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American Morning

The Big Question: Can U.S. Protect Nuclear Power Plants?

Aired February 01, 2002 - 08:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The big question this hour, can the U.S. protect nuclear power plants? CNN obtained a memo from the Nuclear Regulator Commission, saying terrorists had plans to fly planes into nuclear reactors, but we are now being told that that memo went out by mistake, and was based on old information.

Nevertheless, this week, we have been getting word from the president and a number of top officials about new terror threats, including against nuclear threats.

Let's go to now CNN's Bill Delaney who is outside the Seabrooke nuclear power plant with more -- Bill.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Officials here at Seabrooke say they take every advisory from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission very seriously, and there have been some 20 of them since 9/11. On the other hand, they also tell us that this latest memorandum, that January 23rd memorandum, warning of plans within Al Qaeda to send a large commercial jet into a power plant, they say they believe all of this is a noncredible threat, too nonspecific, they say, for them to change any of the procedures here.

All nuclear power plants, all 103 of them around the country, including Seabrooke of course, have already been on highest alert since 9/11. That means more perimeter security. That means it's much harder to get any sort of public access to these power plants.

And certainly here at Seabrooke, they told us for months now that this plant is fortified enough to sustain a hit from any commercial jet out there.

A little earlier, we spoke to Alan Griffiths, who is a spokesman for Seabrooke, and he described how well protected the nuclear reactor core is here at Seabrooke.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN GRIFFITH, SEABROOKEE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT: We're confident that the kind of attack that we saw september 11th is 1th could be repelled at the Seabrooke station. We have a unique dome within a dome design that is unique to the industry. It's six and a half feet of steel reinforced concrete. The reactor vessel is 8-12 inches thick, solid steel. Uranium pellets are contained inside zircoloy (ph) alloy rods. These are all underground. So we believe that the kind of design that all nuclear power plants have in this country is extremely strong. In fact, they're considered some of the strongest manmade structures in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DELANEY: Nuclear power critics will say, will concede that Seabrooke is well protected. They say every nuclear power plant in the country, however, and there are 103 of them, are not necessarily as well protected as this one is -- Anderson.

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