Naoto Kan Quotes

No nuclear weapon has detonated. Some nuclear weapons have exploded and spread radioactive plutonium…. The nuclear weapons of today are much safer than those of the 1980s. I worry about the way they are managed however.

Our nuclear scientists and engineers have done a splendid job, and naturally, the entire nation has risen to salute their professional excellence, discipline, and patriotism. They have had the benefit of having been led in the past by great men like Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai.

I wouldn't call myself anti-nuclear.

In the past, scientists could disclaim direct responsibility for the use to which mankind had put their disinterested discoveries. We cannot take the same attitude now because the success which we have achieved in the development of nuclear power is fraught with infinitely greater dangers than were all the inventions of the past.

You might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all (if they were not absolutely necessary).

Certainly science, because of its ability to increase our capacities to do things, raises terrible risks for us all. If it were possible to undiscover nuclear fission, I would be very happy to undiscover it, because of the risks that it puts us all under.

We have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ball game.

The whole nuclear thing is a terrible mess and it's hard for me to understand why it is that we, the United States, seem to be the only ones that are really particularly concerned about it and prepared to do something.

Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on clean renewable energy and one more dollar spent on making the world a comparatively dirtier and a more dangerous place, because nuclear power and nuclear weapons go hand in hand.

We have every interest in seeing that the military use of nuclear power will be contained.

In terms of weapons, the best disarmament tool so far is nuclear energy. We have been taking down the Russian warheads, turning it into electricity. 10 percent of American electricity comes from decommissioned warheads.

When it comes to nuclear technology, the Iranian people are very sensitive. It is a part of our national pride, and nuclear technology has become indigenous.

My entry into the environmental arena was through the issue that so dramatically - and destructively - demonstrates the link between science and social action: nuclear weapons.

It is of the greatest importance that people and governments in many more countries than ours should realize that it is more dangerous to have access to nuclear arms than not to possess them.

Hopefully, nations will refuse to accept a situation in which nuclear accidents actually do occur, and, if at all possible, they will do something to correct a system which makes them likely.

I think we ultimately ought to look to put all uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing, if any is done, under multinational control. Those are the two technologies by which nuclear energy can be translated into nuclear weapons programmes.

It is not productive to see things in simple black and white, and talk in either anti-nuclear or pro-nuclear terms.

By developing atomic energy for peaceful purposes, you reach the nuclear option. There are no two atomic energies.

I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it, if it creates radiation.

… literature is the only consciousness we possess and that its role as consciousness must inform us of our ability to comprehend the hideous danger of nuclear power.

I have no hope that a nuclear disaster can be avoided.

I had no political background. That's why PM Bhutto gave me the responsibility of the nuclear programme, and we acquired nuclear capability in a span of mere six years, which was a great milestone.

America was good enough to make a small compact lighter weight nuclear weapon. The Russians still had these big clunky heavy ones, so they had to build the big boosters in the arm's war, so now all of the sudden Russia could take off the shelf and put into orbit much heavier things than we could, so that's why they had the original leadership.

I say the word N-U-C-L-E-R the same way that George W. Bush says it.

We still live in a world where if you have nuclear weapons, you are buying power; you are buying insurance against attack.