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Re: Decision time!





There was a time when it was potlitically correct to call idiocy for what

it is. It is time to stand up and shout. Ship the material <Echo...Ship the

material.......Ship the material.........Ship the material............>!



My opinions only



DJWhitfill





                                                                                                                            

                    "Ted Rockwell"                                                                                          

                    <tedrock@CPCUG.ORG>           To:     "RadSafe" <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>                           

                    Sent by:                      cc:                                                                       

                    owner-radsafe@list.vand       Subject:     Decision time!                                               

                    erbilt.edu                                                                                              

                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                            

                    10/27/01 11:35 AM                                                                                       

                    Please respond to "Ted                                                                                  

                    Rockwell"                                                                                               

                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                            









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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