Nuclear plant vulnerability to terrorist attacks

In order for the government to advance the use of nuclear power, the 2002 Energy Review concluded that widespread public acceptance was necessary, which would be more likely if progress could be made in dealing with the problems of long-term nuclear waste disposal, coupled with perceptions about the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to accidents and attack.
For many years the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) has energetically pursued an agenda of examining all obstacles to the development of nuclear power in the UK. Accordingly, in July 2004 POST published a report entitled "Assessing the risk of terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities".
It states the problem succinctly: If sufficient information were made available for a member of the public to make an informed decision about the level of the threat faced from potential terrorist attacks at nuclear facilities, there is a fear that the same information could aid a terrorist planning an attack. Thus a very high level of confidence must be placed in the safety and security regulators.

Are we scaremongering?
The report identifies the main issues of concern according to reports in the public domain, while acknowledging a complaint that that 'the information in the public domain is inherently biased towards the anti-nuclear movement, as those accountable for security are not permitted to publish full details of their activities or analyses.' Post conclude that there is sufficient publicly available information to identify possible ways terrorists might bring about a release of radioactive material from a nuclear facility. However this information is not sufficient to draw conclusions on the likelihood of a successful attack, or the size and nature of any release.
Although existing safety and security regimes provide some defence, nuclear power plants were not designed to withstand forms of terrorist attack such as large aircraft impact.
Published reports suggest that, in a worst case scenario, the impact of large aircraft on certain facilities could cause a significant release of radioactive material with effects over a wide area.

Perhaps the Media is to blame

The report says that media coverage of the risk of releases of radioactive material from nuclear facilities focuses mainly on the consequences of worst case scenarios, without discussing the likelihood of their occurrence or explaining assumptions made.
Analyses carried out by UK nuclear operators to investigate the consequences of accidents at nuclear plants could be used, the report suggests helpfully, to further understanding of the potential consequences of terrorist attacks.
The uncertainty in the likely size of a release from the used fuel, high level liquid waste and plutonium facilities at Sellafield explains the wide range of conclusions in published reports. Some widely publicised reports predict several million fatalities in the event of a successful attack on B215, the high level liquid waste tanks at Sellafield. These figures are based on 'worst-case scenario' assumptions that over 10% of the total radioactive inventory would be released and that no countermeasures were taken to protect the public.
BNFL considers the conclusions of such studies to be unsubstantiated.
The POST report warns that while there is evidence that the probability of such a large release occurring accidentally lies within established safety limits, there is no equivalent framework for establishing the probability of a large release occurring through deliberate action.
POST are realistic about what can be achieved in the way of public acceptance, stating that: "even an unsuccessful attack could have economic and social repercussions and affect public confidence in nuclear activities such as power generation."

WANA Comment Sept 11th 2001 marked the end of the assumption that deliberate and devastating terrorist attacks on Western targets cannot happen. The mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, reportedly told his US captors that the original plan called for 10 airliners to be hijacked. They were to be crashed into targets including nuclear power stations, and tall buildings in California and Washington state. A federal commission concluded in June 2004 that American air defences were fatally chaotic and slow to react as the September 11 attacks unfolded.
The ideal strategic response to the threat of terrorism is to remove the vulnerability, and to do it as soon as possible. Facing the terrorist threat it would be crazy to construct new nuclear power stations, but we still are bound to try to defend our Highly active Liquid Waste (HLW) tanks and our nuclear facilities until they are phased out.
The POST report acknowledged the Greenpeace assessment that the most significant threat to the HLW tanks at Sellafield would be from Westbound transatlantic flights, of which there were several hundred a day passing within 50 miles of Sellafield, and that the feasibility of interception appeared to be low, based on the short time available between the reporting of the hijack and the airliner reaching Sellafield. Both BNFL and Greenpeace conclude that introducing a time delay in the event of an aircraft being hijacked might help interception. It is true that hijacked airliners might be thus correctly identified, but as the Americans discovered, this is insufficient to guarantee interception.
In 1989, Brian Rome giving evidence to the Hinkley Point C public inquiry, warned against ignoring the pending danger from 'religious fanatics' application of military technology against UK nuclear power stations.' He foresaw that commercial flight paths might have to be re-routed away from nuclear power stations, but this he regarded as necessary because the only feasible defence against incoming missiles and aircraft is to install batteries of surface-to-air missiles, with zealous operators.
Opponents of wind turbines should reflect on the 'electricity versus death' trade off that we all now face with nuclear power. In the words of Hannes Alfven: "How do you put an acceptable probability on an unacceptable risk?"

