Terror Defense No Al Qaida Terror

Nuclear Plants

No Impact

Fukushima proves – no impact to meltdown

Nor is the radioactive contamination from Fukushima the cause of changes to Pacific sea-bottom life observed in recent years off the U.S. west coast, as the marine scientists at Deep Sea News recently noted. Those shifts most likely stem from the copious quantities of carbon dioxide spewed by fossil fuel–fired power plants that are changing the climate and, thus, the tiny plants known as phytoplankton that serve as the base of the oceanic food chain.

That means the tuna caught in the Pacific have always been naturally radioactive (and pose less risk than dental x-rays, as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution notes). Or as marine scientist Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole put it in a scientific paper on the subject published in 2012, "though [cesium] isotopes are elevated 10 to 1,000 [times] over prior levels in waters off Japan, radiation risks due to these radionuclides are below those generally considered harmful to marine animals and human consumers, and even below those from naturally occurring radionuclides."

Likewise, the debris from Fukushima that has begun to arrive on U.S. shores is also relatively benign. In fact, any radiation from the flotsam is likely to have far less an impact than the novel species it may carry with it across the Pacific, which could potentially spark a biological invasion.

No impact to attacks on nuclear plants – studies agree

Security – terrorism, etc. Since the World Trade Centre attacks in New York in 2001 there has been increased concern about the consequences of a large aircraft being used to attack a nuclear facility with the purpose of releasing radioactive materials. Various studies have looked at similar attacks on nuclear power plants. They show that nuclear reactors would be more resistant to such attacks than virtually any other civil installations – see Appendix 3. A thorough study was undertaken by the US Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) using specialist consultants and paid for by the US Dept. of Energy. It concludes that US reactor structures "are robust and (would) protect the fuel from impacts of large commercial aircraft".

The analyses used a fully-fuelled Boeing 767-400 of over 200 tonnes as the basis, at 560 km/h – the maximum speed for precision flying near the ground. The wingspan is greater than the diameter of reactor containment buildings and the 4.3 tonne engines are 15 metres apart. Hence analyses focused on single engine direct impact on the centreline – since this would be the most penetrating missile – and on the impact of the entire aircraft if the fuselage hit the centreline (in which case the engines would ricochet off the sides). In each case no part of the aircraft or its fuel would penetrate the containment. Other studies have confirmed these findings.

Penetrating (even relatively weak) reinforced concrete requires multiple hits by high speed artillery shells or specially-designed "bunker busting" ordnance – both of which are well beyond what terrorists are likely to deploy. Thin-walled, slow-moving, hollow aluminum aircraft, hitting containment-grade heavily-reinforced concrete disintegrate, with negligible penetration. But further (see Sept 2002 Science paper and Jan 2003 Response & Comments), realistic assessments from decades of analyses, lab work and testing, find that the consequence of even the worst realistic scenarios – core melting and containment failure – can cause few if any deaths to the public, regardless of the scenario that led to the core melt and containment failure. This conclusion was documented in a 1981 EPRI study, reported and widely circulated in many languages, by Levenson and Rahn in Nuclear Technology.

In 1988 Sandia National Laboratories in USA demonstrated the unequal distribution of energy absorption that occurs when an aircraft impacts a massive, hardened target. The test involved a rocket-propelled F4 Phantom jet (about 27 tonnes, with both engines close together in the fuselage) hitting a 3.7m thick slab of concrete at 765 km/h. This was to see whether a proposed Japanese nuclear power plant could withstand the impact of a heavy aircraft. It showed how most of the collision energy goes into the destruction of the aircraft itself – about 96% of the aircraft's kinetic energy went into its destruction and some penetration of the concrete – while the remaining 4% was dissipated in accelerating the 700-tonne slab. The maximum penetration of the concrete in this experiment was 60 mm, but comparison with fixed reactor containment needs to take account of the 4% of energy transmitted to the slab. See also video clip.

As long ago as the late 1970s, the UK Central Electricity Generating Board considered the possibility of a fully-laden and fully-fuelled large passenger aircraft being hijacked and deliberately crashed into a nuclear reactor. The main conclusions were that an airliner would tend to break up as it hit various buildings such as the reactor hall, and that those pieces would have little effect on the concrete biological shield surrounding the reactor. Any kerosene fire would also have little effect on that shield. In the 1980s in the USA, at least some plants were designed to take a hit from a fully-laden large military transport aircraft and still be able to achieve and maintain cold shutdown.

