NEI Nuclear Notes

Jerry Paul Earlier this week, Jerry Paul , a former deputy administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration , took aim at a study that came out of UT-Austin in August concerning nuclear power plant security . The following passage comes from an op-ed that appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram . These are dangerous times. Nuclear security is a serious topic. It calls for assessment by serious people willing to do the hard work of real research. There is nothing wrong with an academician or anyone else, including political activists, raising questions about public topics including security and even nuclear security. But it should be done in a responsible way and should be based on facts. If conclusions are to be marketed as university “research,” they should be backed by credible data, authoritative sources’ expertise and peer reviews by unbiased experts. Merely using the word “nuclear” in a title should not qualify written work for a lower standard of acade...

Even though the mainstream media has moved on to other topics, there are still a number of other facts we've uncovered concerning the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project and its supposed relationship to the Department of Defense (DoD) . Earlier this week, a reporter from NEI's Nuclear Energy Overview made a phone call to the Pentagon to get some clarification about the exact relationship between DoD and the published report . Here's an excerpt: The U.S. Department of Defense did not request or validate a recent study on security at America’s nuclear energy facilities by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project, a DOD official said. “The Department of Defense did provide funding to the University of Texas at Austin, but did not request a report on that specific topic, nor did we validate its findings,” the Defense Department official said. That's what we all suspected, but it's nice to get it on the record. We'll have more if events warrant.

As our readers will recall, we spent a considerable amount of time last week responding to a "study" issued by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project on the security of nuclear energy facilities here in the U.S.  Over the weekend, Jim Conca, a blogger for Forbes, took a closer look at the report, and made a number of interesting points  (emphasis added in bold): Those of us who have actually worked within the nuclear complex can tell you this study is grossly flawed. You need only read the limited source materials the author used in making her case and the absence of any references that contradict her thesis. And the lack of any expert review. But if you read the press on this report, it sounds like it was actually commissioned by the “Office of the Secretary of Defense, which provided financial support for the research”. Inquiries to DoD say the report was not requested by the department. DoD just funds the program as a whole at the University and has no knowle...

A few minutes ago, NEI issued a statement concerning the security of the nation's 100 operating nuclear reactors . The statement comes in response to the release yesterday of a report by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project . Here's the nut graf: A report by a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas’ Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project, released Aug. 15, is an academic paper developed for discussion among academia of the appropriate security levels at nuclear energy facilities. It is not a full assessment of security, nor does the author of the report have access to the safeguarded information that she would need to make such as assessment . Like many such evaluations that examine the potential theft of uranium fuel from commercial reactors, the NPPP report fails to explain how attackers would be able to dislodge highly irradiated uranium fuel—800 to 1,200-pound, 18-foot-tall fuel bundles—and maneuver them from reactors, storage pools or steel an...

Nuclear plants are widely acknowledged to be the best-defended facilities among the nation’s critical infrastructure. Critical, independent security experts share the industry’s belief that nuclear power plants are very well-defended, particularly in comparison to other elements of the nation’s industrial infrastructure. These include assessments from the the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security . The robustness of our industry's security isn't the easiest topic to address in great detail; appropriately, key security features for our sites are Safeguards Information. Still, this NEI video treatment of site security does offer some much-needed perspective relative to reports like today's from Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project ( NPPP ). There's a common/recurring flaw in many such evaluations of nuclear plant security: they ever fail to explain how attackers upon a nuclear power plant will be able to dislodge high...