Secret US List of Civil Nuclear Sites Released

eldavojohn writes "Someone accidentally released a 266-page report on hundreds of sites in the US for stockpiling and storing hazardous nuclear materials for civilian use. While some ex-officials and experts don't find it to be a serious breach, the Federation of American Scientists are calling it a 'a one-stop shop for information on US nuclear programs.' The document contains information about Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia, and opinions seem to be split on whether it's a harmless list or terrorist risk. One thing is for sure: it was taken down after the New York Times inquired to the Government Accountability Office about it."

Comments

glad they took it down.....

[Shakrai]

Now nobody will ever be able to find it ;)

Re:glad they took it down.....

[Ethanol-fueled]

Oh, well. At least they still have Google Earth to tell them, "Hey, terrorists, don't look here. There's nothing sekrit about our blurred base, move along."

Re:glad they took it down.....

[Shakrai]

Hmm, that article is interesting.

For the most part, satellite imagery services have reached agreements with various governments about whether they can photograph sensitive locations and, if so, at what resolution. Similar informal agreements exist with companies such as Microsoft and Google, which provide maps and virtual earth services. For example, as shown here, the images available of the neighborhood near Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC start to get blurry as the service maps areas closer to the White House.

But these sorts of agreements are informal and, apparently, subject to revision without notice. That's the apparent message of a story that appeared in The Sun, which found that a military base that houses some of the country's nuclear-armed submarines had lost the protective fuzziness that had masked its appearance in earlier versions of Google's imagery service.

Maybe it's just newer pictures with a better satellite and there never was any "informal agreement" to begin with?

Re:glad they took it down.....

[Anonymous Coward]

so they accidentaly the whole list ?

Re:glad they took it down.....

[Reece400]

Oh Great, That will work well.. The terrorists will assume these blurs are all military bases, etc. like they are in the rest of the country and bomb them all! Might as well paint a target on them instead!

Re:glad they took it down.....

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Obama_IAEA_nuclear_sites_declaration_for_the_United_States%2C_draft%2C_267_pages%2C_5_May_2009

Re:glad they took it down.....

[mea37]

You're suggesting the selective blurring of the base in the older imagery was a coincidence? It was blurrier than other imagery of neighboring areas from the same time period...

So I think a better hypothesis is, there was/is an informal agreement, but when updated photography came in somebody goofed up and didn't re-blur it before re-applying it.

Re:glad they took it down.....

[overcaffein8d]

Maybe the people who built the building didn't do it right, and the building itself is blurry.

jesus

[ilblissli]

how in the hell have there been so many serious leaks like this recently? why is no one being held accountable?

Re:jesus

[Tukz]

It's not really "leaks".
It's Obama doing a spring cleaning after Bush' mess.

Re:jesus

[notarockstar1979]

I can only answer one of those. There are so many serious leaks because people aren't being held accountable. Hang someone in the public square for it (figuratively) and make an example of them. Others will secure their data pretty quickly.

Re:jesus

[ilblissli]

i think they need to do it literally. if selling national secrets is treason punishable by death, leaking them should also be.

Re:jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called an Open Government.

Re:jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

how in the hell have there been so many serious leaks like this recently? why is no one being held accountable?

The first answer is : Its the Government
The second answer is: see first answer.

Re:jesus

[sillybilly]

Some people in the Dept of Fatherland Security are really bored, because there is not enough action, and it's hard for them to justify their jobs. They can't find people skilled enough to build a bomb, who can be motivated or pissed off enough to do so, even with superhuman effort on their part. People who are smart enough simply won't do it. Because if they did that would be the ultimate excuse to take all your freedoms away, because the antiterrorism message today is falling on deaf ears, and people prefer having their freedoms instead.

Even terrorists fight for some kind of cause, and sometimes the price is too high to pay for advancing your cause. I don't see homegrown US nuclear terrorists, because of the few that happened, one denied things, so that might have been a setup, another did a manifesto and just wanted attention, and the rest all came from the middle east. The only place I can really see that much hatred between neighbors is the middle east, and they might come over here, if they were angered enough, and had the technology in hand. Iran might be cocky and demanding at international conferences, but for them to pull the trigger would be an immediate suicide. The real issue is them supplying others who are angered enough, and whatever will be will be. India and Pakistan have been going at it, and they could have used the stuff, and they continue to get angered against each other, but the nuclear trigger hasn't been pulled yet, and hopefully never will be. Ideally people should stop angering each other to the point where they are willing to kill each other. There should be a way where both you and I can find room and place in this world to coexist or be far enough to leave each other alone. That means sacrifice and compromise on both side.

For instance, me, I really believe in reducing dependence on oil, and driving less, but unfortunately the only way to really find peace is to run away far from any neighbours, and driving a lot over it. That's a large sacrifice, but still preferable to standing your ground and fighting, or trying to convince someone to change their mind. I prefer peace at almost any sacrifice. And I'd like to think so do most people in the world, it takes a tremendous amount of either tresspassing for people to generate enough hate, or selfishness for yourself/family/tribe/nation/etc.. uncaring of those outside of it, for committing enough trespassing so that killing to starts happening as a retaliation.

Re:jesus

[budgenator]

The report details the locations of hundreds of nuclear sites and activities. Each page is marked across the top âoeHighly Confidential Safeguards Sensitiveâ in capital letters, with the exception of pages that detailed additional information like site maps. In his transmittal letter, Mr. Obama said the cautionary language was a classification category of the International Atomic Energy Agencyâ(TM)s inspectors. U.S. Accidentally Releases List of Nuclear Sites

As much as I like to ding the Obama administration, the truth is just because the IAEA thinks something is confidential doesn't mean the USG should think the same. Security through obscurity isn't security and all the info is available through other public channels, so I don't see it as a big deal. We invaded Iraq because they made it difficult for the IAEA weapon inspectors, now with the current situation in Iran and N. Korea this accidental on purpose release is an example of leading by example.

Terrorist's response...

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr

Secret Open Government

[azior]

Nice juxtaposition:

Open Government Brainstorm Defies Wisdom of Crowds
Secret US List of Civil Nuclear Sites Released

oops

[Anonymous Coward]

oops

"for civilian use"

[wjh31]

there is a huge difference between nuclear material for civilian use, and weapons grade stuff. Even if some terrorists were able to get a-hold of civilian nuclear material they probably wouldnt be able to make a nuke. Having said that, a dirty bomb requires no expertese atall

Re:"for civilian use"

[Big Hairy Ian]

I just loved the 3 sites mentioned in the summary did anyone not know they were in the Nuclear industry??? You are correct though even if they did get their hands on Civilian Nuclear materials (Even the top end stuff) they wouldn't be able to make anything more than a dirty bomb. One quibble on that front though many of these facilities also produce Nuclear materials for the military. I'm sure they are only ever stored in small quantities before being shipped off somewhere that's actually secret i.e. not on this list but it's still a potential risk.

Re:"for civilian use"

[dubiago]

There were some pretty hefty reassurances during the Clinton Administration about the nature of nuclear proliferation when they gave North Korea nuclear reactors; they'd never make nuclear weapons as a result of having the reactors. Flash forward to a week ago, and they've detonated a ~20KT nuclear device. Some of this may just be the government playing C.Y.A., and flashing a "Don't Panic" sign. And, as you point out, dirty bombs aren't that hard to make. They may not have the bang that their fission/fusion cousins have, but they'll certainly make you miserable.

