NPPs SFP safety [was AOPA scolds Fox News!]

[Know_Nukes Relay <kn_relay@YAHOO.COM>]

Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 01:35:20 -0700

From: "Mary Ellen Marucci" <marucci@mindspring.com>    

To: Downwinders@yahoogroups.com



 Subject: Fw: Nuclear power plants spent fuel pool safety.



 Hummm...I believe I got the initial letter from downwinders list.  Was it from

 Jim Hoerner? 

 Well here it goes...spinning on.



 ----- Original Message ----- 

 From: Boyer, Phil 

 To: 'Mary Ellen Marucci' 

 Cc: Cebula, Andy 

 Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 10:13 AM

 Subject: RE: Nuclear power plants spent fuel pool safety.





 Mary Ellen ...

  

 Thanks for the well written reply to some of the details in our "squabble"

with the Fox News

 story, and there definitely are some shades of gray in our letter and their

reply. What I have

 personally learned in taking this on is the huge community out there on both

sides of the

 nuclear power issue ... some clouded by GA's threat potential versus their own

very valid

 opinions of threats such as security, etc.



 Thanks for weighing in on this - and often than not - we take an ax with broad

strokes to get

 the attention to the other side of an issue.



 --Phil



 P.S. -- we have employed a "qualified" (although since this decision, I see

there are many sides

 to being qualified) source that has done a White Paper for us on GA threats to

plants, and that

 should be up on the web site in the next day or so.



   -----Original Message-----

   From: Mary Ellen Marucci [mailto:marucci@mindspring.com]

   Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2002 9:00 AM

   To: Boyer, Phil

   Subject: Nuclear power plants spent fuel pool safety.





   Dear Phil Boyer,



   Your letter to Roger Ailes was most informative.  I will check with your

organization the next

 time I hear about a breach in airspace security.  I do have some information

for you in my area

 of expertise, Spent fuel pools.

    

   You mentioned in your letter about the safety of these pools, but

unfortunately your

 information is very incomplete and the reference to 30 feet of water covering

the fuel rods is

 wrong.  At most 18 inches covers the fuel rods, though the pool may be 30 feet

deep!

   It is not necessary for a plane to reach the fuel pool for the radioactivity

stored in it to

 be released,  The waste is physically hot, and for a plant that has just

deposited its full core

 into that pool, it can come to a boil in less than an hour should the cooling

system stop!

   Just such an incident happened at the Millstone 2 nuclear station in

Waterford CT back in 1992

 when the power plant lost one of two trains of electric power to the plant

during shutdown. 

 Luckily the operators were able to get the waste pool cooling system back up

before the fuel

 rods were uncovered by boiling- but it was only minutes away!  Once these fuel

rods become

 uncovered ( even partially) they can catch fire and release their

radioactivity to the air as

 well as dropping their radioactive pellets to the bottom of the pool, where

this material can

 start an uncontrolable chain reaction of its own.  The biggest problem with

all these senarios

 is that the NRC has failed to look at the real worst case of a spent fuel pool

accident, and

 have allowed their worst case situation to be such that it is rectified before

the fuel becomes

 uncovered!  The rapid boiling of a pool would cause a steam explosion that the

shed which covers

 these pools was not built to withstand. In the NRC worst case the boiling does

not continue long

 enough to allow for the fuel to be uncovered and therefore not enough steam is

generated to

 destroy the shed.

    



   I too feel that the worry over a nuclear attack from a terrorist flight is

overblown when the

 safety situation at these plants is so precarious just from the degradation of

materials that

 have been in use in the waste pools since it became unpractical to use just

distance to prevent

 a criticality in the waste.  It is only a matter of time ( and not much)

before a spontaneous

 chain reaction and/or loss of coolant occurs at a waste pool.  Most pools

contain over 5 and

 some over 10 reactor cores. So figure 5 to 10 Chernobyls going off at once.  A

plane into a

 reactor vessel, even the Besse reactor with its few inches of steel left in

its weakest part,

 would look like a minor tragedy compared to a waste pool runaway.



   Respectfully,

   MaryEllen Marucci

   marucci@mindspring.com



[Snip letter from Phil Boyer of AOPA to Fox News

note: Phil Boyer's email address is phil.boyer[at]aopa.org - JH]





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