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

Chapter Eleven: Nuclear Power 153the economic loss of the plant and probable ruin for its owners; at a maximum,to all of that plus major releases of radioactivity.Two types of deliberate damage, not mutually exclusive, seem possible.Mere demolition is straightforward. Saboteurs wanting to guarantee a majorrelease, and not completely confident that the events they set in motion wouldcause a major breach in the crucial containment building, could of courseblow holes in it; but it would be easier simply to open the dome’s personnelairlock doors. (The San Onofre information center used to show every houra film demonstrating how these doors work.) 95 Mindful of the near miss atBrowns Ferry, a low-technology saboteur with an experimental frame of mindmight want to see what arson in the cable-spreading room would do.Alternatively, depending on the occupiers’ technical knowledge, control systemsmight be disabled, bypassed, or reversed so as to make the plant destroyitself. Both normal and emergency coolant could be removed or stagnated. Insome circumstances, large overpower transients might be achievable, especiallywith the help of insiders. The occupiers could use, alter, or disable allthe electrical systems, controls, cables, valves, pumps, pipes, and so on virtuallyat will. Even major components are highly vulnerable to commerciallyavailable shaped charges, to thermic rods (“burn bars”), and to thermal shock.Once sabotage had begun, repairs and countermeasures could rapidly becomeimpossible even if the plant’s operators quickly regained control of the site. Keyparts of the plant could be then already be filled with steam, water, noxious gases,or high levels of radioactivity. It could be impossible even to assess damage. Accessto the inside or outside of the plant could readily be prohibited by radioactivereleases, chemic poisons, or conventional munitions wielded by defenders fromtheir concrete fortress–which their adversaries would hardly want to damage.Those adversaries would have to include and coordinate counterinsurgencyforces, health physics teams, and reactor engineers. Further, though onecan doubtless assume considerable ingenuity and courage on the part of theforces of law and order, the history of major nuclear accidents suggests thatone can also expect a full measure of confusion, error, foolishness, and possiblypanic. Panic would almost certainly ensue in downwind areas, probablyleading to considerable loss of life and property and hindering the arrival ofback-up teams. And of course if a meltdown did occur, then events onsite andreleases offsite would, by general consensus, be uncontrollable and unstoppablein principle, owing to extreme radiation fields and formidable temperatures,masses, and chemical properties of the materials involved. Major psychological,political, and economic trauma on a national or world scale wouldbe inevitable. Civil liberties and indeed civil (as opposed to martial) lawwould probably, as in a nuclear bomb threat, be among the early casualties. 96