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City At Risk
Area nuclear plants... vulnerable to disastrous terrorist attack
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When Creative Loafing asked Duke Energy if its reactors could stand up to a terrorist attack by plane, we were given a copy of the same video widely distributed to the media in the Indian Point debate. The Sandia Laboratories video, which shows a jet slamming into a concrete wall, is initially compelling. In the video, an F-4 fighter jet crashes into the wall at 480 miles an hour. The plane is decimated, but the wall remains standing, virtually undamaged. After a little digging, CL learned what the video doesn't show: the wall the 42,000-pound F-4 jet crashed into was 12 feet thick and weighed 1 million pounds. And unlike most commercial planes flying today, the F-4 carried water instead of stored fuel.
When CL later questioned Duke Energy officials about the weight and thickness of the wall, it was explained to us that the purpose of the test shown in the video was to evaluate the behavior of concrete structures, not to prove that the containment structures on the site could hold up to aerial assault.
"People have asked that $64,000 question -- could the containment system survive a direct hit by a 757?" said Pettit, the Duke spokesman. "One of the answers to that is that's not really the issue. You want to know could the plant and all the redundant and diverse safety systems continue to cool the fuel and prevent a radiological accident from happening. Even if something breaches the reactor's containment structure, knocks the top off, crushes a big hole in the side, the reactor vessel is located in the heart of the building and is protected by multiple barriers of rebar-enforced concrete. Diverse safety systems are spatially located around the containment building to prevent taking out more than one component of the system."
Not exactly, said Lochbaum, the nuclear systems engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"The reactor vessel is a big pot," Lochbaum said. "Pipes carry water and steam in and out. If you broke either or both of the pipes [that carry steam or water in and out of the reactor] those backup safety systems would be useless."
Assuming that terrorists managed to crash a large enough plane through the walls of a reactor, he says, meltdown could be caused in one of two ways. The impact would disrupt the cooling flow of water through the reactor. The water would eventually boil; the reactor fuel itself would be uncovered, overheat, melt through some or all of its surroundings and release deadly radiation. Or, he says, the impact of a jet could cause the water to be drained out of the reactor right away, causing the meltdown to happen much quicker.
The nuclear industry recently commissioned and paid for its own study of reactor safety from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Preliminary results of the study indicate that a commercial aircraft like that used in the September 11 attacks isn't likely to penetrate the containment buildings that house the reactor or other buildings that store irradiated fuel.
Critics, however, say the results of this study are questionable at best, for several reasons. According to its website, EPRI, which has non-profit and for-profit arms, was created to represent and advocate for the interests of the energy industry, and to profit from providing consulting and research and development services to more than 1000 energy producing companies worldwide. Unlike the NRC studies, full details of how the study was conducted won't be released in detail to the public for "security reasons."
What EPRI was willing to divulge was that it tested the impact of a Boeing 767 upon a reactor using the ground speed and angles associated with the September 11 attack on the Pentagon. EPRI researchers contend that it would be virtually impossible for a pilot to maintain enough control of a commercial aircraft in a steep dive to hit the dome on the top of a containment structure, the weakest part of the reactor's protection system. The pilot would have to fly at low altitude where he could not maintain significant speed, EPRI contends, thus the plane they used in the test run only traveled at 300 miles an hour.
Less Protected So far, it's the nuclear reactors that have gotten the most public scrutiny when it comes to the possibility of terrorist attack. But what most people don't realize is that terrorists wouldn't have to hit the reactor to wreak deadly havoc.
Those who know the layout of nuclear plants say that the vast quantities of spent fuel stored at most US power plants, including McGuire and Catawba, could pose an even greater threat if attacked than would a reactor.
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