Re:"for civilian use"

[vivaoporto]

The point of terrorism is to create terror, not necessarily by killing people or destroying large infrastructures. A single attack on a civilian nuclear facility, even if it didn't destroy or damage anything sensitive, could be enough to fuel the opponents of nuclear power and set the nuclear energy industry on the USA 50 more years back.

Re:"for civilian use"

[ubersoldat2k7]

Dirty bombs are just too cumbersome. Radiation levels on that stuff are just way to high for some lunatic's bomb engineer to handle, are hard to transport and easily detectable.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Big Hairy Ian]

Agreed although I'm sure it would be back to normal once people had forgotten about it. I mean it's not like people have stopped building ridiculously tall buildings is it. And airport security seems to be there more for show than any kind of serious deterrent.

Re:"for civilian use"

[vivaoporto]

although I'm sure it would be back to normal once people had forgotten about it.

Not really. The Three Mile Island accident was a mild, harmless incident in a nuclear energy facility but it is still used by nuclear energy opponents to denounce the "harms and perils" of the nuclear power.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Qzukk]

Having said that, a dirty bomb requires no expertese atall

Having said that, a dirty bomb requires nothing more than a few dozen smoke detectors, and if They didn't want to pay for it, the wal-mart down the street almost certainly has lower security than any of the facilities listed.

"The List" doesn't tell most people anything they couldn't already find out themselves if they wanted to (oh look, I can buy this stuff online).

Re:"for civilian use"

[noundi]

Pack the device inside a van holding a sturdy led crate. If you went through the trouble of finding enough radioactive material, the latter is just small potato. I agree though, it's no easy task, but the problem remains to be finding radioactive material to begin with, the rest are just small obstacles.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Big Hairy Ian]

True some important safety legislation came out of that though. Lets face it there were issues with the design which led to a catastrophic failure. Nothing like as bad as Chernobyl but then the Russians are still building fission reactors oooh and selling them to Iran. The people who point out 3 mile island as why nuclear is really dangerous are of the same mob as the people who want to close down the LHC because it might attract the attention of the Mutant Stellar Goat.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Anonymous Coward]

set the nuclear energy industry on the USA 50 more years back

You mean we'd start building reactors again?

Re:"for civilian use"

[dave420]

The point of terrorism is to coerce people, pure and simple. Nothing more, nothing less. The method of terrorism, however, are as you stated - by using violence or the threat of violence.

Re:"for civilian use"

[toQDuj]

[...] could be enough to fuel the opponents of nuclear power [...]

Woah! That's worth exploiting, don't you think?

Re:"for civilian use"

[Anonymous Coward]

There were some issues in the design that *prevented* a Chernobyl type incident.

TMI was probably the only reactor of that type that could have safely melted down like that without containment breach. This is because the secondary containment vessel was specially strengthened to withstand a direct hit from a B52 bomber missing the nearby military base's runway. If the incident had happened in any other contemporaneous reactor, it would have been a disaster.

Re:"for civilian use"

[jonadab]

> A single attack on a civilian nuclear facility ... could fuel opponents
> of nuclear power and set the nuclear energy industry ... years back.

Now, that's an interesting point. I was looking at nuclear sites as being poor targets for terrorism, because their security is disproportionately high for the amount of terror an attack would create (compared to, say, a high-school football stadium, which is thousands of times easier to attack, and hitting a couple dozen of them would create almost as much terror as hitting a nuclear facility). But if the terrorist group's agenda were to harm the nuclear energy industry, rather than just cause random terror in the populace at large, that changes the considerations somewhat.

Nuclear sites are still difficult targets, but they are nonetheless potentially strategic.

Of course, I don't happen to *know* of any terrorist groups whose main agenda is against the nuclear power industry. What would that be, a weird splinter faction off of Greenpeace, or something?

Still, it's interesting to consider.

Re:"for civilian use"

[vlm]

Oh that irony: "Mild, harmless incident". Three Mile Island nearly blew off as later Chernobyl [wikipedia.org] - it was just luck that the crew found the error before.

Flat out blatant scaremongering misinformation.

Chernobyl used graphite as a moderator. Purified coal. Burns great. Perfect way to vaporize the fuel all over the countryside. No problem getting the smoke out of the containment dome, since they didn't have one.

TMI, like pretty much all non-Russian plants, uses water as a moderator. Not exactly a great fuel for vaporizing fuel rods. Containment dome designed to hold specifically for this situation. It worked as designed. Mild and harmless because it was designed to fail that way, and did.

I wont even bother listing differences like positive vs negative void coefficients that acted in our favor.

Also it was not luck that the TMI guys found the stuck valve... The third shift would have sat on their hinders all day in mystification because they had an inaccurate preconceived notion as to what is going on due to some broken equipment. Maybe they would have figured it out eventually, if they drank enough coffee, maybe not. However, the first shift guys came in with no preconceived notions to dispel, looked at all the gauges, more or less said "WTF were you thinking?", and shut it all down no problemo pretty much instantly.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, Chernobyl happened because they were running a known risky test on the reactor without informing the second shift control crew they were doing that, so when the test conditions caused reactor output to drop, the crew overcompensated.

And the Chernobyl reactor didn't have a containment dome.

Re:"for civilian use"

[vlm]

Having said that, a dirty bomb requires nothing more than a few dozen smoke detectors,

No need for that, a granite countertop will do. Many granites are quite strongly radioactive compared to background radiation and are easily detectable using off the shelf geiger counters.

Alpha emitter smoke detectors will not work. Alphas are great for smoke detectors, after all, smoke isn't very dense, so there is a huge signal difference between "clean" and "smokey" air. But that makes it too hard to detect from far away, like more than a foot or so. Wave a cheap beta/gamma-only counter a couple feet away, hear nothing.

So, all you need for a dirty bomb is blow up a granite countertop (or tombstone) and tell the media it's something ... else ... and for a good time they should wave a counter over the dust.

You don't need an unsafe level of radiation for a dirty bomb, after all, that is a huge pain to deal with. All you need is something that clicks a bit more than average on TV. Click-click-click-click-click on the evening news.

Making radioactive contamination takes a heck of a lot more radioactive stuff than merely making radio-clicky-terror on TV. Even if you somehow got the good stuff, better to make a hundred harmless but very clicky "attacks" than one real genuinely dangerous attack.

Doesn't everyone know this? This seems terribly obvious.

Re:"for civilian use"

[AtomicJake]

That Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were completely different nuclear plants was not the point: The point was that Chernobyl exploded and caused many casualties and a highly contaminated environment, while Three Mile Island had luck.

Saying that it was not luck, because the next shift would have done something differently, is pure speculation. However it is no speculation that the TMI accident was very critical and nearly out of control. The next shift would not have had much time to gain control again.

Re:"for civilian use"

[AtomicJake]

The people who point out 3 mile island as why nuclear is really dangerous are of the same mob as the people who want to close down the LHC because it might attract the attention of the Mutant Stellar Goat.

No, you are absolutely wrong. The Three Mile Island incident has clearly shown that you can actually lose control over your reactor, and that this can cause a real accident. I do not think that you can find any scientist who will deny this. On the other hand, the black hole rhetoric of the LHC critics is all but scientific.

Re:"for civilian use"

[richard.cs]

While it's defiantly much harder to make a bomb from civilian nuclear material it's still possible and I'd guess a few skilled engineers (with no regard for their long-term health) could make one in less than 6 months. Spent nuclear fuel contains plutonium which is far easier to separate than the different isotopes of uranium as it can be done by chemical means. The plutonium would be heavily contaminated with Pu-240 which would cause some, not insurmountable, problems.

