Nuclear - Energy Policy Analysis: A Conceptual Framework - page 66

tors. Governments may also accumulate plutonium for the initial loadings of future commercial
breeder reactors. They do not have to steal these stocks or even divert them in order to be very
close to being able to make nuclear explosives (Wohlstetter et al. 1979, 23).
With creation of new nuclear powers in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine since the
breakup of the former Soviet Union, concerns about proliferation of nuclear materials appear to
have increased somewhat (Martinez 2002, 261; Sailor 1999, 112).
Vulnerability to Terrorist Action
Nuclear reactors, fuel enrichment and fabrication facilities, and temporary spent fuel storage facili-
ties remain vulnerable to terrorist attack in the United States. A terrorists' goal could be either to
impose massive radiation contamination on nearby populations or to obtain fissile materials for use
in a subsequent attack on a different location. The most likely terrorist targets are considered to be
nuclear reactors and pools storing spent fuel. Since 9/11, the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), the NRC, and the United Kingdom Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology
have all stated that no existing reactors were designed or built to withstand the impact of a large
commercial aircraft loaded with jet fuel (Ruff 2006; Barnaby 2005; Farneth 2005).
To do unacceptable damage, it would not be necessary to breach a reactor core. Some structural
damage plus a large hot fire sufficient to damage cooling water conduits or electrical wiring supply-
ing reactor safety systems would be enough to cause loss of coolant to the reactor core, resulting in
a meltdown. Although this would not produce a nuclear explosion, the resulting steam explosion
might be sufficient to disperse highly radioactive particles over a wide geographic area, contami-
nating many square miles. Reactors located near large cities like New York or Chicago would be
particularly attractive targets (Ruff 2006; Barnaby 2005; Farneth 2005), as their destruction would
expose massive human populations to radioactivity, destroy property, and cause widespread fear.
One study of a scenario in which a hijacked airliner crashes into a nuclear power plant outside
Chicago estimated that more than 7.5 million people would be exposed to more than the maximum
allowed annual population radiation dose, of whom more than 4.6 million would receive more than
the maximum occupational radiation dose; more than 200,000 would develop radiation sickness
and 20,000 might receive a lethal dose (Helfand et al. 2006; Ruff 2006). A meltdown at a nuclear
power plant near New York City was estimated to result in 44,000 radiation deaths within one
year and 518,000 excess cancer deaths over time. Huge areas would be uninhabitable for many
years, and economic losses could run over US$2 trillion (Ruff 2006; Lyman 2004).
Spent fuel pools are attractive terrorist targets because buildings housing them are typically
constructed like corrugated metal warehouses, which lack the hardening and multiple layers of
containment a reactor has, and they often contain ten to twenty times the amount of radioactivity
as a reactor core (Ruff 2006, 4). Consequently, an attack on a reprocessing plant or fuel storage
pool could result in a greater and longer-duration radioactivity release than an attack on a nuclear
reactor (Ruff 2006; Barnaby 2005). Terrorists seeking to impose such costs on a population might
achieve their goal using any one of the following means:
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