Re: Decision time!

[Gary Isenhower <garyi@BCM.TMC.EDU>]

Thanks for the excellent info.  This makes it clear that terrorists

could get zero profit from attacking either nuclear plants or shipments,

because they just can't wait around for 20 years for a few people to die

of cancer - which at this point seems like a pretty uncertain ending. 

They have to have bodies, or at least hostages (imminent threat of

bodies) in order to make terrorism work.



They do however, get some bang by doing nothing, since the US public is

so vulnerable to irrational fears (sharks, etc.) and the responsible

agencies have failed to allay those fears.  In a sense, we are helping

the terrorists. :( 



    _______________________________________________



	Gary Isenhower

	713-798-8353

	garyi@bcm.tmc.edu





RuthWeiner@AOL.COM wrote:

> 

> Actually, the experiment Ted mentions has been done (Luna, Neuhauser

> and Vigil,  Projected Source Terms for Potential Sabotage Events

> Related to Spent Fuel Shipments.  SAND99-0963.1999, Sandia National

> Labs.   I am sure that if you contact  the Sandia PIO, you can get an

> unclassified copy.

> 

> Essentially, a high explosive would blow a couple of holes in a

> shipping cask.  The resulting release of radioactive material is

> analyzed in the Yucca Mountain DEIS, DEO/EIS-0250D, section 6.2.4.2.3.

>  Briefly:m  if the sabotage occurred to a truck cask of SNF in an

> urabn area (about 3000 persons per sq. km) the collective dose would

> be about 31,000 person rem, or an excess cancer incidence  (using the

> LNT) of about 16 latent cancer fatalities.  A maximally exposed

> individual 150 meters from "ground zero" could receive a dose of 67

> rem  -- a cancer risk of about 3.5 %.  These are not trivial doses,

> but they are also not acute doses.

> 

> The corollary problem is that a SNF cask is really not a very good

> target.  The Luna, et al, study ensured that the cask would be hit, in

> order to see what damage might be done to the cask.  That's quite a

> different scenario from a sniper hiding along the route and firing a

>  missile at a moving cask (even one moving at 25 mph.  My (uneducated)

> guess is that in an urban area, the terrorist could do a lot more

> damage just firing his or her missile into pedestrians on the street.

>  In a rural area, the truck is going much faster, there are no people

> around, and why waste a missile on an iffy target.

> 

> I quite agree with Ted that the Secretary's action was misguided.  I

> had though better of this administration.  Any stationary nuclear

> facility makes a better target than a single shipment.

> 

> A rail cask, by the way, potentially releases less than a truck cask.

>  The putative collective dosewould be 4900 person-rem, and the MEI

> dose, 11 rem.

> 

> Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

> ruthweiner@aol.com



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