Implosion devices are out since they're so complicated to design and build which leaves us with the gun type bomb. This is usually considered impractical since the spontaneous fission of the Pu-240 causes the core to blow apart before it's maximum density is reached (fizzle), however a gun type device can be made, it just has to be much longer in order to bring the halves of the core together in a short enough time. This makes it impractical to drop from an aircraft or mount on a missile but such a device could be assembled inside, for example, a high rise office block on a floor chosen to match the airburst altitude for expected yield.

The bomb would probably still fizzle and produce a yield maybe a tenth that if pure Pu-239 could be used but that would be enough, maybe somewhere in the region of one kilo tonne.

Having said that I don't think that this list leaking is of much significance, all of this information was already available.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Alascom]

Its all fun and politics until Seoul and Tokyo and its 20 million residents disappear in a flash of light.

I vote for taking out North Korea today. I'd rather have a 100,000+ casualties today if it can prevent the likely horrific death of 20 million+ later.

Re:"for civilian use"

[sumdumass]

Three mile island was a design failure that has been addressed and fixed. The coolant leak which resulted in low coolant causing resulted in the wrong procedures being implemented and the suspect of faulty sensors. We now measure coolant levels not only in the feed, but in transition through the piping before and after the reactor. There are backup coolant lines to boot.

The entire issue that was behind TMI has been addresses and implemented into all other facilities and the type of incident has never been repeated.

I think the big picture is that once they realized the sensors wasn't at fault and the problem was a lack of coolant verses ineffective coolant-bad readings, figured out a plan, vented for safety and enacted the plan to control the reactor, the biggest problem was the lack of ability to evacuate the surrounding and potentially effected population. Roads were jammed, many people had no immediate transportation and the traffic problems was making it difficult to get buses into the area. The Three mile Island accidence is pretty much impossible to happen again, but it showed how impossible it was to protect the people at the same time.

Re:"for civilian use"

[vux984]

I vote for taking out North Korea today. I'd rather have a 100,000+ casualties today if it can prevent the likely horrific death of 20 million+ later.

What if it can't? What if it just sends the millions of survivors into the death-to-america mindset instead, providing anti-american terrorists a flood of recruits, labor, and funding. And a few years they detonate a nuke in a major city anyway.

"Take out X", that only creates more terrorism, unless you plan to exterminate everyone on the planet but you.

The way to end terrorism is a process of building bridges, not blowing them up.

You will never get it completely gone -- there will always be extremists that can't be reasoned with but, but killing innocent people just swells their ranks instead of diminishing them.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Boronx]

I dirty bomb requires significant expertise if you want to avoid being killed transporting the bomb. Imagine material so hot that its mere radioactivity could endanger a wide area, then concentrate it into the size of a bomb. Plus, dirty bombs are very easy to detect.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Anonymous Coward]

A single attack on a civilian nuclear facility, even if it didn't destroy or damage anything sensitive, could be enough to fuel the opponents of nuclear power and set the nuclear energy industry on the USA 50 more years back.

Then the Americans should be thankful that they don't have the people like the environmental "activists" Germany has in the country...

Re:"for civilian use"

[paeanblack]

Three mile island was a design failure that has been addressed and fixed. The coolant leak which resulted in low coolant causing resulted in the wrong procedures being implemented and the suspect of faulty sensors. We now measure coolant levels not only in the feed, but in transition through the piping before and after the reactor. There are backup coolant lines to boot.

There will be another Three Mile Island-scale accident in the future
There will be another Exxon Valdez
There will be another Cleveland East
There will be another Tay Bridge, Tacoma Narrows, and Hyatt Regency
There will be another Bhopal
There will be another Tenerife, Saudia Tristar, and Aloha 243
There will be another St Francis Dam
There will be another Titanic

There will be another Chernobyl

Industrial/Engineering/Transportation disasters will continue to happen in every industry. Nuclear power is not immune.

However, arguing against nuclear power on that basis alone is like arguing against bridges and airplanes because they collapse and crash and kill people.

I think the big picture is that once they realized the sensors wasn't at fault and the problem was a lack of coolant verses ineffective coolant-bad readings, figured out a plan, vented for safety and enacted the plan to control the reactor, the biggest problem was the lack of ability to evacuate the surrounding and potentially effected population.

All of the disasters above have a commonality: people making decisions on incomplete information, because of the malfunction/poor maintenance of sensors/simple parts or the system entering an unanticipated state. Most of the time that this happens, people make the right decision, and the public doesn't hear about it. Sometimes the wrong decisions are made and people die.

The Three mile Island accidence is pretty much impossible to happen again

The exact same confluence of events that caused TMI will happen again and again. The technology will be different, but the people will be the same. The way to extend the intervals between major disasters is not be studying where the technology went wrong, but where the people went wrong. We'll never build another TMI-design reactor again, so the technical details are moot.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Anonymous Coward]

Setting the nuclear energy industry back another 50 years would put them to around 1920.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Chris Mattern]

That Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were completely different nuclear plants was not the point:

No, it's exactly the point.

The point was that Chernobyl exploded and caused many casualties and a highly contaminated environment, while Three Mile Island had luck.

No, Three Mile Island made several critical design decisions that prevented a massive disaster, and it had operators who could understand what they were looking at. That is not luck. That is the opposite of luck.

Re:"for civilian use"

[mpe]

I dirty bomb requires significant expertise if you want to avoid being killed transporting the bomb. Imagine material so hot that its mere radioactivity could endanger a wide area, then concentrate it into the size of a bomb. Plus, dirty bombs are very easy to detect.

Alpha emitters are the most harmful it ingested. They are also the easiest to shield. A cardboard box would probably do the trick. If you could get hold of the right materials a "dirty bomb" could equate to a moderatly sized firework.

Re:"for civilian use"

[AtomicJake]

I could not agree more with you. You can learn from disasters, but there is no such technology that can prevent disasters completely.

What you can do, is trying to reduce complexity from technology that is potentially dangerous. This and trying to get more direct information instead of indirect information (e.g. being able to actually see the water in the TMI case would have prevented that the incident went into out of control). Complexity, dependencies, and indirections greatly increases the likelihood to make wrong decisions. Combine this with time pressure (e.g. if you cannot fix the problem in TMI within a couple of hours, the incident becomes a disaster) and you have a recipe for normal accidents. BTW: I highly recommend this book, which also analyses the TMI case.

Re:"for civilian use"

[LandDolphin]

That Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were completely different nuclear plants was not the point: The point was that Chernobyl exploded and caused many casualties and a highly contaminated environment, while Three Mile Island had luck.

The differences in the plants seems to make a big difference. It seems one was designed to reduce what would happen if something went wrong, and the other not so much. Seems misleading to overlook that, wouldn't you agree?

Re:"for civilian use"

[trytoguess]

I vote for letting Seoul and Tokyo decide that on their own. It's not like the Japanese and Koreans are ignorant savages that need smart white man to tell them how much their lives are worth.

Re:"for civilian use"

[LandDolphin]

Well, I have a couple things to say about this:

1) It sounds like a problem for South Korea and Japan, not the USA or the rest of the world. IF Japan, South Korea, or any other Country i nthe region wants to take out N. Korea's nuclear program, go ahead.

2) What do you mean by "take out North Korea"? Kill every citizen? That's a lot more then 100,000K. An Invasion/war? They have ~ 1 million strong army. Going to be a few more then ~100,000K deaths there. And then what do you do once you've "liberated" them? Sure, they are less of a pile of issues then Iraq. However, you are going to have a power gap and a struggle to fill it. Over throwing a country is costly business that is going to have a high failure rate unless it is done through it's own people from within.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Reziac]

We've been "building bridges" ever since WW2. It doesn't appear to have done any great good.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Reziac]

If I can shoot back, I'm a lot tougher to coerce.