The study of a 1970s US power plant in a highly-populated area is assessing the possible effects of a successful terrorist attack which causes both meltdown of the core and a large breach in the containment structure – both extremely unlikely. It shows that a large fraction of the most hazardous radioactive isotopes, like those of iodine and tellurium, would never leave the site.

Much of the radioactive material would stick to surfaces inside the containment or becomes soluble salts that remain in the damaged containment building. Some radioactive material would nonetheless enter the environment some hours after the attack in this extreme scenario and affect areas up to several kilometres away. The extent and timing of this means that with walking-pace evacuation inside this radius it would not be a major health risk. However it could leave areas contaminated and hence displace people in the same way as a natural disaster, giving rise to economic rather than health consequences.

Looking at spent fuel storage pools, similar analyses showed no breach. Dry storage and transport casks retained their integrity. "There would be no release of radionuclides to the environment".

However, while the main structures are robust, the 2001 attacks did lead to increased security requirements and plants were required by NRC to install barriers, bulletproof security stations and other physical modifications which in the USA are estimated by the industry association to have cost some $2 billion across the country.

No Natural Disasters

Nuclear plants are safe from natural disasters

WNA 15 (World Nuclear Association, Feb 2015. "Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors,” updated Feb 2015. www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Safety-of-Nuclear-Power-Reactors/) jsk

Severe Accident Management

In addition to engineering and procedures which reduce the risk and severity of accidents, all plants have guidelines for Severe Accident Management or Mitigation (SAM). These conspicuously came into play after the Fukushima accident, where staff had immense challenges in the absence of power and with disabled cooling systems following damage done by the tsunami. The experience following that accident is being applied not only in design but also in such guidelines, and peer reviews on nuclear plants will focus more on these than previously.

In mid-2011 the IAEA Incident and Emergency Centre launched a new secure web-based communications platform to unify and simplify information exchange during nuclear or radiological emergencies. The Unified System for Information Exchange on Incidents and Emergencies (USIE) has been under development since 2009 but was actually launched during the emergency response to the accident at Fukushima.

Earthquakes and Volcanoes

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has a Safety Guide on Seismic Risks for Nuclear Power Plants, and the matter is dealt with in the WNA paper on Earthquakes and Nuclear Power Plants. Volcanic hazards are minimal for practically all nuclear plants, but the IAEA has developed a new Safety Guide on the matter. The Bataan plant in Philippines which has never operated, and the Armenian plant at Metsamor are two known to be in proximity to potential volcanic activity.

Flooding – storms, tides and tsunamis

Nuclear plants are usually built close to water bodies, for the sake of cooling. The site licence takes account of worst case flooding scenarios as well as other possible natural disasters and, more recently, the possible effects of climate change. As a result, all the buildings with safety-related equipment are situated on high enough platforms so that they stand above submerged areas in case of flooding events. As an example, French Safety Rules criteria for river sites define the safe level as above a flood level likely to be reached with one chance in one thousand years, plus 15%, and similar regarding tides for coastal sites.

Occasionally in the past some buildings have been sited too low, so that they are vulnerable to flood or tidal and storm surge, so engineered countermeasures have been built. EDF's Blayais nuclear plant in western France uses seawater for cooling and the plant itself is protected from storm surge by dykes. However, in 1999 a 2.5 m storm surge in the estuary overtopped the dykes – which were already identified as a weak point and scheduled for a later upgrade – and flooded one pumping station. For security reasons it was decided to shut down the three reactors then under power (the fourth was already stopped in the course of normal maintenance). This incident was rated 2 on the INES scale.

