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Re: From NCI- News Hours Transcript 11/2/01; Focus- Nuclear Safeguards
Is anyone else getting carpal tunnel syndrome from typing delete every time I see
Norm's name on a post?
with regards to spent fuel pools being damaged... ".. in terms of damage to the
public, it would be the equivalent of a ten kiloton bomb going off, atomic bomb."
Norman Cohen wrote:
> FYI
> Norm
>
> > The NewsHour with November 2, 2001, Friday Transcript
> >
> > FOCUS - NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS
> >
> > JIM LEHRER: Now, more on the safety of the nation's nuclear
> > facilities. Betty Ann Bowser has been looking into that.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: Just one hour after the terrorists struck on
> > September 11, the federal agency responsible for safety at nuclear
> > power plants puts its emergency operations center on its highest state
> > of alert. Since then, emergency crews, seen here in a drill, have been
> > working 24 hours a day, and are in constant
> > touch with the FBI and the military. The Nuclear Regulatory
> > Commission, or NRC, also put the nation's 103 nuclear reactors on their
> > highest state of alert.
> >
> > RAY GOLDEN, San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant: We have
> > essentially locked down the facility. The gates are manned with armed
> > security officers. The only people getting in and out are employees with
> > positive photo identification.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: Now, the Coast Guard is patrolling waters
> > around nuclear power plants. The National Guard is on duty in at least
> > eight states. State police are also pitching in. And earlier this week, 126
> > general aviation airports close to nuclear power plants were effectively
> > shut down when the FAA ordered small aircraft not to fly near or
> > over nuclear power plants. But even with all this heightened
> > security, long-time critics of the NRC are concerned. Congressman Ed
> > Markey thinks a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant has been a
> > very real possibility for more than ten years.
> >
> > REP. ED MARKEY, (D) Massachusetts: If the terrorists were
> > successful in hijacking another plane, then flying one into a nuclear
> > power plant would be a relatively easy task for them to achieve.
> > Depending upon which direction the wind was blowing, everyone
> > that was in the path of the radioactive plume would be exposed to a
> > danger that could run anywhere from death to serious long-term illness
> > for every single individual.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: Markey says it would be even more
> > devastating than the world's worst nuclear energy accident in 1986 at
> > Chernobyl. 15 years later, hundreds of miles of land around what was
> > once the nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union are still
> > uninhabitable. Markey wants the NRC to make the owners of the nuclear
> > plants that supply 20% of the nation's electricity to completely revamp
> > security procedures and hire more guards. NRC Chairman Dr. Richard
> > Meserve says the agency has done everything reasonable it can to
> > protect American nuclear plants. But he's not sure that any of them
> > could withstand a September 11 type of attack involving a big airplane
> > with a full load of fuel.
> > RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
> > This was a wake-up call, September 11, for all of us about the kind of
> > world we live in and the threats that exist.
> > But let me say I think the real crucial question is, if they were =
> > able to do it, what would the consequences be? That is something that
> > has not been evaluated previously. It is an evaluation that we are
> > undertaking. I can say that nuclear power plants are built with very
> > heavy and robust structures. They have thick walls of reinforced
> > concrete. They have redundant safety equipment. So I think that,
> > although we have not done the evaluations, there are features of nuclear
> > power plants that are very favorable in terms of their capacity to be able
> > to respond to such an event without
> > there being undue public hazard.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: Is it not correct, sir, that the NRC has said
> > since September 11 that our plants were not designed to withstand the
> > impact of an attack like that?
> >
> > RICHARD MESERVE: That's correct.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: And you stand by that statement?
> >
> > RICHARD MESERVE: Of course, of course. They were not... They
> > were not designed. This was viewed as a very improbable event to
> > occur, and so it wasn't one of the design criteria. In that, of course,
> > we're similar to most other infrastructure in the United States: The white
> > House, the Pentagon, the capitol, chemical plants,
> > refineries also were not designed to withstand an aircraft attack of the
> > type that we saw on September 11.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Ralph Beedle, senior vice President of
> > the nuclear industry's trade association, does think the plants could
> > survive a terrorist attack from the sky.