I conclude that gov'ts disarm their citizens to make it easier for ANYone to terrorize them.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Reziac]

Or go out into the California desert and mine your own. No one will notice.

Re:"for civilian use"

[vux984]

We've been "building bridges" ever since WW2.

Yes. We've built a lot of bridges and they've paid off. We've also blown a few up, with less positive effects.

It doesn't appear to have done any great good.

The cold war ended peacefully, there was no WW3.

Your standards are too high for these not to be 'great good'.

Re:"for civilian use"

[The Archon V2.0]

The Three Mile Island accident was a mild, harmless incident in a nuclear energy facility but it is still used by nuclear energy opponents to denounce the "harms and perils" of the nuclear power.

Captain Planet taught me that nuclear reactors were very dangerous because a radioactive supervillain wearing a Hawaiian shirt and trunks might punch his way through the vessel wall.

(Seriously. I got subjected to that episode once as an adult and that was basically it. I thought the final-scene moralizing lesson was gonna be something about real-world disasters, but it was more like "Yeah, we had to wear HAZMAT suits because of what Duke Nukem* did, so reactors are bad.")

(* No, the other Duke Nukem. The one who looks like the Thing's punk cousin with no dress sense.)

Re:"for civilian use"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the nuclear reactors were never delivered to the North Koreans. It was proposed the US would deliver 2 Light Nuclear Reactors that wouldn't have the capacity for building weapons-grade nuclear material but these reactors weren't even delivered nor created. The South Koreans and Americans never funded it and it never got off the ground. (Source: http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/10/9/132140.shtml)

Re:"for civilian use"

[Xarin]

I could not agree more with you. You can learn from disasters, but there is no such technology that can prevent disasters completely.

What you can do, is trying to reduce complexity from technology that is potentially dangerous. This and trying to get more direct information instead of indirect information (e.g. being able to actually see the water in the TMI case would have prevented that the incident went into out of control). Complexity, dependencies, and indirections greatly increases the likelihood to make wrong decisions. Combine this with time pressure (e.g. if you cannot fix the problem in TMI within a couple of hours, the incident becomes a disaster) and you have a recipe for normal accidents. BTW: I highly recommend this book, which also analyses the TMI case.

One of the most serious problems is that often times redundant systems are maintained simultaneously. It is highly likely that the same mistake will be repeated by the same person on all of the redundant components. Also, the same faulty batch of replacement parts could be used for all redundant components as well.

Re:"for civilian use"

[sumdumass]

The three mile island incident happened because a stuck valve ended up restricting or losing coolant and the result was something that indicated another situation entirely. This same situation used to be the downfall of cars too and the fix was pretty much the same.

In the cars, there was simply a temperature gauge that measured coolant temp. when the coolant was missing, it wouldn't show the engine over heating and you didn't know anything was wrong until damage started happening. Now they put coolant level sensors in place plus sensors that detect both the coolant temp and the engine block temp. The result is that is anything gets too hot, it shows an alarm, if the coolant level is too low, it shows an alarm.

In the three mile island incident, there was nothing to ensure coolant was moving through the pipes so when the temp sensors indicated that it wasn't over heating at several locations, they incorrectly assumed the core sensors were faulty until the next shift came in and took a different approach. Now we measure not only the temps, but the amount of flow in and out of the core and at several stages of the supply and exhaust pipe. This was the simple fix that ensures three mile island won't happen again.

Now I agree that some accident or incident at a reactor could very well happen again. That was never my intent to deny. But a three mile island incident will not happen because of the placement of sensors, redundant lines and pumps, and changes in protocols that close the lack of information loop you were mentioning as well as turns the error to the side of safety.

Re:"for civilian use"

[rpresser]

Of course, I don't happen to *know* of any terrorist groups whose main agenda is against the nuclear power industry.

Is this sarcasm or something?

It's not that long ago that anti-nuke demonstrations were frequent and highly visible. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement#Events . I'm certain that the possibility of anti-nuke terrorism is very high in the minds of nuke management.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Anonymous Coward]

Industrial/Engineering/Transportation disasters will continue to happen in every industry. Nuclear power is not immune. However, arguing against nuclear power on that basis alone is like arguing against bridges and airplanes because they collapse and crash and kill people.

Yes, absolutely... but only if we ignore the scope of possible disaster. Meaning... a bridge collapsing and perhaps killing 100 people can't continue to kill people for thousands of years. Taking scope of possible disaster into account, I believe, is one of the strongest arguments against nuclear power. Yes, we've seen how bad an airplane disaster can really be... when used as a missile, but this pales in comparison to just how bad a nuclear accident can be.

Nuclear energy opponents have the worst PR. Proponents for nuclear energy get to sit back and cite how safe nuke energy is, how cheap nuke energy is, how we've solved nearly every problem with it and those we haven't solved, we will soon... and can safely ignore any evidence to the contrary because they are smart... if there was a problem, they'd know about it. Proponents are smart scientists. In theory, if nothing goes wrong and we follow the science and proper procedures, everything will be great... cheap energy is here, accidents are impossible, and we say ta-da! to the nay sayers, because opponents are really just pessimistic superstitious savages. In reality, we're doomed, they say. No matter what nuclear energy opponents say or even prove will sway the proponent.

Maybe if we thought of nuclear energy opponents as... pro-simple energy... or pro-safer energy... or pro-any-energy-that-can't-take-out-a-city-for-generations-even-if-very-unlikely... see, they keep adding this quality to the debate that is compared with other energy choices, as if "safety" is anywhere near the top of the list on what is important when choosing an energy source. Opponents don't realize just how dangerous their "safe, clean" alternatives are. For instance... the Sun is hands down the absolute most dangerous thing in the Solar System (and considerably beyond) by far. The Sun could kill our planet and everything on it in an instant... before we even knew it. But do nuclear opponents consider this when they offer solar power as an alternative to super safe nuclear energy?

This debate is going to go on forever. Unless... we just need to sell it better... maybe nuclear waste is good.... if we could market it somehow... or have sitcoms with survivors or relatives of survivors from Chernobyl... make it campy or even cool... then everyone will want mutations and radiation burns, and we can push through the nuclear proponents agenda (which is, I believe, merely 10-20 more nuke plants per state, and a growing stockpile of waste somewhere, perhaps everywhere). Then again... if we try that, opponents will do the same... merchandising and marketing and meme-ing how great sunburn is....

Re:"for civilian use"

[Weezul]

Dirty bombs are a joke. All the radiation goes away after some basic clean up. I suspect the dirty bomb was invented by the CIA to trick the jihadis.

A better plan is just get untrained jihadis to hide the shit all over NYC, like the chairs in cinemas, stoves of fancy restaurants, the cart of some guy selling pizza on the street, shove it down the pipes in hotels, stick it up the ass of a police horse, etc. You then wait 6 months and call the press. A few people have actually been mildly irritated by then. Instant panic.

Re:"for civilian use"

[SixFactor]

SDM,

I admire your effort and appreciate the apparent pro-nuclear stance. But please check out the NRC Fact Sheet on TMI Unit 2 (Unit 1 is doing just fine, thanks) for more precise details on the cause and sequence of events for the accident. You'll find some useful facts that will correct some of your misconceptions about the contributing factors and root causes of the event.

