RE: Nuclear Regulators: Attack Risk Low

["Richard L. Hess" <lists@richardhess.com>]

Ted,



Just when I was starting to feel comfortable, you have to ask THIS! I hope 

someone shows you why you're wrong. I've been told "don't worry." Here are 

some thoughts to trigger what would help me (and hopefully you) feel even 

better about this.



What would help me is an explanation of the amount of radioactivity in a 

"typical" reactor. The methods of dispersion, the typical exposure levels 

"downwind." All under different scenarios. You all know this, I'm sure, but 

heck, laying it out simply (yes, I know you can over simplify) would be 

very helpful.



We're NOT talking mushroom cloud here, are we? One would assume that the 

safety mechanisms, even if substantially damaged would not produce a 

critical mass for fission, right? Wrong?



Approximate order of magnitude numbers are fine. I am VERY tired of 

rhetoric. Show me the numbers (and work your proofs out, I don't want 

numbers pulled from the air). Rounding to one significant digit is 

fine...let's get the exponents right. Traditional or SI units accepted.



I've already looked a bit into TMI (where the vessel wasn't ruptured, 

right?) Chernobyl (where it was), and Windscale (where it effectively was). 

Yes, I realize that Chernobyl and Windscale are earlier types of reactors 

and not equivalent. Radiation was released in all three cases.  Few died. 

All of these were thermal runaway, but none were the instantaneous fission 

products we saw over Hiroshima and Nagasaki and in the Pacific, Nevada, New 

Mexico, and Alaska, right?



So since Barbara (not Boxer) and I are both in California, I offer San 

Onofre and/or Diablo Canyon as possible models for this study. These are 

also useful as there are population centers downwind, especially from San 

Onofre. The prevailing winds are from the Pacific inland, no? Diablo Canyon 

is more isolated--especially by an err, canyon (surprise)! You can't see it 

from most parts of Montana de oro State Park, just to the north. Let's 

concentrate on airborne effects. Yes, I realize that these might 

contaminate the Pacific Ocean, too, but I don't think that causes the 

immediate damage speculated in the quote. Save the work.



So, why is the NRC (the arm of the government originally founded, I think, 

to promote the safe use of nuclear energy) coming out with scare stories if 

they're not true?



If this is true, maybe I should have bought some CDV-715's!



By the way, if you want to see some scary rhetoric (not related directly to 

the atom), go to http://www.globalresearch.ca/ NOTE: I am not supporting 

the site. I am studying it. BIG difference.





Thanks!



Richard



At 11:14 PM 08/15/2002 -0400, Ted Rockwell wrote:

>This NRC statement, coupled with other unchallenged news statements by

>others, strongly implies that an airplane hitting a nuclear power plant will

>result in "tens of thousands of deaths" and "vast areas of land rendered

>uninhabitable for centuries."  Also, "The agency also again acknowledged

>that the plants were not built to withstand a fully fueled jetliner crashing

>into them." (Gee, what was all that calculation and testing in the 1977s-80s

>all about, anyway?)

>

>Our only hope, they say, is to shoot the attackers down before they get us.

>If I believed what I read here, I would want to shut down every nuclear

>power plant now, for keeps.

>

>Can anyone show me an authoritative statement by a government official or a

>nuclear spokesman that would counteract that conclusion?

>

>The more we talk about shooting down planes and beefing up walls, the more

>essential it appears that we must never have a reactor or fuel accident.  I

>have to infer from all this that any of these attacks, if successful, would

>have consequences too horrible to discuss.  Else why do we not discuss them?

>

>I wish someone would show me why I'm wrong about this.

>

>Ted Rockwell



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