’s leadership and their vast base of support are not the type to be intimidated, it is just the opposite, it emboldens them. They are simply evil people; we must not ignore this!
Could you negotiated with Hitler to change his plan for world domination? Most Germans supported him too. It was not just a one man operation, nor just the leadership, or the German military. Similarly in Iran.

In addition China, who opposes effective sanctions, wants a reliable source of oil and Iran is one of their main long term suppliers. China also can counter our economic pressure by supplying many of Iran’s needs that we are trying to curtail. China is floating with billions of reserve capital. China can not be ignoring the facts that nuclear Iran can disturb the total flow of oil in the Middle East (the largest oil reserve in the world, some 40 %.) China’s leadership is quite savvy and we do not know much of their plans.

Russia also does not want to pressure Iran, why should they, it is to their benefit to have unstable oil supplies in the Middle East. Surely they do not want a nuclear Iran near them, but Russia is a major oil exporter and if oil supplies would be disturbed Russia could benefit from it in a major way.

All of these forces and more tell us that massive coordinated pressure by the global community can not be accomplished.

This week editorial in the Sacramento Bee on Iran has some logical points, it said that it is clear that Iran is speeding up its nuclear program and unilateral pressure will not help. The Bee editorial Board is against a military strike because Iran’s fiery president, Ahmadinejad is not in power alone, and the religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds the power. The Bee is mistaken, ignoring reality.
Does it make any difference who is the extreme leader momentarily? Do we want to be pacified that one firebrand or another is the one we will be facing?
I do not believe so.

The total Iranian leadership and the fanatic religion they embrace form an unstable configuration. Add to it nuclear weapons and it is an extremely explosive mixture. What Iran is doing now is insignificant to the evil they could do later even without even using their nuclear weapons. It would be enough to intimidate most other nations. Thirteen Middle East states have now stated that they want their own nuclear ”power” programs. These programs often lead to nuclear weapon capabilities.

Here are known facts: Iran is supporting Syria who is demolishing the promising independence of Lebanon by executing opposing leaders one after another.
Iran financed and supplied Hezbollah with massive amount of rockets, which resulted in the second Lebanon war last year, and have done it again. Iran is supplying (supporting is too weak a word) Hamas with funds and weapons. Iran is escalating the killing of our soldiers in Iran and Afghanistan by training, funding, and supplying roadside bombs that are the major killers in that region.

Iran is populated by Shiite Muslim many of which are fanatics. I saw on TV Iranian fanaticism, the running of hundreds of thousands of self mutilation Iranians, blood flowing from their faces and bodies.
The dream of a moderate Iran is just a dream. Most Iran middle class left the country. Their so called moderate past president is not a moderate at all and fully behind the nuclear program.

The Bee, like other people who oppose the last option, a surgical strike on all Iran’s nuclear installations, are reasonable people who hate wars. I hate war with a passion. However, the situation in many ways is similar to the pre WWII days of Hitler and his supporters. Germany, Italy and Japan already demonstrated their military machines in action in Spain, Eretria, and China before WWII. The civil war in Spain fully supported by Germany, caused 600,000 civilians and
600,000 military deaths, but that was not a proof enough to England and France of the immense danger of Germany.
Italy gassed massive amount of innocents in Africa, but that was too far for England and France to notice. Japan murdered a million soldiers and a million civilians in its war with China, but that also was too far and too insignificant for England and France to intervene. It was easier to dream of a peaceful solution.

Just think how many of the forty million deaths of WWII could have been saved, how many cities, villages, innocent communities, the murder of six million Jews, could have been averted by a decisive action by England and France before the start of WWII.

War is a hell, too many people suffer immensely. Should we wait until Iran has the nuclear weapons it is urgently developing? Iran has declared many times its design for a Shiite type of a Muslim world. They want to expand their national religious fanaticism. Can we live with this kind of an entity?

As much as I hate war, I see no alternative now to a massive attack both on Iran nuclear installation and their military machine. NO INVASION, NO GROUND FORCES, AND MINIMIZING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES.
It surely will cause innocent casualties, especially since Iran will escalate all its effort against us, against Israel and any of its real and perceived enemies in any area it could. But the alternative is considerably worse:
A nuclear Iran will be holding hostage to its holy religious design the most important energy source the world can not live without for the foreseeable future- oil.
The example of such an attack againt Iran's nuclear weapon instalations could reduce the desire of additional powers to start their own nuclear weapon programs.

Because I am deeply against human suffering I believe this surgery is necessary, despite the danger. The alternative is so much worse. The suffering would be so much larger.

Matania
Nov. 07

To grasp the fanaticism of the Iranian leadership and desire for a global upheaval read MEMRI analysis:
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA35707