Nuclear industry off the hook on air attacks

These critics have argued that defenders of a reactor should be ready to face up to 19 attackers — as was the case on Sept. 11 — and expect them to have rocket-propelled grenades, so-called “platter” explosive charges and .50-caliber armor-piercing ammunition.

The NRC does not assume such weapons being used and rejected the idea of a 19-member attack force, maintaining that the Sept. 11 attacks actually were four separate attacks, each by four or five terrorists.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said that NRC appears not to have followed the direction of Congress “to ensure that our nuclear power plants are protected from air- or land-based terrorist threats” of the magnitude demonstrated on Sept. 11.

The NRC “has missed an opportunity to provide the public with a real solution to the nuclear reactor security problem,” said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a frequent critic of the nuclear industry and the NRC.

Daniel Hirsch, president of the Community to Bridge the Gap, a California-based nuclear watchdog group that had urged the NRC to require physical barriers to keep planes from hitting reactors, called the security measures “irresponsible to the extreme.”

“Rather than upgrading protections, (the NRC plan) merely codifies the status quo, reaffirming the existing, woefully inadequate security measures already in place at the nation’s reactors,” said Hirsch.

'Reasonable' requirements
NRC officials have emphasized that the defense plan should require what is “reasonable” to be expected of a civilian security force at the 103 commercial nuclear power reactors.

In an unclassified summary of the DBT, the NRC maintains that studies “confirm the low likelihood” that an aircraft crashing into a reactor will damage the reactor core and release radioactivity, affecting public health and safety.

“Even in the unlikely event of a radiological release due to a terrorist use of a large aircraft against a nuclear power plant, the studies indicate that there would be time to implement the required onsite mitigating actions,” says the summary.

Those “mitigation measures in place are sufficient to ensure adequate protection of the public health and safety,” it continued.

The nuclear power industry has argued that protection against an air attack — or one using a large ground attack force — should be the responsibility of the government.

Responding to the NRC’s action Monday, the Nuclear Energy Institute cited a $1 million study by the Electric Power Research Institute last year that concluded the concrete enclosure that surrounds a reactor will withstand the impact of a large jetliner without releasing radiation.

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