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

Chapter Seven: War and Terrorism 77training with automatic weapons for jungle warfare were arrested for trespassingafter five days of secret maneuvers on the borders of the Crystal Rivernuclear power plant in Florida. 71 They were observed more or less by accident,and nobody knew who they were—whether they were “a drug-offloadingoperation, a subversive group trying to get the power plant or a CIA operation,”according to the sheriff. His aide added: “If they were the real McCoy,we wouldn’t have been any match for’em.... This damn sure oughta wake upthe nuclear power industry.... A good assault team could have taken thatplant.” 72 The month after the thirteen mercenaries were released on their ownrecognizance, two of them were rearrested with guns and explosives in Miami,where it was believed they were about to plant a bomb. 73Insiders and security lapsesSuch a straightforward light-infantry group is a less formidable threat, however,than just one or two insiders with knowledge of and access to the plant’s vitalareas. Aid from insiders has characterized many of the biggest and smoothestthefts and hijackings. 74 (Impersonation of insiders has also worked every time itwas tried.) 75 “In the … theft [of nearly six million dollars] from Lufthansa at theJFK Airport, a ten-year Lufthansa employee was promised three hundred thousanddollars (more than any other participant) … [simply to leave] his post formore than an hour and a half.” 76 A Bank of New Mexico burglary on the highsecuritySandia nuclear base in 1955 appears to have had inside help on the base. 77Other examples cited in Chapter Eleven indicate that even nuclear facilitiesrequiring the most stringent clearance and vetting of employees may harborpotential criminals. The former security director of the Atomic EnergyCommission was himself sentenced to three years’ probation in 1973 after borrowingtwo hundred thirty-nine thousand dollars from fellow AEC employees,spending much of it at the racetrack, and failing to repay over one hundred seventythousand dollars. 78A particularly worrisome sort of insider help is security guards. The guardforces at nuclear power plants are claimed to be better selected, trained, andequipped than guards at any other energy facilities. Nonetheless, as of 1977,guard forces at many reactors not only were of low quality, but had a turnoverrate of a third to a half per year, with departing guards taking with them an intimateknowledge of up-to-date security arrangements. 79 A local newspaperreporter got a job as a security guard at Three Mile Island, then prepared a seriesof articles which the utility unsuccessfully sought an injunction to suppress 80 onthe grounds that—as the utility’s lawyers put it—revealing “the specific details ofthe security system … presents a significant, serious, grave security threat ...