[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
robert alvarez on nukes and terrorists
magnu96196@aol.com wrote:
> http://augustachronicle.com/stories/110101/opi_240-5866.shtml
>
> Alvarez: A nuclear disaster waiting to happen
>
> November 1, 2001
>
> By Robert Alvarez
> Guest Columnist
>
> AS THE horror of Sept. 11 unfolded, the nation's 103 commercial nuclear
> reactors, and dozens of federal nuclear weapons facilities were put on high
> security alert. The U.S. government has long considered them potential
> terrorist targets, implementing programs to protect nuclear facilities
> against these threats. But is enough being done?
> Ten days after large commercial jets slammed into the World Trade Center and
> the Pentagon, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conceded that "nuclear power
> plants were not designed to withstand such crashes." As a result, the NRC
> concedes that a similar attack on one of the nation's reactor stations could
> cause thousands of fatalities, and render large areas uninhabitable.
>
> The public should be aware that some the largest concentrations of
> radioactivity in the world are contained in this country's storage pools for
> spent reactor fuel rods. There are 40,000 tons of spent reactor fuel stored
> in pools of water at almost all U.S. commercial reactor sites, collectively
> representing the single largest concentration of radioactivity on the planet.
> Many pools store more spent fuel than the original designs intended.
> Moreover, the pools were designed to serve only as interim storage, under the
> assumption the waste eventually would be disposed of elsewhere. Some pools
> are contained in corrugated facilities or with metal roofs. These buildings
> are not capable of withstanding a small plane crash, let alone a hijacked
> airliner.
>
> THE NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission has officially conceded that a catastrophic
> fire at the nuclear waste storage facility in Orange County, N.C. - similar
> to the one at the Chernobyl reactor in 1986 - could result in the release of
> 100 percent of its radioactive contents into the air.
>
> The radioactive strength of the spent fuel would be about eight times greater
> than in a reactor core. In such a disaster, the geographic area that would
> have to be evacuated would be the size of the entire state of North Carolina.
> Before Sept. 11, federal nuclear regulators dismissed the likelihood of such
> a scenario, arguing it was impossible to predict acts of malice.
> Unfortunately, this scenario is no longer an abstraction, but storage
> facilities have not been improved.
>
> Another danger is the lack of adequate and safe storage for nuclear weapons
> production materials. Tons of nuclear materials, such as plutonium and highly
> enriched uranium, are either sitting outside, exposed to the elements, or in
> aged and deteriorating Department of Energy facilities. Like those at nuclear
> power plants, these facilities were never constructed to withstand large jet
> crashes and in some cases, even the crash of a small plane.
>
> The refusal by responsible programs to assume financial responsibility for
> the safe storage and disposition of dangerous nuclear materials like highly
> enriched Uranium-233 continues to create delays. In particular, the Energy
> Department still has not decided whether the materials should be kept for
> future use or disposed as waste.
>
> BEFORE SEPT. 11, both the Energy Department and commercial reactor owners had
> been slow to deal with this problem because of the expense. Since then,
> however, some experts are now contending the chances of terrorist attacks
> against nuclear installations are small.
>
> This is wishful thinking. A rapid effort to safely store the nation's huge
> inventories of potentially vulnerable commercial reactor spent fuel and
> nuclear weapons materials should become a top security and public safety
> priority. If the events of Sept. 11 and since have taught us anything, it is
> that the war against terrorism will be an unpredictable struggle. The costs
> of fixing America's nuclear vulnerabilities may be high, but the price of
> doing too little may prove far greater.
>
> (Editor's note: The writer, a former senior adviser at the Energy Department,
> is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.,
> Global Beat Syndicate
>
Coalition for Peace and Justice and the UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave.,
Linwood, NJ 08221; 609-601-8537 or 609-601-8583 (8583: fax, answer machine);
ncohen12@home.com UNPLUG SALEM WEBSITE: http://www.unplugsalem.org/ COALITION
FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE WEBSITE: http:/www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org The
Coalition for Peace and Justice is a chapter of Peace Action.
"First they ignore you; Then they laugh at you; Then they fight you; Then you
win. (Gandhi) "Why walk when you can fly?" (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,
send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the text "unsubscribe
radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.