BS on The Risks of Nuclear Power

An article titled “Devastation Could Follow Nuclear Power Plant Attack, but Risk Debatable” at Fox News contained some sadly typical hogwash about the risks of terrorist attack at a nuclear plant. Having worked at a nuclear plant for the last 20 years of my career, I know for a fact just how distorted it is. It talks about blowing a hole in the bottom of the plant, then disaster following, but not a clue how to blow a hole in the bottom. An airliner would bounce off the reactor building, as would a tornado. Anyone trying to bore from below would set off the seismic detectors, anyone trying an attack on the plant would be met with a very well trained and well armed security force. While damage could certainly be done that would render the plants output unavailable, it would not, could not result in a significant release of radiation. Mr. Stockton, the author of the piece being cited, refers to NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) studies, as if to imply that the NRC has studied the idea of blowing a hole in the bottom, but that is absurd. The NRC has studied the scenario of loss of coolant, overheating to the point where the reactor vessel melts allowing the molten mass of the core to theoretically melt through the bottom, the China syndrome. Look at the Three Mile Island disaster of 1979. There was a loss of coolant, and the operators did about everything wrong that they could do. The core was uncovered, lost coolant, and did melt. That was a very severe incident, but the reactor vessel was not breached, and no significant amount of radiation was released. The irony of Three Mile Island is that the incident there should have proven to any and all just how safe the plants are, it was the worst, most severe scenario that exists, yet all of the radiation was contained, as designed. It cost the utility a bunch, roughly 2 billion dollars worth of nuke plant destroyed, but with zero damage to the public.

Got to quote Colonel Potter again “HORSEHOCKEY!”  Let’s get our eye back on the energy ball and really try to deal with the problems.