Trawsfynydd - ILW store shrinks

Snowdonia National Park Authority confirmed in July that BNFL Magnox are to reduce the volume of the proposed ILW building by 28%.
In the original application the size of the ILW building was 120 metres x 30 metres with a height of 23 metres (volume = 82,800 cu metres).
Now it is to measure 90 metres x 33 metres x 20 metres high. (volume =
59,400 cu metres)
WANA Comment The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has to get a grip on Trawsfynydd by calling a moratorium until it has a policy on decommissioning that is acceptable to all.
(a) BNFL Magnox are persisting in their delayed reactor dismantling policy.
They are preparing to waste £80 million to cover the reduced height reactor buildings, despite warnings from the regulator at the public inquiry that reactor dismantling should not be delayed beyond 30 years. (ie: 2021)
(b) BNFL have reduced the size of the proposed ILW store, thus reducing the possibility that this facility could take reactor dismantling waste at the appropriate time.
Both these actions effectively pre-empt and vitiate any policy that might emerge from the NDA, let alone flouting existing regulatory guidance.

B30 - Sellafield's Cess Pit

Doubts about how much plutonium & uranium is contained in a waste tank at Sellafield, has led the European Commission to prosecute the British Govt.
for failing to adhere to proper nuclear safeguards. The tank known as B30 is one of the most intractable nuclear waste problems in Europe. Unknown numbers of nuclear fuel rods & radioactive detritus has been dumped there for 50 years.
This news has drawn unwelcome attention to the greatest vulnerability on the site. Legacy waste in the murky water includes over a tonne of plutonium and unknown amounts of other radionuclides. B30 represents a significant hazard, which is completely unprotected from aircraft attack.

CHEIR LEADER

The main thrust of CERRIE the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters, to be published shortly, is understood to be that there is scientific uncertainty about these risks. Its publication is likely to be clouded by controversy regarding the suppression of minority views on the committee, following legal 'advice'. Marion Hill, a scientist with 30 years experience in radiation safety, including 15 years at the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), resigned in February 2003 saying "It's a complete failure when you have a scientific committee that is not allowed to write anything about disagreements over science."
Hill has subsequently called for the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) to be disbanded, and for a new, more broadly based committee CHEIR (Committee on the Health Effects of Ionising Radiation) to be set up to advise Government on the health risks of ionising radiation.
She argues that the close relationship between the self-selecting and non-accountable International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP)
which is the principal source for radiological protection standards, and Britain's NRPB, makes it impossible for NRPB to offer impartial advice to the UK about the appropriateness of ICRP recommendations. NRPB staff who are involved in ICRP invariably support its recommendations, and other staff find it very difficult to challenge their senior managers views.
NRPB is due to be subsumed into the Health Protection Agency, so it makes sense to establish a truly independent committee, with a neutral chair and members that fully and fairly represent the whole spectrum of scientific views on the health effects of ionising radiation, to advise the Government.

The suppression of research into the health effects from Nycomed Amersham's tritium discharges over Cardiff supports the need for change. Professor Alison Macfarlane, an authority of international standing concluded that there is a cause for concern which warrants further investigation in order to answer questions and public concerns about the possibility of associations between tritium discharges and adverse reproductive health.
The National Public Health Service for Wales has declined to undertake this further investigation while supporting the Environment Agency decision to reduce the emissions from the Amersham plant on a precautionary basis. If public concern and expert recommendations are simply ignored then any remaining trust in our current regulatory system are forfeited. Support the calls for CHEIR. Write to your MP at the House of Commons, London SW1A OAA to get them to support Early Day Motion 1548 (suggested form of words Radioactivity contaminates the whole environment and can cause permanent genetic damage. I am very concerned that the Government is not getting reliable scientific advice from COMARE or SAHSU and is underestimating the health effects of nuclear pollution. Please sign Early Day Motion 1548.)
and contact LLRC at 01597 824771 (see www.llrc.org <http://www.llrc.org>).