In my opinion, the most dominant root cause was inadequate operator training. The stuck-open primary valve (PORV) was misdiagnosed, with a faulty valve position indicator contributing to the misdiagnosis. Every operator action taken downstream of that led to the circus surrounding the event. It did not do to create emergency operating guidance on the fly. I contend that if there was no operator interference with the Emergency Core Cooling System(s) (yes, there are several), the core would have remained intact for some time (days).

BTW, SDM stands for Shutdown Margin - at least in the civilian side of the nuke industry. :D

Re:"for civilian use"

[Grendol]

There are fundamental engineering differences in how the reaction is propagated in the RBMK Chernobyl rector vs the Three Mile Island(TMI) Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressurized_water_reactor#Moderator)

The US National Reactor Testing Station which is now the Idaho National Lab performed the Loss of Fluid Tests (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel_response_to_reactor_accidents#LOFT) to better understand what a loss of coolant accident would mean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_coolant_accident). Understanding that the loss of water which acts as both coolant and moderator for fast neutrons means the reaction cannot continue in a PWR reactor. The prevention of a Chernobyl like accident in the TMI reactor is far beyond 'Luck' as it was designed into the PWR from years of testing that occurred. The intent was to achieve what is known as 'Passive nuclear safety" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety) which is a driving fundamental engineering for all modern reactors.

The Chernobyl reactor did not benefit from this fundamental engineering in the reactor design, and to top it off, it was revealed that they were performing a very risky and unwise test of testing an untested emergency core cooling system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Planning_the_test_of_the_safety_device) with many unconfirmed assumptions of turbine momentum and pump power being made used as excuses to perform the test on a full scale power reactor instead of in a lab reactor or modeling prior to accident with safety contingencies set up to prevent excursions. This combined with the low power level in the reactor and the impatience to approach such a condition properly, they added water and MANUALLY REMOVED THE CONTROL RODS to increase power in a xenon neutron poisoning situation, set them up for the catastrophe. The RBMK reactor was taken far from its normal mode of operation for this accident to occur, even with its less then modernly acceptable design and construction.

Such testing activities here in the US are probably criminal, someone from the NRC or with that knowledge would have to confirm that though.

Libel statements about shift workers at TMI DO NOT CONTRIBUTE to ANY good analysis and lessons learned for the Nuclear Industry.

As for the main topic's discussion of the accidental disclosure of various nuclear facility locations, most of them were probably unclassified anyway, and knowing where something might be (as stuff gets moved and the disclosed locations can change) is not even most of the battle. Physical security at these sights is probably set up on a military as opposed to a police scale, and organized with support from local military assets. The federal government may have the Department of Energy manage nuclear materials for the Department of Defense, but the Department of Defense still owns the materials. As for civilian locations, the guard forces are still fairly military like in nature, with well planned protocols for various events. This accidental disclosure probably does not increase risk in any significant way.

Re:"for civilian use"

[stonewallred]

And that would be different from the present state of nuclear power plant building how?

Re:"for civilian use"

[stonewallred]

Think there will be another Tunguska explosion? I hope so, as long as it is not near any territory that owns ICBMs.

Re:"for civilian use"

[stonewallred]

Lol, these are people who will strap platic explosives to their body and then pull the detonator. What's a little radiation poison before they die? Hell, I ain't no engineer, but give me a bomb and some radioactive material and I got enough sense to pack it around the bomb then explode it.

Re:"for civilian use"

[lightversusdark]

Spoken like a true American.

Re:"for civilian use"

[sillybilly]

I thought the 3 mile incident was caused by someone falling asleep at the controls and knocking them over. Of course that's not the official wording, but what if "terrorists" feed you some time delayed release sleeping pill or better yet, a hallucinogen. If you were a control operator, you might all of a sudden see the knobs rotate in all kinds of directions, with you trying to compensate.

You think the Gods of Olympus, or the powers that be today, don't get bored sometimes and play with real people's lives, to study and see what happens? In fact some unpracticed and unplanned-for "fire drill"-like candid camera exercises in nuclear plants might just be on the agenda of the Nuclear Safety Commission and the Dept of Fatherland Security. (Gotta love buzzwords.)

I'm sure as hell not gonna ever take a "control rod technician" job, that I was kind of ushered towards, in this unemployment economy, two months ago. Because of pretty much the above reasons. I get messed with too much as it is, don't need to enter situations where the potential is even greater for trouble. Quiet, peace and safety of others are golden. Self risk, such as rock climbing, is a personal choice, with the option to refuse or accept, that's up to yourself, but making that choice for others, that's quite different.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Rycross]

3) China - We don't want to open that can of worms

Re:"for civilian use"

[Reziac]

The Cold War ended largely because Reagan maneuvered the USSR into economic collapse. Bridges, built or blown up, had nothing to do with that.

Now we're "building bridges" to China, and they're taking our economy to the cleaners.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Mr. Slippery]

I vote for taking out North Korea today. I'd rather have a 100,000+ casualties today if it can prevent the likely horrific death of 20 million+ later.

And you call a nuclear attack from Norther Korea "likely" based on what, exactly?

The cease-fire between North and South has held for decades. They are unlikely to start such aggression.

The U.S., on the other hand -- the world's leader in the use of weapons of mass destruction, and the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons -- has recently demonstrated a willingness to engage in wars of aggression against small nations. Every country not an ally of ours, or of another nuclear power, now has strong incentive to obtain a nuclear deterrent. Attacking North Korea would only make that stronger.

Re:"for civilian use"

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you really mean ~2KT?

Re:"for civilian use"

[AtomicJake]

Point was: If TMI blew off, the disaster would have been comparable to Chernobyl.

I agree that TMI had a better design that proved to be good enough to delay the disaster long enough - so that the operators finally found the issue. On the other hand the design proved to be bad enough that the incident became out of control. And regaining the control was luck, because the operators were clueless before they luckily discovered that the instruments were broken.

Re:"for civilian use"

[AtomicJake]

That Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were completely different nuclear plants was not the point: The point was that Chernobyl exploded and caused many casualties and a highly contaminated environment, while Three Mile Island had luck.

The differences in the plants seems to make a big difference. It seems one was designed to reduce what would happen if something went wrong, and the other not so much. Seems misleading to overlook that, wouldn't you agree?

I agree, if you could agree that TMI had the potential for disaster. And this is regardless whether you compare it to Chernobyl or not.

Re:"for civilian use"

[sumdumass]

I thought the 3 mile incident was caused by someone falling asleep at the controls and knocking them over. Of course that's not the official wording, but what if "terrorists" feed you some time delayed release sleeping pill or better yet, a hallucinogen. If you were a control operator, you might all of a sudden see the knobs rotate in all kinds of directions, with you trying to compensate.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the simpsons here. From what I can understand, and someone just gave me a more detailed link then the PBA/History channels documentary on it and my 5 year old recollection that I was recalling from. Regardless of the cause of why the main feed water pumps stopped responding (which would be your guy asleep at the wheel), there are alarms that alert others to something being wrong and safety controls as well as backup systems to compensate. Anyways, it isn't as much the "crap, I did something wrong" as much as it is the "shit, this is wrong, lets make it work right" phase. In the Three mile island, a stuck valve that wasn't detected properly prevented water from cooling the core as it should have and presented a dangerous gas buildup scenario. Read the link for more. The lessons learned from that placed sweeping changes to the Nuke industry including changes in equipment design, new sensors, protocols and procedures, and so on.

