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abc news on nukes-terror targets; containments magically grow
NRC says they are ready, can't say how.
Radsafers, with friends like the NRC, you don't need UNPLUG Salem. ;-)
norm
"Scott D. Portzline" wrote:
> Over the last two months, reactor containment buildings are magically
> getting thicker. Sizes ranged from 2-3 feet before the attacks on September
> 11. Shortly afterward they grew to 4 feet. Two weeks later some containments
> were 5 feet thick. Then on "60 Minutes a week ago they were up to 6 feet
> thick." Now I am pleased to know that some are more than 10 feet thick
> according to the engineer in the story below.
>
> The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency was on a television call-in
> program last week. A woman asked "what are the dangers of nuclear power
> plants?"
> He answered, "Nothing more than a well run factory." That was it - no
> explanation of potential radioactive release or need to evacuate. And we pay
> him big bucks to help Pa's citizens be prepared.
>
> Scott Portzline
>
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20011022/ts/strike_nukesafety011022_1.html
>
> Monday October 22 08:26 AM EDT
> Are Nuclear Plants Safe From Attack?
> By Amanda Onion ABCNEWS.com
> Protecting the nation's nuclear facilities.
>
> .
> In light of the Sept. 11 attacks and the recent string of anthrax exposures,
> scientists and authorities have been forced to plan for another kind of
> unthinkable attack - on nuclear power plants.
>
> If the improbable happened and terrorists managed to attack and penetrate a
> nuclear reactor core at a power plant, it could trigger an explosive
> meltdown that could spread radiation for hundreds of miles and trigger
> lethal health problems, if not immediate death among large populations. An
> undercover intruder could wreak similar havoc by sabotaging a plant from the
> inside.
>
> Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and others emphasize
> that such events are highly unlikely and claim that facilities are protected
> against attacks.
>
> But it's clear the idea has been considered, if not by terrorists, then at
> least by terrorist impersonators. Last week, two airports near the Three
> Mile Island nuclear facility near Harrisburg, Pa. were closed after
> authorities said they had received a "credible" threat against the plant. By
> Thursday morning, the threat was dismissed and airports were reopened.
>
> The false alert was a reminder of the vigilant defense needed at nuclear
> power plants. Some point to the 1986 accidental Chernobyl meltdown in
> Ukraine, which killed as many as 2,500 people, as an example of possible
> damages wrought by a nuclear power plant meltdown.
>
> Daniel Hirsch, president of the Los Angeles-based nuclear watchdog group,
> the Committee to Bridge the Gap, recently told reporters gathered at the
> National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that nuclear reactors are "among the
> most high-value targets that we have in the United States."
>
> NRC: We Are Ready
>
> The NRC is vague but confident when asked if the 103 nuclear plants across
> the United States are braced against attack.
>
> "Yes, we are ready. We can't say how, but we are ready," said NRC spokesman
> Victor Dricks.
>
> One line of defense is the structures that enclose nuclear reactors.
> Although they vary slightly in design, NRC guidelines stipulate that
> containment buildings be designed to withstand the impact of a bomb or small
> plane. That durability was proven in a 1989 test when Sandia National Labs
> in New Mexico sent a rocket-propelled F-4 fighter jet into a containment
> wall at 480 miles per hour. The jet disintegrated while the wall sustained
> only 2.4 inches of penetration.
>
> "Typically these are concrete structures that are reinforced with steel that
> can be 10 feet thick or more," said Al Ghorbanpoor, a civil engineer at the
> University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee who has provided consulting in design
> for nuclear power plants. "They have been designed to sustain a large bomb
> impact, and the impact of a small plane, but if you're talking about a 747,
> I'm not sure."
>
> No similar tests have been done using large passenger airplanes like the
> ones that hijackers flew into the World Trade Center Sept. 11. But Dricks
> claims even a large plane could not penetrate to the reactor core of these
> facilities. Still, Hirsch and others have called for extra caution and for
> positioning antiaircraft weaponry around nuclear power plants to fend off
> aerial suicide attacks.
>
> France's defense minister recently announced that such measures have been
> taken to protect that nation's main nuclear waste processing plant. The NRC
> has not responded, at least publicly, to such requests.
>
> Nuclear Waste: Small Targets?
>
> Although a strike against a nuclear reactor core would wreak the greatest
> damage, there are other elements at nuclear power plants that could also be
> vulnerable.
>
> Nuclear reactors in the United States have generated an estimated 45,000
> tons of waste, which emit high levels of dangerous radioactive particles.
> The waste is being stored in temporary tanks or concrete and steel bunkers
> on site at nuclear power plants as debate over where and how to store it
> permanently continues. Some fear these storage facilities could also be
> targeted.
>
> Dricks says all pools containing nuclear waste are enclosed in "robust"
> structures and that the steel bunkers are also secure - to a degree. Their
> best defense, he says, is their size.
>
> "They're not required to withstand the impact of a large airplane," Dricks
> said. "But striking one would be extremely difficult because they're small."
>
> Kim Kearfott, a professor of radiation safety at the University of Michigan,
> spent last year working at Detroit Edison's Fermi II Nuclear Plant and other
> plants in Michigan and is confident materials from these plants are safe
> from attack.
>
> "These places are tightly protected," she said. "In fact, I feel safer at
> the plant than I do here in my office."
>
> Attack From Within
>
> Even if nuclear facilities are bolstered against terrorist raids and
> attacks, there remains the prospect of undercover intruders gaining access
> to vital controls at a nuclear power plant.
>
> To prepare for such incidents, the NRC conducts regular drills and sends in
> would-be terrorists to see if they could take over or disable a plant. The
> drills are taped and then reviewed for possible flaws. Reports have
> indicated that since 1991, about half of the drills have revealed potential
> vulnerabilities. According to Hirsch, these drills did not incorporate the
> possibility that there could be large groups of possibly suicidal
> terrorists.
>
> But Dricks says that since identifying potential weaknesses, the NRC has
> rapidly increased security. And since the attacks, he says, "some scenarios
> or threats that had not deemed credible or likely have been reconsidered."
>
> In addition to increased patrol of the sites, security background checks
> have been re-run for all employees at nuclear power plants - even ones who
> have worked there for years.
--
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Coalition for Peace and Justice is a chapter of Peace Action.
"First they ignore you; Then they laugh at you; Then they fight you; Then you
win. (Gandhi) "Why walk when you can fly?" (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
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