US nuclear waste at risk from terrorists, analysis needed: study
Washington (Platts)--6Apr2005
Spent nuclear fuel stored in pools at some of the 103 operating power reactors in the United States may be at risk of terrorist attacks, according to a National Academies Board on Radioactive Waste Management committee report Wednesday. The report--the public version of a classified report sent to Congress, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Dept of Homeland Security in July 2004--called on the NRC to conduct additional analyses of potential risks. "Because potential threats may differ according to a specific plant's design, the committee recommended that plant-by-plant vulnerability analyses be performed," the National Academies said. The report drew its conclusions from a detailed review of security analyses done by the NRC, Homeland Security Dept, nuclear industry, and independent experts, the academies said. "The committee noted that many security improvements have been instituted at US commercial nuclear power plants since the events of Sep 11, 2001," the National Academies stated. "On several important questions, however, it was unable to obtain enough information from the NRC to access their effectiveness." As a result, the committee recommended an assessment of those measures be conducted by an organization independent of both the NRC and nuclear industry. "Our findings were unanimous," said committee chair Louis Lanzerotti, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark. "While the committee identified several terrorist attack scenarios that could have potentially severe consequences if carried out successfully, we also identified two relatively simple measures that could be implemented immediately at vulnerable plants to greatly reduce the risks." To reduce the risk of large releases of radioactive material, the committee recommended the location of spent fuel assemblies in the storage pools be reconfigured to more evenly distribute decay heat loads. It also said water-spray systems should still be operational to cool the fuel "even after the pool or the building in which it is housed is damaged." This story was originally published in Platts Electricity Alert http://www.electricityalert.platts.com
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