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CNN Live At Daybreak
Conflicting Statements Cast Doubt on Security of U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Against Attacks
Aired November 08, 2001 - 08:19 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Nuclear power industry says the U.S. nuclear plant can withstand a jetliner crash like the ones that leveled the World Trade Center. But how safe are they really?
CNN's Financial News Correspondent Steve Young has been looking into this, and he has a little bit more for us.
Steve, I guess there's really only one way to know and we don't want to find out that way, right?
STEVE YOUNG, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Empirically, but the Nuclear Energy Institute, Miles, says it is confident that 757s, 67s, 77s could smash into plants around the country, and they would stand tall and be invincible.
The problem with that is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that that's never been a test of planes of that kind: large-body, three, four, 500,000 pounds -- 75,000 pounds of fuel. So there is no hard data about that.
O'BRIEN: I've got to say, it makes me think of the famous quotes -- we all heard about the World Trade Center designers -- saying that an airliner could fly into the Trade Centers and it would withstand it. Of course, at the time they were thinking about 707s.
YOUNG: Right. Right. We do know, though, a little bit, although you wouldn't know it from the NRC. In a letter to Congressman Ed Markey of the House Energy Committee, the NRC said that no studies had been done, but, courtesy of Congressman Markey, this is a 1982 study done by the Argon Laboratory for the NRC. It's a compilation of other work, but it concludes that there are serious jeopardy -- there could be multiple failures, including what they call the yard -- the switch yard outside these plants, which have all the power controls. And if they were damaged, you could get into an emergency cooling shutdown situation.
O'BRIEN: You could get into a meltdown situation.
YOUNG: Right.
O'BRIEN: And the other issue that comes up time and again is the spent, fuel, which is not usually in as hardened a location necessarily. YOUNG: Right.
O'BRIEN: Often times it can be just as toxic.
YOUNG: Industry says -- well it's under 25 feet of water -- some of it isn't even under water. It's in dry casks outside the plant. Another issue, quickly, of course, is ground terrorists. The industry runs tests, and according to some metrics -- half -- well 47 percent of the plants have failed these tests even though the operators are given six months advanced notice, even though the rules are kind of cooked on the sense that you can only have three terrorists and they limit the weapons. Some people are now saying, Miles, they should have to have a test with 19 terrorists coming from four different directions.
O'BRIEN: Fair enough and I'm going to ask our guest coming up this same question, Pearce (ph), what you think. A lot of people are saying that anti aircraft installations should be at these nuclear plants. Would you go along with that?
YOUNG: That has been recommended by the Nuclear Control Institute manned by the military -- to be sure, yeah.
O'BRIEN: All right, Steve Young, that's a fascinating piece and we'll look for that a little bit later in the day. Thanks for joining us this morning.
You can see Steve Young's report on nuclear power safety on tonight's "MONEYLINE" with Lou Dobbs. It's at 6:00 Eastern Time right here on CNN.
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