> >
> > RALP BEEDLE, Nuclear Energy Institute: The public can be pretty =
> > confident that these plants are designed to contain the radioactive
> > material. I am confident that containment would withstand the crash of a
> > large commercial aircraft and protect the core to the point that you
> > would not have a radioactive release.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: But it's not just the nuclear reactor that
> > might be compromised in the event of a terrorist attack. Another major
> > area of concern: These pools containing used-up fuel rods. Once the
> > rods are no longer able to generate electricity, they remain
> > radioactive for 10,000 years. So at all of the nuclear power plants,
> > they have been stored in pools of water that keep them from heating up
> > and spreading radiation contamination. David Lochbaum is a nuclear
> > engineer with the union of concerned scientists, a watchdog agency.
> >
> > DAVID LOCHBAUM: If you were able to drain the water out of the
> > pool that Houses the reactor fuel, the fuel would overheat and either
> > melt down or catch on fire, releasing its radioactivity to the atmosphere
> > and the winds would carry it to whoever is downwind.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: And the rods are also stored at 13 power
> > plants that have been decommissioned or closed down, where critics
> > say security by the NRC is lax.
> >
> > DAVID LOCHBAUM: I think the biggest vulnerability still is not the
> > operating plants but the plants that have been permanently shut down.
> > At the plants that have been permanently shut down, security is
> > basically been turned down to bare bones minimum. If a terrorist
> > were to get access to this material and cause it to be dispersed into
> > the atmosphere with an explosive of some sort, the government had
> > studies done last year that shows it would be the... in terms of damage
> > to the public, it would be the equivalent of a ten kiloton bomb going off,
> > atomic bomb.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: Chairman Meserve says security at the
> > nation's decommissioned plants has been increased dramatically.
> >
> > RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
> > We certainly do worry about spent fuel pools, just as we worry about
> > reactors and other kinds of facilities. And the concern you have for a
> > spent fuel pool is if somehow all of that water were to disappear, and
> > then the fuel could heat up and then you might have an event that you'd
> > certainly be worried about. But they then present a rather difficult
> > target for an airplane, that you'd have to imagine that somehow the
> > airplane is going to come into a... Collide into a pool in a fashion that
> > can rupture the wall of four or five feet of reinforced concrete-- a
> > difficult
> > attack.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: What can you tell us about increased
> > security at those facilities?
> >
> > RICHARD MESERVE: Well, for understandable reasons, I can't go
> > into the details, but there are enhanced guard capabilities and controls
> > on vehicles and things of that nature.
> >
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: But equally disturbing, say NRC critics, is
> > the industry's record with force-on-force drills. Those are the NRC's
> > unannounced simulated terrorist attacks like this one recorded at a
> > nuclear power plant a few years ago. Again,
> > Congressman Ed Markey:
> >
> > REP. ED MARKEY: Over 40% of all the tests, which the Nuclear =
> > Regulatory Commission applies to the nuclear industry are flunked by
> > the nuclear industry in terms of security against terrorist attack. The
> > American people want... should want, and I think do want, the tests to
> > be toughened, for the standards to be increased so that
> > there's a reduction in the likelihood that any terrorist attack, much less
> > 40% of them, could be successful.
> >
> > RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
> > Where we found problems we required... Immediately required that
> > corrections be in place. I mean, I take some satisfaction from the fact
> > that we found failures. We were giving hard tests and we were hard
> > graders and we were requiring corrections. We were doing this
> > before September 11. I think everyone in government is now recognizing
> > that terrorists may have greater capabilities than we had expected
> > before September 11, and we'll have to reexamine this issue, and the
> > Commission is certainly going to do that.
> > BETTY ANN BOWSER: The NRC is doing a multimillion-dollar study
> > of the impact of an airplane attack, and they are revising something
> > called the design basis threat, which specifies what kind of a terrorist
> > attack every nuclear plant operator is required to defend itself against.
> > Meanwhile, Congressman Markey today asked the administration to
> > put the National Guard on duty at all active and decommissioned plants
> > and arm the with antiaircraft weapons.
> >
> > Tom Clements
> > Nuclear Control Institute
> > 1000 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 410
> > Washington, DC 20036
> >
> > tel. 1-202-822-8444
> > fax 1-202-452-0892
> > clements@nci.org
> > http://www.nci.org
>
> --
> 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)
>
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