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

[jjcohen]

That fact that the news media lends any credence at all to what Dan Hirsch
says reveals
that they must be  technologically illiterate. I wonder whether technical
illiteracy is an employment
prerequisite for news reporters. or is it just a coincidence that they
generally seem to possess this
characteristic.


----- Original Message -----
From: Jaro <jaro-10kbq at sympatico.ca>
To: Gerry Blackwood <gpblackwood at sbcglobal.net>; RADSAFE <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 2:15 PM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] " US nuclear plants safer than ever from terror
attack:US regulator "


> 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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>


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