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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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