You think the Gods of Olympus, or the powers that be today, don't get bored sometimes and play with real people's lives, to study and see what happens? In fact some unpracticed and unplanned-for "fire drill"-like candid camera exercises in nuclear plants might just be on the agenda of the Nuclear Safety Commission and the Dept of Fatherland Security. (Gotta love buzzwords.)

I'm sure there are training drills and accident scenario exercises in order to detect the weak spots and compensate. However, these couldn't be completely blind tests because of the level of awareness the public has now. Someone, if only a few people, have to know it's a test because of the evacuation standards and I doubt they would work with a live plant because real changes to equipment made by people correcting the issue will have real consequences and effects on the workings of the plant.

I'm sure as hell not gonna ever take a "control rod technician" job, that I was kind of ushered towards, in this unemployment economy, two months ago. Because of pretty much the above reasons. I get messed with too much as it is, don't need to enter situations where the potential is even greater for trouble. Quiet, peace and safety of others are golden. Self risk, such as rock climbing, is a personal choice, with the option to refuse or accept, that's up to yourself, but making that choice for others, that's quite different.

Your probably not qualified for the job but if you were, your attitude expressed right there would probably disqualify you. Certain jobs at a nuke facility can be done by drones who hate their job and life. However, other jobs are picked only for certain people who are both stable and willing. I'm sure some may have fallen through the cracks but there are other safeguards in place to override their mistakes.

as for the scenario above, I doubt anything would be presented as a real life scenario without everyone knowing it is a drill of some sort. Even if they attempted to sneak one in, they would have to intercept all of the electronic controls somehow and then present you with artificial readouts accurate enough to simulate everything you have seen in the last 20 years. In other words, we would almost have to be at star fleet and your scenario would be a simulation training test where the entire plant was simulated. I'm sure they have dummy rooms availible that can simulate the controls and feedback but I doubt they have entire plants where you can go to a valve and check it's position and all.

Re:"for civilian use"

[dave420]

Right. Excellent. Brilliant point, Rambo. Fantastic. I hope you didn't forget that an armed civilisation is not impervious to being attacked or coerced. Germany managed to roll right over France in WWII, and I'm pretty sure they had a fucking army, navy, and air force. Some fat accountants with a few guns, no logistics support, no close air support, artillery, tanks, aircraft carriers, or even decent training will stop shit. But please keep living your fantasy. Your false sense of security is only hurting you, and no-one else.

Re:"for civilian use"

[sillybilly]

I have an id named sumdumfuk on a dating site.

Re:"for civilian use"

[sumdumass]

That must be why I couldn't register it.

I tried to use this as my profile pic but they said they had a prohibition on pictures of pets. I haven't been back since.

I don't understand

[Einmaliger]

Does that mean, it's not on Wikileaks anymore?

Not secret!

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez person writing the submission. RTFM. The list was not "secret". The guy clearly says that the list was only "sensitive" and could have been compiled from various public sources. He also clearly says that the breach was more embarrassing than a security problem.

Re:Not secret!

[bgray54]

I don't think the person writing the summary was implying that the list was DoD classified. I read this as being a more generic definition of "secret". Plus, it's pretty obvious from reading the document that it is not "SECRET".

Re:Not secret!

[secretcurse]

The article has a man page? Couldn't they just put it in the article? See, this is why *NIX will never work on the desktop...

Mirror

[Eddy Luten]

Since there's no link in TFA, here it is on WikiLeaks.

Re:Mirror

[Capt. Cooley]

thanks, this is actually the only reason I went to the comments, to find a link to the actual doc.

Cue the Dept. of Homeland Security in three... two...

Scary

[Peteyo311]

I am I the only one that thinks this is a very odd list to have "accidentally" released?

Re:Scary

[Ortega-Starfire]

Yes, Obama accidentally the document.

Here is the document blurb:

To the Congress of the United States:
I transmit herewith a list of the sites, locations, facilities, and activities
in the United States that I intend to declare to the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under the Protocol Additional
to the Agreement between the United States of America and
the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of
Safeguards in the United States of America, with Annexes, signed
at Vienna on June 12, 1998 (the ''U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol''),
and constitutes a report thereon, as required by section 271 of Public
Law 109-401. In accordance with section 273 of Public Law
109-401, I hereby certify that:
(1) each site, location, facility, and activity included in the
list has been examined by each department and agency with
national security equities with respect to such site, location, facility,
or activity; and
(2) appropriate measures have been taken to ensure that information
of direct national security significance will not be
compromised at any such site, location, facility, or activity in
connection with an IAEA inspection.
The enclosed draft declaration lists each site, location, facility,
and activity I intend to declare to the IAEA, and provides a detailed
description of such sites, locations, facilities, and activities,
and the provisions of the U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol under
which they would be declared. Each site, location, facility, and activity
would be declared in order to meet the obligations of the
United States of America with respect to these provisions.
The IAEA classification of the enclosed declaration is ''Highly
Confidential Safeguards Sensitive''; however, the United States regards
this information as ''Sensitive but Unclassified.''
Nonetheless, under Public Law 109-401, information reported to,
or otherwise acquired by, the United States Government under this
title or under the U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol shall be exempt
from disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code.
BARACK OBAMA.

-----
Amusingly, it is addressed to Congress. Which means it would have been leaked PDQ regardless.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Most important part:

"Sensitive but Unclassified"

Atom experts say it is not such a big deal as the information revealed was already roughly known.
Source: My local news website.

It was a draft for the IAEA (International Atom Energy Agency).

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but only because you are on Slashdot where Obama and other liberals can do no wrong. Who cares that Obama released secrets with the only benefit being the appeasement of our enemies? The liberals here sure don't.

Re:Scary

[Speare]

The document was properly marked with "sensitive" flags, and the Government Printing Office posted it in error. GPO is part of the Legislative Branch, staffed by career civil servants, not political appointees. So saying that Obama's administration released it to the public is quite a stretch.

Re:Scary

[skeeto]

Yes, Obama accidentally the document.

Did he accidentally the whole thing?

Wasn't North Korea demanding more info....

[yourassOA]

about the US nuclear program? Or was it the other way around?

This is a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

As it shows how much of a hypocrite America is.

it is kind of a no big deal

[circletimessquare]

say the list was kept perfectly secret. as if no one who intends harm couldn't ferret out where the sites are. its not as if the sites are very mobile, most have been there for decades

and none of the material is easily weaponized. well, you could build a dirty bomb. but if you were building a dirty bomb, it would be easier to shop used medical equipment. perhaps from outside the country. i'm sure you could find some old radiology equipment in latin america and sneak it over the mexican border undetected. line it with lead and drive it in. pack it with some dynamite in a city center: boom, instant radioactive times square

finally, even if the sites were kept secret, they still need to be guarded. that's the real safeguard

although the list does allow those who intend to do harm confirmation of sites, and an ability to triage which is easier than another to attempt to breach

Re:it is kind of a no big deal

[jimicus]

Have to be pretty f*cking old radiology equipment, as the last cobalt machines probably went out of production something like 30 years ago. Today they generate X-rays electrically.

Re:it is kind of a no big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be much easier then that. Just get a job as an ndt tech. I know some couyons with 6th grade educations that get hired for these jobs so you might not want to look too smart.

Re:it is kind of a no big deal

[dave420]

Wouldn't it make more sense to disperse the radioactive material without a large explosion causing people to notice something's going on? The Goiânia accident is a good example of how people spread radiation without even knowing something dangerous was going on. That way you'd have people unwittingly spreading the radiation all over the place, and by the time someone figured out what was going on, it'd be too late - the amount of contamination would be off the chart.

