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

152Disasters Waiting to Happenmate heat sink”–a source of cooling to carry away the core’s decay heat.For any power plant, but especially for nuclear plants because they needcooling for decay heat after shutdown, “the screenhouse [intake structure] isprobably the most vulnerable point of sabotage in steam generating stations.” 90(This may be one of the things that Dr. Bruce Welch, a former NavyUnderwater Demolitions officer, had in mind in his widely publicizedCongressional testimony that with a few randomly selected military demolitionpeople he “could sabotage virtually any nuclear reactor in the country.” 91A retired Green Beret colonel, Aaron Bank, testified before the sameCommittee to similar effect about the San Onofre plant, near former PresidentNixon’s house: the intake structures of that reactor are unusually accessible.)Proposals to harden the systems which remove decay heat were long ignored,but after the Three Mile Island accident they are considered a high priority. 92Standoff weapons may include mortars, rockets, precision-guided munitions,fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, or remotely piloted vehicles. Inspectionsof analyses of the seismic resonances of major reactor structures also suggeststhat an exotic possibility–standoff attack by infrasound generators tuned topublished resonant frequencies–cannot be wholly disregarded. Key controland safety circuitry, as noted in Chapter Seven, may also be vulnerable tointense electromagnetic pulses, which a good physicist could generate locallywith a homemade, transportable standoff device. 93Onsite overt attacks could be meant to take over the plant. The staff couldbe subdued or killed with ordinary weapons or by introducing a rapidly lethalgas into the ventilating system. The latter method might be quick enough toprevent operators from raising the alarm, isolating control room ventilation,or shutting down the reactor, and it might be the method of choice for aninsider. (It also raises the questions, nowhere answered in the literature, ofhow safe a power reactor would remain if all its staff suddenly dropped dead.)Once the plant has been seized, its security devices and the shielding and lifesupportsystems of the control room would all help to protect its occupiersfrom both invaders and external radioactive releases. The occupants couldthen do either of two things, or both in succession, at comparative leisure.First, they could use their power over the costly plant and its dangerouscontents as a basis for political negotiations, as in the plot of a recent JamesBond novel. 94 The negotiations might be secret initially, with the threat of disclosureand ensuing public panic used as a bargaining chip. Various concessionscould be demanded. Serious damage could be undertaken if the concessionswere not forthcoming–or possibly straightaway if the occupiers preferredpeople dead to people watching, or if they could not competently maintainthe plant in safe condition. Such a situation would lead at a minimum to