US nuclear supporters dither

In order to meet President George W. Bush's target of curbing greenhouse gas emissions by 18% by 2012, the US Department of Energy has been promoting the Nuclear Power 2010 program, to have "at least one" advanced reactor deployed by 2010.
The nuclear industry has told DOE that the program should be funded at a level of between $60- and $80-million per year over the next five years.
However, DOE asked Congress for $38-million in fiscal 2003, the program's first year (and got $35.3-million), but later requested only $10.2-million for fiscal year 2005, with Congress recommending this be cut to $5-million.
The industry regard this as insufficient to launch a new reactor by the turn of the decade. So far $2.1m has been pledged to assist the 'verification' of an advanced Boiling Water Reactor. Two other consortia, one of which includes the BNFL Westinghouse AP1000 have yet to hear about funding.
Pete Domenici, chair of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee said: "....to date, the Administration has only provided nominal financial support to one consortium." He said that some believe that the focus in the U.S. should not be on building advanced models of existing LWRs but instead should concentrate on so-called Generation IV designs, that require more research and testing. While supporting the Gen IV reactors, Domenici said they could take 20 years or more to bring in line commercially.
"We can't wait that long to start our nuclear renaissance".
The US nuclear industry still hopes to build a substantial amount of new nuclear generation, but without government assistance, construction plans for advanced plants "might become dormant" said Adrian Heymer of the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Heymer said about 50% of the nuclear industry workforce will be retiring over the next 10 years. He said canceling plans to build Generation III+ plants and concentrating only on Generation IV models could create a gap in the chain of worker knowledge and experience. "If we went straight to Gen IV, we'd have to put in substantial funding," he said, and it would be unlikely new generating capacity would be available by 2020 because of the need for building a prototype to test the technology and make any adjustments.
Jumping to Generation IV?
The head of DOE's nuclear energy office William Magwood says that he wanted to help the industry break ground on a new reactor at least by the beginning of the next decad e.Wethinkit'saveryimportantpolicyinitiativethat really is important in contributing to the security of the country," he said. "So we're still on that track and we simply are moving very carefully and cautiously forward."
Magwood dismissed talk in the industry that the department plans to push aside the Nuclear Power 2010 activities and focus instead on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant, or NGNP, a Gen IV reactor capable of producing electricity and hydrogen. "It's not so simple that if you have less money in Gen IV, it means you have more money in Nuclear Power 2010," Magwood said.
"It just doesn't work that way". Nucleonics Week August 26, 2004 WANA Comment After fifty years the nuclear industry still depends on massive public subsidies just to survive. It is not surprising that a US administration with a huge budget deficit, while 'talking up' nuclear energy is reluctant to actually find the resources to back it.

STOP PRESS

Write to your MP at the House of Commons, London SW1A OAA to get them to support Early Day Motion 1593 NUCLEAR POWER COST, submitted on September 07, 2004 by WANA founder member Paul Flynn MP and supported by Harry Barnes; Lynne Jones; Rudi Vis; Martin Caton; Simon Thomas; Llew Smith; Annabelle Ewing; Paul Holmes; Adam Price and Paul Tyler.

That this House rejects the orchestrated propagation of the myth that nuclear power is a cost effective remedy for the consequences of grobal warming; notes that nuclear power receives a United Kingdom subsidy of £2 million a day and is rendered economically ruinous by the threat of nuclear terrorism and the intractable legacy of nuclear waste; and believes that any return to failed nuclear technology will undermine investment in robust, cost-effective and environmentally benign sources of power.

EVENTS

WANA Meeting - Oct 16th 11am- Cardiff County Hall Atlantic Wharf, Cardiff

Published by WANA PO Box 1 Llandrindod Wells LD1 5AA

Tel: 01982 570362 Email: hughrichards@gn.apc.org