[Fwd: [biofuel] Global atomic agency confesses little can be done to safeguardnuclear plants]

[Harmon Seaver]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [biofuel] Global atomic agency confesses little can
be done to safeguardnuclear plants
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:07:31 +0900
From: Keith Addison <keith at journeytoforever.org>
To: biofuel at yahoogroups.com

http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/09/09192001/ap_45005.asp
- 9/19/2001 - ENN.com
Global atomic agency confesses little can be done to
safeguard nuclear plants

Wednesday, September 19, 2001

By William J. Kole, Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria - Security is being tightened at the world's
nuclear 
power plants, an international watchdog agency said Monday,
but it 
conceded that little can be done to shield a nuclear
facility from a 
direct hit by an airliner.

Most nuclear power plants were built during the 1960s and
1970s, and 
like the World Trade Center, they were designed to withstand
only 
accidental impacts from the smaller aircraft widely used at
the time, 
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said as it
opened its 
annual conference. "If you postulate the risk of a jumbo jet
full of 
fuel, it is clear that their design was not conceived to
withstand 
such an impact," spokesman David Kyd said.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was among delegates
from 132 
nations who opened the conference with calls to better
safeguard 
nuclear plants and to keep nuclear materials out of
terrorists' hands.

Abraham brought a message from President George W. Bush to
the 
Vienna-based IAEA, urging the agency to keep pace with "the
real and 
growing threat of nuclear proliferation." The world "must
ensure that 
nuclear materials are never used as weapons of terror,"
Abraham said. 
"We cannot assume that tomorrow's terrorist acts will mirror
those 
we've just experienced."

In the wake of last week's attacks in New York and
Washington, 
governments have tightened security outside nuclear power
and 
radioactive waste facilities worldwide.

But Japan, which is heavily dependent on nuclear energy and
has 52 
nuclear plants, warned Monday that although tighter security
is 
needed, nothing can shield the plants from attacks by
missiles or 
aircraft.

Conference delegates, who began Monday with a minute of
silence and a 
song from the Vienna Boy's Choir in memory of the victims of
the U.S. 
attacks, met behind closed doors Monday and Tuesday on ways
to 
improve plant security.

In the West, nuclear power plants were designed more with
ground 
vehicle attacks in mind, Kyd said. Although many were
designed to 
withstand a glancing blow from a small commercial jetliner,
a direct 
hit at high speed by a modern jumbo jet "could create a
Chernobyl 
situation," said an American official who declined to be
identified. 
However, the buildings that house nuclear reactors
themselves are far 
smaller targets than the Pentagon posed, and it would be
extremely 
difficult for a terrorist to mount a direct hit at an angle
that 
could unleash a catastrophic chain of events, Kyd said.

If a nuclear power plant were hit by an airliner, the
reactor would 
not explode, but such a strike could destroy the plant's
cooling 
systems. That could cause the nuclear fuel rods to overheat
and 
produce a steam explosion that could release lethal
radioactivity 
into the atmosphere.

The IAEA said it would work more closely with Interpol and
other 
police agencies to minimize the risk of nuclear materials
falling 
into terrorists' hands. Over the past 12 months, there have
been 13 
known interceptions of trafficked nuclear material
worldwide, the 
agency said.

Officials said it takes at least eight kilograms (17 1/2
pounds) of 
plutonium or 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of enriched uranium to
produce 
a single nuclear weapon, but that only miniscule amounts of
those 
metals are known to have been smuggled in recent years.

"A nuclear weapon requires tremendous expertise. We have no 
indications that any terrorist group is that advanced," Kyd said.

Although nuclear waste potentially could be used to produce
a 
"radiological" weapon, it would take months or years to
kill, and it 
is far cheaper to obtain compounds that could be used to
create 
lethal chemical weapons, he said.

Copyright 2001, Associated Press

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