Re:it is kind of a no big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

none of the material is easily weaponized. well, you could build a dirty bomb.

I was thinking the simpliest "bang" for your buck would be a conventional bomb set off at one of these sites, which results in a cheap dirty bomb with no risk of detection getting nuclear material in place, as it is already there.

Our government is retarded. Why some in this country think the best solution is to make if bigger astonishes me. It is just a matter of time before we are hit again and those "betting" on talk over action will starting singing a different tune or perhaps they will just continue to blame Bush.

Those who suggest this is not a big deal because it could be compiled through leg work, let me ask you this: Just because people can scan for opens ports on your firewall, does that mean there is no harm in you publishing your IPs and ports?

Seriously, we're doomed if we rely on the Federal Government to protect us, I mean a terrorist just shot two US soldiers in our country and the President hasn't even addressed it. What better way to terrorize our nation then to shoot soldiers are random when they should be safe. The stress of being in Iraq/Afghanistan is bad enough, but now they need to worry about getting shoot back at home?

BR>
I got news for you. 1). We are at war and 2). We're losing it.

Let's be really honest here...

[DragonTHC]

If a clandestine organization has the funds, logistics, and operatives to carry out an attack on these facilities, they already know about them.

Who didn't know about los alamos, livermore, or sandia?

Re:Let's be really honest here...

[vlm]

Or any hospital with a radiology department, or any college offering a nuclear energy engineering degree, etc.

What's actually going on is a battle inside the government over how to excuse our defenses using two diametrically opposed strategies. Its good to see a failure of cooperation in the government, that gives some hope to the citizens.

One govt spokes-clown talks up inadequate defenses by making fun of the opposition. The idea is to compare the opposition to a bad mork and mindy episode or some other "make fun of the foreigner" cultural phenomenon. The purposed of the propaganda is to spread the idea that the opposition is too stupid to figure out where the target is because they aren't smart like us americans. Even the dumbest american knows, if you're looking for a sensitive target to attack, merely look for the "blurred" areas on google maps, but a dumb furriner could never figure that out. So, its OK that our defenses are no good, since our fiercest opponent is only Mork from Ork as portrayed by Robin Williams.

On the other hand some government clowns like to excuse inadequate defenses by claiming the opposition was stronger than the bad guy in a james bond movie. I actually saw one govt spokes-clown on TV after 9-11 rambling on about how it must have taken an extremely large amount of money, unbelievable training, and immense organizational skills to do the 9-11 attacks. Which is pretty stupid since fundamentally all they did was buy a couple airline tickets for the same day, about as astounding as any convention organizer. That propaganda has the purpose of making us feel OK that our defenses fail because the "others" are so strong.

So much xenophobia, expressed so many different ways....

Oddly the two propaganda crowds seem to fight each other because they pompously think their BS is better that the other guys BS. So this story is really that the "dumb furriner crowd", whom thought it would be funny propaganda to list all the obvious targets that no stoopid furriner could ever figure out but all red blooded americans obviously already know thus proving the furriners is dumb, is under heavy attack from the "james bond villian crowd" whom is doing the scare mongering thing by claiming the only protection we have is goldfinger doesn't know where our "gold" is located...

Re:Let's be really honest here...

[Reziac]

[tightening my tinfoil hat]

Or they generate failures to demonstrate the need for tighter security measures on the citizenry...

Welp

[Anonymous Coward]

They accidentally the whole thing.

Re:Welp

[Chrisq]

Don't worry. Once we have skynet online all these facilities will be quite safe

This would not happen in the UK....

[Chrisq]

We have a cunning plan to swamp terrorists with so many laptops, USB keys, DVDs, unformatted second-hand computers, external hard drives, secret documents held up to press photos, and so on that the chances of them finding anything of use top them among all the rest of the leaked data is insignificant.

Re:This would not happen in the UK....

[houghi]

At least the UK understands that security through obscurity is the only way to go.

Re:This would not happen in the UK....

[PPH]

Nobody gets past page 3 in your newspapers anyway.

Civil Nuclear Sites?

[vampire_baozi]

As the Times article pointed out, and from the looks of the PDF, most of this stuff was public domain already. All they did was assemble it into a nice condensed form for the IAEA. While documents that aren't supposed to be getting released getting released is clearly a process failure, this one doesn't seem particularly serious. On the scale of data leakages, far less harmful than the British government's loss of data discs containing personal information.

Given that most of the data was already public domain, beyond knowing specifically where the stuff is, what is new here? Figure out where the publication process went wrong, and how it got approved, and then take steps to fix the problem. Gov't snafu's are par for the course, and givin it was a civil report for the IAEA, looks like a minor leak if that.

I hardly forsee people trying to make dirty bombs from this stuff. As WikiLeaks notes, this information is far more useful to environmentalists than terrorists or foreign governments (to whom we're handing the info anyway via IAEA).

Re:/. wants the terrorists to win

[Chrisq]

We're geeks. We don't care if the terrorists win, just so long as Microsoft doesn't.

Re:incompetent government agency of an incompetent

[Anonymous Coward]

The government has recently been a circus of one distraction after another. If they really wanted yet another distraction all they'd have to do is leak info about Sotomayor being a socialist (or a lesbian or an atheist, etc.) and the media wouldn't touch a real issue for months. Not that it matters. The American people are so inundated with manufactured outrage that we wouldn't know a genuine scandal if it bit us on the nose.

hey guys...

[Dramacrat]

I accidentally the whole 266-page report. Is that dangerous?

Re:hey guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not with your IQ.

Re:hey guys...

[Kryis]

The last person to the whole 266-page report had to spend 3 weeks before they finally.

Outrageous!

[netscan]

Los Alamos has nuclear materials?!? I just don't believe it...

its not just the x-ray machines

[circletimessquare]

radiotherapy for cancer, markers/indicators in various diagnostic tests, positron emission tomography, etc.

of course a lot of these sources are extremely dilute, or have a very short half life. the dilution problem can be solved by a committed asshole, and there are also plenty of health care radioactivity uses that do not involve short lived isotopes

Re:its not just the x-ray machines

[squizzar]

There are a few cases where machines like this have escaped into the wild and caused problems. I'm sure I read one recently where a fairly strong radioactive source used for radiotherapy had been left in a disused hospital and taken by someone. See also people selling bits of RTGs for scrap, people dumping industrial radiation sources in scrapyards (hey, that was on House!) etc. etc. Lots of nasty nukular material out there without any need to go near a nuclear 'facility'

Re:its not just the x-ray machines

[jimicus]

It was the cancer treatment machines I was referring to. They generally produce X-rays as well, albeit at a substantially higher power than the ones used for diagnostic purposes.

Hi, wikileaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already on Wikileaks.

if this wasn't posted AC

[oneTheory]

i'd say you should be modded up.

Work of Jack Bauer.

[Blimey85]

Jack Bauer released the list as a ploy to lure the terrorists in...

Re:Work of Jack Bauer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jack Bauer released the list as a ploy to lure the terrorists in...

...to a roundhouse kick from Chuck Norris.

list nuclear sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Media is humiliating to americans who know better than what they hear or read. what about your lame brain follow the content and subject of this blog. Why is it every time some GOV dont get it goof ball publishes somthing even they should not have ( hint , hint ) they turn around and say oh its really no problem. Truth of the matter we have people picking up trash alot brighter than are Washington Hoggs.

Someone accidentally released a 266-page report

[alxkit]

it wasn't a problem until someone else posted a link to it from slashdot.

