Nuclear Non-Proliferation and the Present State of the International Nuclear Industry

Abstract

During much of the post-war period, those concerned with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons had to cope with an expanding nuclear industrial system. Investment in civil nuclear technology was continually increasing, as was the number of countries with nuclear programmes. For a time in the 1970s the whole enterprise seemed in danger of running out of control. Forecasts of dramatic growth in nuclear electricity production evoked fears that the world would soon be awash with bomb-making materials.

W. B. Walker is a Senior Fellow in the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex. This chapter draws on W. Walker and M. Lönnroth, Nuclear Power Struggles: Industrial Competition and Proliferation Control (Allen & Unwin, London, 1983).