RE: Reactor Containments and Terrorist Attacks

["Ted Rockwell" <tedrock@CPCUG.ORG>]

> What is more propaganda, what causes more

confusion of stock exchanges, industry, people



Franz:



In a rational world, an attack on either a spent fuel pool or a reactor

containment would be reported on an inner page of the papers, stating that

some damage was done to the facility, but there was no public hazard.



However, in the world we live in, people in the nuclear community have

generally supported the idea that radioactivity is a uniquely hazardous

activity, noting that you can't see, hear, taste, smell or feel radiation

(and neglecting to point out that radiation is uniquely easy to detect

compared with chemical or biological hazards).  So we fuel the panic and the

news media love it.  This could in fact aid the terrorists by creating some

terrible headlines.



The Lochbaums and Leventhals and Makhajanis spread the word, but the word

they spread are based on the "safety scenarios" we have already created.



It's worth noting that a potential hazard has two separable aspects:

vulnerability and consequences.  If the consequences are not very severe (as

in a nuclear facility) then the vulnerability (how easy is it for a saboteur

to get in) becomes much less critical.  When people ask about vulnerability

of nuclear facilities, we should stress than we've done a pretty good job

there, but the key fact is that a terrorist couldn't produce much of a

hazard even if he had full run of the place.



That attitude toward nuclear safety is completely opposite toward our

attitude to date.  We have always assumed that if the dragon ever got out,

he would devour the whole earth, but do not fear! we have him locked up in a

very strong cage.  By emphasizing containment, we create the impression that

TMI was a Chernobyl accident in a bottle.  If the bottle would break,

thousands would die.  In fact, if containment was quite leaky, it is easy to

show that there still would have been little public hazard (assuming you

don't equate public hazard with 4 mrem).  And we should also keep repeating

until people tire of it, that Chernobyl killed 30 people, not 30,000 (see

UNSCEAR 2000).



Ted Rockwell













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