Skip to main content

Senator Schumer on Nuclear Plant Security

By Eric McErlain
Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has completed a report card on Homeland Security and was on CNN this morning to talk about it. Here's the passage that caught our attention (online link not yet available):
CNN 09/05/06 09:17:50: ...and this is -- you know when you think about how much effort the administration is put into the war on terror overseas, and then how little effort and resources in particular they put into the war at home. any basketball coach will tell you need a good offense and a good defense. this is a down the middle report. we give them credit in aviation Security and Nuclear plant Security...
This isn't the only instance when an independent study had positive things to say about nuclear plant security. Click here for a list. And click here for a link to the complete interview -- get it fast as the link may only work temporarily. As soon as we have an online reference to Schumer's report, we'll pass it along.

Technorati tags: , , , ,

Comments

Anonymous said…
How curious that there is no aviation security for nuclear power plants, however.

According to a June 1982 Argonne National Laboratory report no US reactors were designed nor constructed to withstand aircraft collisions. The federal lab itself did not even analyze deliberate attack. However, ANL concluded that the hazard of collision, penetration, concussion, explosion and fire can have severe consequences with a possible core melt accident. Moreover, the severe accident could cascade from aircraft impact onsite other than the containment itself.

While some gains have been made on commercial airline security, general aviation aircraft an increasingly serious concern. A private aircraft can deliver a serious threat to safe operations of nucleasr reactors and no spent fuel pools are designed to withstand a deliberate suicidal attack with a fuel and explosive laden aircraft.

Its time to call an end to "faith based security" and for the industry to own up to the unique and real costs of security for nuclear power plants.

Gunter
September 10, 2006 at 3:43 PM
Anonymous said…
Gunter--the 1982 Argonne report on aircraft potentially damaging a nuclear power plant has been widely debunked and totally contradicted by the NRC since. Yet it continues to be used time and again by the anti-nuke zealots. It was flawed science then, and it flawed science now.
December 20, 2006 at 12:36 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap
1 comment
Read more

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

By
Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
Post a Comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin
Post a Comment
Read more