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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