[ RadSafe ] Re: " US nuclear plants safer than ever from terror attack: US regulator "

[Gerry Blackwood]

Sure are...right up the day they are attacked....

Jaro <jaro-10kbq at sympatico.ca> wrote:US nuclear plants safer than ever from terror attack: US regulator
WASHINGTON (AFP) Mar 14, 2005

US nuclear power plants are safer than they have ever been from potential
terrorist attacks, while a suicide aircraft crash would not pose a
significant threat, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's chairman said
Monday.
Nearly four years after the September 11, 2001, hijacked airplane strikes on
New York and Washington, NRC chairman Nils Diaz said, "Both nuclear security
and safety are better than they have ever been and both are getting better."

"What we have done in the last three and a half years is to make it very
difficult for anyone to find ways to attempt acts of radiological sabotage,
even more difficult to succeed in doing real harm, and to be very prepared
to protect our people in the very unlikely event of radiological release,"
he said.

Protective barriers have been moved farther away from nuclear reactors, the
number of guards has increased and towers have been installed to shoot
potential intruders, Diaz said at a news conference here.
"We have hardened both the security and the safety of the power plants," he
said.
"We found that general aviation, in general, is not a significant threat to
a nuclear power plant," Diaz said, adding that power plants are even safe
from a helicopter packed with explosives.

But critics say efforts have not gone far enough to protect the country from
a terrorist attack since September 11, which sparked fears that an airplane
could be hijacked and used as a missile against a nuclear power plant,
triggering a radiological disaster.

"To say that we are better than we have been before is to say that we had an
F before and we may have a D-minus now," Daniel Hirsch, president of
Committee to Bridge the Gap, a California-based [anti-]nuclear watchdog
group, told 
"There has been marginal progress and there remains massive vulnerability,"
Hirsch said.
His group has proposed that power plants put up beam shields to protect
reactors from a potential airplane attack and has petitioned the NRC to
upgrade its regulations to boost plant readiness against on-the-ground
assailants.

The NRC released a report Monday on security that includes conclusions of
engineering studies into the threat of a commercial airplane attack on
nuclear facilities.
"For the facilities analyzed, the vulnerability studies confirm that the
likelihood of both damaging the reactor core and releasing radioactivity
that could affect public health and safety is low," the report said.

The NRC report said that in the "unlikely event of a radiological release"
caused by a "large aircraft" crash, "the studies indicate that there would
be time to implement the required on-site mitigating actions."

Diaz conceded that a large aircraft could cause considerable damage, but
there are steps to limit it.
"Everybody realizes that if a large aircraft crashes anyplace you're going
to have significant industrial damage, you're going to have significant loss
of life, you're going to have a significant problem," Diaz said.
"What we're doing with power plants is making sure that that problem does
not propagate to a significant radiological release," he said.

But Hirsch said that even with mitigating actions, tens of thousands could
be killed in an attack against a power plant.
"To say that the risk is low is what the NRC has said for its entire
existence about any risk at reactors," he said. "Even if the risk is low the
consequences are catastrophic."
"It's a low-tech attack on our high-tech industry that could produce a
quasi-nuclear effect on our population," he said.


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"Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality."