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Threat Assessment: Nuclear Plants Are at Risk, Expert Says The Nuclear Control Institute Friday criticized a recent article by a panel of nuclear experts who said there is little chance terrorists could do enough damage to a nuclear power plant or spent fuel shipment to pose a public health threat (see GSN, Sept. 20). The authors of the article, published in Science magazine, relied on “misquotations, unsupported assertions, misinterpretations of data and unpublished references that have not been peer-reviewed,” NCI President Edwin Lyman said in a press statement. There are credible methods by which terrorists could cause large-scale radiation releases through attacks on nuclear power plants or spent fuel shipments, Lyman said. He cited the results of mock terrorist attacks on U.S. plants in which terrorists caused enough damage to lead to a meltdown in half of the exercises. Lyman criticized the article for playing down the amount of damage that could be caused by a hijacked airliner crashing into a nuclear plant. Citing as evidence a study conducted by the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, the authors wrote that an air attack on a nuclear power plant would do little to breach reactor containment facilities. “In fact, straightforward engineering calculations, utilizing empirically derived formulas, demonstrate that such penetration is plausible,” Lyman said. The Sandia study, which used an F-4 fighter jet with lighter engines than a commercial airliner, was designed to measure the impact force of such a crash, and not the maximum penetration, Lyman said. There are also other sections of a nuclear power plant, such as the control room and spent fuel pool, that are more vulnerable to an air attack and could also lead to a severe radiological release if damaged, he said. Lyman also challenged the authors’ claims that terrorists could do little damage to shipments of spent nuclear fuel. If terrorists were able to implant a heat source into a spent-fuel transportation cask that had been breached, a self-sustaining fire might occur, resulting in a large release of radioactive cesium, he said. More than 10,000 cancer deaths could result, Lyman said. “The authors of the Science article, many of whom bear responsibility for contributing to the creation of a widely distributed nuclear power infrastructure in this country that is vulnerable to terrorist attack, should take a realistic approach to these risks and help to mitigate the threat to the public posed by the situation that they have created, rather than continuing to deny its potential for grave harm,” Lyman said (Nuclear Control Institute release, Sept. 20).
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