In 1994 the Kakrapar nuclear power plant near the west coast of India was flooded due to heavy rains together with failure of weir control for an adjoining water pond, inundating turbine building basement equipment. The back-up diesel generators on site enabled core cooling using fire water, a backup to process water, since the offsite power supply failed. Following this, multiple flood barriers were provided at all entry points, inlet openings below design flood level were sealed and emergency operating procedures were updated. In December 2004 the Madras NPP and Kalpakkam PFBR site on the east coast of India was flooded by a tsunami surge from Sumatra. Construction of the Kalpakkam plant was just beginning, but the Madras plant shut down safely and maintained cooling. However, recommendations including early warning system for tsunami and provision of additional cooling water sources for longer duration cooling were implemented.

No Terror

Nuclear plants not susceptible to terror attacks

HSNW 14 (4 December 2014: Risks of terrorists attacking, or using materials from, a nuclear power plant are low: Experts," Homeland Security News Wire. "www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141204-risks-of-terrorists-attacking-or-using-materials-from-a-nuclear-power-plant-are-low-experts) jsk

Energy analysts who support new nuclear power plants construction insist that the probability of a terrorist nuclear attack by land, sea, or air is extremely low. They reject arguments by nuclear power opponents that terrorist groups may one day attack a nuclear plant, or build an improvised nuclear bomb using materials stolen from a nuclear power plant – and that governments should, therefore, end construction of new nuclear power plants. A recent article published by The Energy Collective examines the probability and real hazard of a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant, and the hazards and probabilities of other available nuclear attack options for terrorists.

Terrorist organizations may attack a nuclear plant to prompt a meltdown, but a nuclear meltdown from a reactor may result in less damage than most terrorist groups aspire to inflict. The standard radiation dose limit for workers near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was 50 millisievert (msv) per year and 100 msv over five years, but in order to allow workers to respond to the accident, the emergency dose was increased to 250 msv per year from 100 msv per year pre-meltdown. One-hundred-and-seventy-six workers at the plant received doses of between 100 and 670 msv during and shortly after the disaster (msv), but only two workers died from the incident.

Attempts to steal nuclear materials for use in an improvised nuclear bomb from nuclear power plants are likely to fail because the radioactive materials, such as spent fuel rods in nuclear power plants, are effectively untransportable due to “the heat generated by large quantities of such material and the extreme exposure hazard from the intensity of the radiation.” Individuals attempting to steal spent fuel rods would be exposed to dangerous radiation levels and are likely to die or fall seriously ill before they could have the chance to use the materials. Additionally, fuel stolen from a reactor might be poorly enriched, making it relatively useless for an improvised nuclear weapon. Robert Frost, president of Nuclear Safety Associates, noted in a 2005 Adelphi Papers that constructing the device itself is practically impossible for terrorist groups, considering the need for advanced equipment, expertise, and facility. Furthermore, the materials considered most practical for use in improvised nuclear bombs, as The Homeland Security News Wire reported earlier this year, are used in medical applications, far from any nuclear plant.

The probability of an intrusion of a Western nuclear power plant is extremely low due to intense physical and electronic security. “There has never been [a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant], and there appears to be no evidence that a plan to attack a nuclear power plant has ever moved beyond the basic planning phase in any terrorist group,” said Robert Wilson, an energy analyst. The only reported successful intrusions of a working nuclear facility have been led by activists who sought to send anti-nuclear messages.

Opponents of new nuclear plants construction have claimed that terrorists could one day crash a jumbo jet loaded with fuel into a nuclear plant’s containment dome. Engineers at Entergy, the operator of New York’s Indian Point power plant, are confident that a dome’s three to six feet concrete walls reinforced with embedded steel bars and a half-inch steel liner could withstand a collision with a large airliner. Should a fire ignite after a jumbo jet collides with a plant’s containment dome, a 2006 review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Congress concluded that the “likelihood of both damaging the reactor core and releasing radioactivity that could affect public health and safety is low.”

The risk of not building more nuclear power plants means an increasing reliance on fossil fuel which remains a major contributor to climate change. While alternative energy sources like wind and solar have gained popularity, “those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough to deliver cheap and reliable power at the scale the global economy requires,” wrote climate scientists Kenneth Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, James E. Hansen of Columbia University, and Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Adelaide, in a letter to anti-nuclear power policy makers responsible for environmental policy. “There is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power,” the scientists added (see “Climate scientists say renewables are not enough,” HSNW, 13 November 2013; and “Leading climate scientists urge support for nuclear power,” HSNW, 5 November 2013).

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