Slashdot Mirror
What's Being Done About Nuclear Security
KrisCowboy writes "Wired.com has an interesting article about Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's speech about the defensive measures being taken at the Nuclear Energy warehouses. 'Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads,' he promises. Keeping in mind the recent Slashdot story about a
Hafnium bomb, more security measures are needed, and fast."
'Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads,'
Hmph, to put it where exactly?
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
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Atomic weapons storage being centralized will probably increase rather than decrease risk of terrorism.
Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads ... and transported thousands of miles across America's vulnerable road system, which are vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Keeping in mind the recent Slashdot story about a Hafnium bomb, more security measures are needed, and fast
Talk about going off-topic. Isotope bombs, which are not even feasible at this point and require a pretty massive technological base to even think about playing with, really aren't what we should be worried about regarding storage of nuclear research materials. In fact, I'd say the nuclear materials and research inside the US are probably better locked-down than just about anywhere else.
Hell, the most-likely nuclear terrorism scenario in my estimation is someone purchasing a radiation-therapy machine and randomly zapping people with lethal doses from inside a truck-mounted setup. Given a cool million to purchase some used medical equipment, you don't even need to try to steal nuclear material from federal facilities.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
I'd opt for "government intelligence" in this case.
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
All this stuff about 'securing our nuclear stockpiles' is so much hogwash. The stockpiles are pretty secure as it is, it would take more than just a few guys with guns to get to anything that's bomb grade. IN THE US. The really dangerous stockpiles are the ones that have little or no oversight at all or where oversight was only added after the horse already left the barn. Countries like, but not neccesarily limited to Pakistan, Iran, former USSR, India and so on are far more of a risk in this respect than the US. In Africa there are natural nuclear reactors where the 'yellowcake' can be dug up by a bunch of determined guys with shovels and a lack of desire to live. It wouldn't take a whole lot to pack a container full of this stuff, a timing mechanism and a bunch of diesel for a very large dirty bomb that can be set of by remote in a shipping yard or so. Not that it would kill a lot of people, but it could shut down a major harbour for a long long time. Of course the countries that are most likely to be at risk are also partners in the so called war on terrorism so we can't really offend them. And when that islamic coup happens in Pakistan (anybody have any odds on that ?) it will be *far* too late to get moving. Nuclear proliferation has gone way too far to put the genie back in the bottle unless there will be a genuine international effort to round up *ALL* the fissionable material (including that in the US) and to place it under international (UN) oversight. The current reasoning seems to be that only 'democratic' countries can have it, unless you manage to join the nuclear club in secret because then you become untouchable. And those are the real weapons of mass distruction we're talking about, not some imagined gas cannisters or non existant Iraqi bombs...
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No matter how much you do, some fraction of your vital infrastructure will always be vulnerable to a sufficiently powerful and well-organised attack. If you protected every critical piece of infrastructure in a country -- all the power stations, water supplies, transport routes, government hubs, etc. -- then you'd expend far more resources than are practical on security, and having so many people in the system would cause weak links anyway.
Ultimately, you can't prevent an unknown enemy from committing an unknown act forever. All you can do is your best to stop it (and that's better done starting from intelligence rather than raw defensive power at every vulnerable point) and your best to clean up the mess (e.g., by having back-up generators in key places like hospitals in case the power does go out).
A more serious question that I'd pose, given the above harsh-but-true assessment, is how much could quality of life in general be improved if all the resources being diverted in the name of "fighting terrorism" were invested in hospitals, schools, etc. in the first place.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Some time ago, post september 11th, the Nuclear Regulatory commission decreed that the security at nuclear power plants was not enough, and that it should be increased.
Ok, that's all well and fine, as much as I hate the nanny state, that's what they're there for, and we have to deal with it.
So, these security upgrades, required by the NRC if we are to continue generating nuclear power, where initially scheduled to be done by this coming october.
This was a reasonable timeframe at the initial order.
Except every month or two, they'd increase or change the theoretical attack our security would have to be able to repel.
And then never move the completion date back to allow time to make adjustments for their continual meddling.
So now, at my plant, we have a huge security capital project that needs to be done in 5 months, because the NRC just finished up their requirements, finally, two months ago. The engineering and construction firms obviously need time to design a system to meet the NRC standards, and prepare for it's construction.
So basically we're spending 15 million dollars on a rush job because the NRC has no fucking clue how businesses work, and allow no time adjustment for their indecision.
And the funny part is that even if a team of terrorists got past our already substantial security (both physical and personell), they'd have no fucking clue how to cause any damage that would extend beyond the plant or spread radiation to the public- figuring out such a thing requires years of studying the plant's most intimate workings.
Fuckin NRC.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Hell, the most-likely nuclear terrorism scenario in my estimation is someone purchasing a radiation-therapy machine and randomly zapping people with lethal doses from inside a truck-mounted setup. Given a cool million to purchase some used medical equipment, you don't even need to try to steal nuclear material from federal facilities.
It's worse that you think. A number of years ago (maybe 10 to 20?), the radiation detectors at Los Alamos went off when a delivery of patio furniture passed by. Turns out the cast iron in the furniture contained Cobalt-60. Tracing the shipment back, they found that the furniture had been made in Mexico from scrap metal. Someone in Mexico had sold a radiation therapy machine as scrap.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
"Keeping in mind the recent Slashdot story about a Hafnium bomb, more security measures are needed, and fast."
I don't know where to begin with this. We should be more afraid because of technology we don't even have yet (and may never have) might get into the hands of terrorists? Do they have some massive R&D lab hidden in the mountains near Pakistan? And what does a theoretical isotope bomb have to do with our current nuclear stockpile?
My family and I were on vacation in the north-eastern United States a couple of years back. My dad wanted to check out the Three Mile Island vistor center, as he's a bionuclear physicist and is really geeked up over that kind of a thing. We had one of those Hertz rental cars with the GPS helper, so we checked and the visitor center was on there, so we told it to take us there. We pulled in where it told us to, into a street that wasn't much bigger than a driveway. Within a matter of moments we were boxed in by a few Humvees (not the street-legal models, the big should-have-treads things), and have guns pointed at us from all around. We're told very persistantly to slowly get out of the car and put our hands on the hood. We did so, they took our pictures, ran our fingerprints, called in two trucks full of troops to help the obviously overpowered platoon that was trying to keep a family of four under tight watch. Safeties were off, we were potential enemies. After an hour or so (and a search of us and the car) they let us go, told us to never came back, but were nice enough to point us in the direction of the -real- visitor's center. It was closed for the day -_-.