Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

146Disasters Waiting to HappenIllinois, 34 Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania, 35 Fort St. Vrain in Colorado, Trojanin Oregon in 1974 (during construction), Browns Ferry in Alabama in 1980(reportedly including the disabling of closed-circuit TV cameras), and BeaverValley in Pennsylvania in 1981. 36 A Swiss reactor was also reportedly sabotagedby workers. 37 During a strike against Florida Power and LightCompany, there were one hundred one incidents of sabotage damaging equipmentoffsite, and the FBI was alerted to a rumored plan to sabotage the maingenerator at the Turkey Point nuclear plant.Suspected arson has occurred at the General Electric Company’s KnollsAtomic Power Laboratory in New York State, at several other U.S. nuclearresearch facilities, and in 1975 in an equipment storage barn at the West Valley(New York) reprocessing plant. The Winfrith, Wylfa, and Berkeley reactors inBritain have been damaged by sabotage during construction or operation—Winfrith when a mercury compound was poured into the calandria, where itamalgamated with the aluminum alloy, causing serious damage. Two controlroom workers at the Surry reactor in Virginia were convicted in October 1979 ofcausing on million dollars’ damage “to bring public attention to what theydescribed as lax security and unsafe working conditions at the plant. 38 (Such sabotagewas made a federal crime in 1980.) 39 Numerous nuclear facilities of all kindshave received threats, usually bomb hoaxes; during 1969–76, licensed nuclearfacilities recorded ninety-nine threats or acts of violence in the United Kingdom.By 1979–80 the U.S. list had expanded to over four hundred incidents, of whichthree hundred fifty were telephoned bomb threats to nuclear facilities. 40Breaches of security at nuclear facilities In 1966, twenty natural uranium fuelrods were stolen from the Bradwell reactor in England, and in 1971, five moredisappeared at or in transit to the Wylfa reactor. In 1971, an intruder woundeda night watchman at the Vermont Yankee reactor. The New YorkUniversity reactor building was broken into in 1972. So was the Oconee reactor’sfresh fuel storage building in 1973. The fence of the Erwin (Tennessee)plant handling highly enriched uranium was partly climbed in 1974 and fullypenetrated in 1975, both times without theft. 41 So was the Kerr McGee plutoniumplant in Oklahoma in 1975–where security was reportedly then so laxthat five to ten thousand dollars’ worth of platinum was stolen and carriedhome by workers. In 1975 the Biblis reactor in Germany (then the world’slargest), a Member of Parliament carried a bazooka into the plant under hiscoat and presented it to the director. A Canadian Member of Parliament likewisecarried an unchecked satchel into the Pickering plant.In 1977, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector was admitted to theFort St. Vrain control room unescorted and without having to identify him-