Some more of that unpublishable stuff (hey, I didn't publish it....)
Jaro
Grp Rejects Nuclear Industry Jet-Attack Study As 'Stunt'
20 June 2002 Dow Jones International News
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A leading antinuclear activist group is dismissing as "thinly veiled boosterism" an industry-sponsored study's findings that concrete-and-steel containment structures at nuclear power plants can withstand an aircraft-turned-missile suicide attack.
The engineering study, which the Electric Power Research Institute will forward to the Nuclear Energy Institute later this month, is an attempt to assess the vulnerability of nuclear plants in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
The study's preliminary finding that the containment structures at nuclear power plants could withstand a Sept. 11-style attack was announced by an NEI official Monday.
The Safe Energy Communications Council subsequently decried the announcement as a "flimsy public relations stunt" aimed at tempering public skepticism that U.S. nuclear power reactors are safe from a terrorist attack.
By focusing on the robustness of containment structures, the study overlooks the risk of a plane attack hitting a nuclear plant's control room or spent-fuel storage facilities, the group said.
An aircraft attack could disable emergency cooling systems that prevent reactor core meltdowns, and any resulting fireball would likely prevent emergency response personnel from entering the site until it is too late, the group said.
The antinuclear group also denounced as a "propaganda ploy" recent nuclear industry advertisements touting the capability of plant security personnel to repel a ground-based terrorist attack. In a series of mock terrorist raids conducted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission only 47% of the nuclear plants tested were able to block the staged assault, the group said.
"It boggles the imagination that the NEI believes the public will fall for this type of thinly veiled boosterism," said Scott Denman, the activist group's executive director, in a prepared statement. "This kind of cavalier public relations stunt should give us all plenty to worry about," he said.
The antinuclear group's criticisms are "mischaracterizations," said Stephen Floyd, the NEI official who announced the EPRI study's preliminary conclusions.
NRC rules require nuclear power plants to have redundant systems to allow a shut down in the event the control room is evacuated because of a fire, Floyd said.
The alternative shutdown locations are well-removed from the plant's control room, he said.
Floyd also rejected the group's assertion that the NRC's mock terrorist infiltration exercises resulted in a 47% failure rate.
The staged raids are conducted after a series of "tabletop" exercises designed to uncover potential weaknesses in plant security, Floyd said.
To derive the 47% "failure" rate, the Safe Energy Communications Council counted NRC-cited "deficiencies," Floyd said. The NRC exercises aren't designed to reflect realistic threats and there is no pass-fail criteria, he said.
The NRC also disputes the 47% assessment, according to a transcript of a commission briefing provided by NEI. The commission found "significant vulnerabilities" in the 6% to 7% range, according to the transcript.
Finally, Floyd also rejected the group's assertion that spent-fuel storage pools are vulnerable to aircraft attacks. The pools have steel-and-concrete caps thicker than the plant's containment dome, Floyd asserted.
If an airplane were to hit a nuclear power plant, inside the containment, or "power block," area would be "the safest place to go," Floyd concluded.
-By Bryan Lee, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6647;
Bryan.Lee@dowjones.com