US Nuclear expert exported Downunder

["Carolan, Martin" <CarolanM@iahs.nsw.gov.au>]

Dear all,

U.S. Members of the list may be interested to hear from one of their fellow
"experts" who has recently showed up Downunder. Is the claimed career
background accurate? (And for that matter what about the "expertise"?) The
article below was in yesterdays Sydney Morning Herald (smh.com.au). 

The Australian Senate is holding an inquiry into the construction of a 20 MW
research (& isotope production) reactor at Lucas Heights on the outskirts of
Sydney. There is an existing but old 10 MW reactor already at that site. 

NB. This email does not reflect anyones views but my own and should not be
attributed to the IAHS or anyone else (despite the convoluted footer that
our email server will add below over which I have no control).

Martin Carolan
Physicist
Department of Nuclear Medicine
Wollongong Hospital
Australia

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Reactor cancer risk 'downplayed' 
Date: 31/10/2000


By ANDREW CLENNELL in Canberra 

The worst possible accident at the new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights
could give tens of thousands of people cancer - a worst case scenario not
taken into account by the environmental impact statement on the project, a
United States nuclear expert has told a Senate inquiry.

Mr Daniel Hirsch, a former member of a US nuclear regulatory commission
advisory panel and a former director of the nuclear policy program at the
University of California, says the EIS claimed the most "credible serious
accident" would release one millionth of the radioactivity of the core of
the reactor, when most major accidents released several per cent.

Mr Hirsch said the EIS was seriously at fault and he had received dismissive
treatment from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
(ANSTO) when pointing this out.

"I was frankly quite astonished when I read it first of all - the review was
performed before there was even a design for the reactor," Mr Hirsch said
yesterday.

He said the EIS had considered as "not credible" a situation in which
coolant (or water) would be lost in which fuel rods were contained.

But this scenario - possible through an earthquake or incompetence by a
worker - had led to at least "half a dozen" reactor accidents around the
world, he said.

Mr Hirsch was invited to Australia by Sutherland Shire Council to give
evidence yesterday.

He had given a submission along the lines of his claims in 1998 but said
yesterday it had been treated with disdain by ANSTO, which is in charge of
the project.

"They simply said 'these accidents can't happen - we promise we will design
this reactor so it will not'," he said.

He called for what was commonplace in the United States - that there be an
open judicial inquiry into the reactor before it went ahead.

The chief executive of the Australian Radiation and Nuclear Protection
Safety Agency, Mr John Loy, said yesterday his organisation had noted Mr
Hirsch's position but that it might be that he was looking at a scenario so
unlikely as to not be worth taking into account.

But Mr Loy said in the licensing process ANSTO would have to "strongly
demonstrate" there was no possibility of the coolant leaking.

ANSTO said in a statement the issues had already been examined and 

"Mr Hirsch is raking over issues dealt with two years ago". It said that in
the "improbable event of an accident, community impacts would be
negligible".

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