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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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