Re: Decision time!

[BERNARD L COHEN <blc+@PITT.EDU>]

	Please recommend some concrete action individuals can take.



Bernard L. Cohen

Physics Dept.

University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Tel: (412)624-9245

Fax: (412)624-9163

e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu





On Sat, 27 Oct 2001, Ted Rockwell wrote:



> A challenge to Eagle, NEI, ANS, HPS and individuals and organizations

> committed to the future of nuclear power:

>

> Responding to pressure from anti-nuclear groups, DOE has agreed to suspend a

> shipment of spent fuel.  NIRS responded by gleefully pointing out that DOE

> has now conceded that spent fuel shipments pose an unacceptable threat to

> public safety (recently posted by Norm).  Nuclear advocates must immediately

> take issue publicly with this position or give up their right and ability to

> utilize Yucca Mountain.  A simple engineering analysis will show that there

> is no credible way that a shipping cask of spent fuel can be made to create

> a serious public hazard.  That analysis should be made quickly (in a few

> days) and released with major publicity.

>

> The nuclear community has consistently refused to challenge extreme

> statements about the safety of spent fuel shipments, arguing that they don't

> want to be accused of not taking safety seriously.  But by silently

> assenting to statements that these shipments are inherently hazardous, they

> give up the ability to credibly defend Yucca Mountain shipments.  One can't

> have it both ways.

>

> Historically, the response to such challenges has been to add more guards,

> more barriers, more background checks, more circuitous routing.  This just

> reinforces the premise that the casks are inherently hazardous.  The simple

> engineering fact is that it is impossible to create a significant public

> hazard with a spent fuel shipping cask no matter what you do to it.

>

> By being unwilling over the years to clearly make such a statement, the

> industry has lost its ability to reverse this situation with words. Yet

> there is a simple, cheap action that could be taken immediately that would

> dramatically change the whole game, world-wide.  Someone must have the

> gumption to follow up the analysis with a public demonstration.

>

> We must take a typical spent fuel shipping cask and detonate a "typical"

> terrorist bomb against it, with cameras and radiation detectors monitoring

> the event.  This would presumably fail to damage the cask appreciably and

> release no radioactivity.  Then enough explosive to break open the cask (a

> BIG bomb!) should be set off.  After that, survey meters and air samplers

> should be able to demonstrate that anyone far enough away to avoid injury by

> the bomb would not suffer significant radiation injury.  This of course is

> based not on 4 mrem/yr but on the NRC's conservative emergency one-shot

> exposure of 25 rem.  Afterwards, viewers would be asked to imagine the

> consequences of applying such a bomb to a natural gas pipeline or storage

> facility, or to the chlorine tanks at a local water-works, or even to a

> corner filling station with its gasoline pumps directly connected to

> underground tanks.  Nuclear spent fuel casks are not an effective terrorist

> target.

>

> This could be done at Idaho.  But it can't be turned over to the people who

> take 30 years and $15 billion to dig a hole in the ground.  Somebody has to

> have the guts to just do it, without frills or complications.  Just a simple

> demonstration, like the F-4 Phantom crashing into a wall.  Then don't hide

> the results as was done with the F-4, with statements like "we never

> considered the possibility of terrorism" and "the plants were not designed

> for this situation."  Just show, in terms everyone can understand, that

> these shipments cannot cause a public hazard.

>

>    The "mobile Chernobyl" crowd will be shown up for what they are.   After

> that, maybe someone would be sufficiently emboldened to make a realistic

> analysis of an attack on a reactor.

>

> 	If you don't believe the test would demonstrate that the casks are

> inherently harmless, then you probably will never be able to make shipments

> to Yucca Mountain.  And since you have insisted on putting Yucca Mtn on your

> critical path, you will have condemned humanity to a world of windmills and

> candles.

>

> Ted Rockwell

>

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