So that is how Luke found out.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I always wondered how Luke figured out where the secret entrance to the nuclear reactor providing power to the shield to the Death Star during construction. Now there is a plausible scenario how he got it.

Re:So that is how Luke found out.

[meyekul]

I appreciate the joke, but this wouldn't be /. if I didn't correct your SW. It was Han Solo's team who found the "secret" entrance, and Wickett told him exactly where it was. Luke was busy playing with Vader and the Emperor at that time. Also, it was a shield generator and not a nuclear reactor. The ewoks probably wouldn't appreciate the fallout from blowing up a reactor in their forest. I wont get in to the logistics of how they found adequate power on a forest moon to generate such a shield, or why people in SW insist on building shield generators OUTSIDE of the shields...

huh?

[circletimessquare]

"Seriously, we're doomed if we rely on the Federal Government to protect us"

who the hell is going to do the job?

"I mean a terrorist just shot two US soldiers in our country and the President hasn't even addressed it. What better way to terrorize our nation then to shoot soldiers are random when they should be safe. The stress of being in Iraq/Afghanistan is bad enough, but now they need to worry about getting shoot back at home?"

almost every year, some student goes nuts and shoots up a campus. but i don't see students scared of going to school. what makes you think any solider worth his salt will terrorized by one lone nut?

that's already happened

[circletimessquare]

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Traces_of_radiation_found_where_Litvinenko_ate

there are many ways to terrorize with radioactive material. but

plus side #1: it tends to get washed away after a few rains. nagasaki and hiroshima were nuked with plutonium, and they aren't permanently uninhabitable, or even radioactive above background radiation that much. although, something like chernobyl is different. it depends upon the type of radioactive element and how it is dispersed

plus side #2: any high profile place that an asshole might want to terrorize with radioactive contamination: they have radioactive detectors in place nowadays. not EVERYWHERE though, you could pick an out of the way place in a second tier city and do a lot of contamination before anyone notices, true

Re:that's already happened

[blueflash2o]

plus side #1: it tends to get washed away after a few rains. nagasaki and hiroshima were nuked with plutonium,

Actually Hiroshima was nuked with uranium in a uranium gun type bomb but Nagasaki used the plutonium implosion bomb like we used at Trinity, but your point remains.

put down your pitchforks

[commodoresloat]

If you vigilantes sit still for a second and actually RTFA you'll see that there aren't any "national secrets" that were leaked here -- this information was "sensitive" and its release is embarrassing at best, but hardly a hanging offense.

On another note, I wonder if you felt the same way about the leak of a covert agent's identity during the Bush Administration? Were you hoping to see Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney in a noose?

Re:put down your pitchforks

[ilblissli]

yes, i think the law should apply to everyone.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually yes.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[Elrac]

No, I was and still am hoping to see Libby, Rove and Cheney in three separate nooses, please. I'm sure that even in times of financial crisis, the US of A should have enough money to buy each high traitor to the country a rope of his own.

Although, on second thought, I'd be OK with having them hung serially with the same rope.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[Obfuscant]

On another note, I wonder if you felt the same way about the leak of a covert agent's identity during the Bush Administration?

Sure. The person(s) responsible should face consequences.

Were you hoping to see Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney in a noose?

No, because they weren't the ones responsible. It was Novak, if I recall correctly, who leaked the information. Some news reporter. And it wasn't as if Plame herself was big on keeping it a secret. It wasn't a secret that she worked for the CIA. If she didn't care if people knew, then I don't think there's much brouhaha to be had over people knowing.

It was a molehill that was blown up by those whose hatred for the administration got in the way of their better judgement. I suspect that almost nobody would know, or care, that Plame was a CIA op had the "leak" not been used to try to bludgeon political opponents. By spreading the information that they claimed was tip-top-ultra secret, the anti-Bush people created a bigger leak and should have some responsibility for it.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[SixFactor]

Obfuscant,

I'm afraid the Plame-outing meme has stuck on, hard. Repeat a story enough and it is taken to be true in its entirety.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[stonewallred]

Actually with Cheney, I wanted a wooden stake through his heart, beheaded and buried face down in the middle of a cross road. Just to be sure.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[sillybilly]

If the people in charge really do a good job, they will create lots of decoy places, empty of anything, other than a few guards waiting for the retards who show up, so they can be interrogated over what really bugs them so much that they are willing to jump all those fences.

Ultimately the real war should be psychological, about the root causes of what angers somebody against someone else, and the tensions eased. Sometimes however, you might find yourself handpicked into a situation where the tensions are compounded against you, as an exercise by those in charge of keeping guard. If you're wise, you will be a pussy, and let everyone walk all over you, and just take all the slaps in the face like a saint. It can be done.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[commodoresloat]

It's completely false that Plame didn't care if people knew -- as you should know from news reports at the time, she was actually engaged in covert operations involving WMD and Iran, operations that were probably blown along with her cover. Yes Novak reported it but he didn't figure it out on his own. It wasn't "blown up" by anyone with "hatred for the administration." Are you kidding me? Who do you mean, Patrick Fitzgerald? or the CIA?

Re:put down your pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

Were you hoping to see Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney in a noose?

Yes?

Re:put down your pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "Actually with Cheney, I wanted a wooden stake through his heart, beheaded and buried face down in the middle of a cross road. And the site nuked from orbit. Just to be sure."

Re:put down your pitchforks

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have at least had their pee pee whacked.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[Obfuscant]

It's completely false that Plame didn't care if people knew --

And that's why the local Border's is remaindering a book, written by Plame, describing her covert employment. I guess she wants to keep it a big dark secret. The best way to keep a secret is to write a book... She didn't care at the time, she doesn't care now. For $1 you can learn her version of her life history. Of course, the fact that her husband was a political hack doesn't color her views at all.

...as you should know from news reports at the time, she was actually engaged in covert operations involving WMD and Iran,

She was working in Langley, driving to work every day, living in the suburbs. You don't drive into the CIA offices on a daily basis if you care about anyone knowing where you work.

It wasn't "blown up" by anyone with "hatred for the administration." Are you kidding me? Who do you mean, Patrick Fitzgerald? or the CIA?

I mean every liberal who hated George Bush and would do anything to spread that fear and hate, while trying to pretend that Bush was the one who was spreading fear and hate. The CIA didn't out her, and the CIA didn't spread the information when she was. It was people like Begala(1) and Stephanopolous(2) and CNN and MSNBC (with their completely unbiased "reporters" like Olberman) who picked up the info and spread it so widely that you couldn't miss it if you tried, all the while crying about how the information was being spread around.

(1) Begala, who once claimed that Rush Limbaugh had told his audience to flood the whitehouse switchboard (he didn't), and as proof of this said that "the instructions were given at 9AM, the switchboard was clogged by 9:10AM." What he forgot is that Rush isn't on until NOON whitehouse time, so apparently his instructions were sent telepathically three hours before his radio program started.

(2) Stephie, who ABC news labels as a "news analyst" or "reporter", while labeling similar people from the Republican party as "political commentators". Liberal reporters can never be "political commentators", conservatives can never be anything but.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[commodoresloat]

And that's why the local Border's is remaindering a book, written by Plame, describing her covert employment. I guess she wants to keep it a big dark secret. The best way to keep a secret is to write a book... She didn't care at the time, she doesn't care now.

She didn't write that book about her covert employment; she wrote that book about her covert employment getting exposed by members of her own government. And don't think she exposed any secrets that hadn't been compromised at that point - the CIA vetted every word of that book.

Of course, the fact that her husband was a political hack doesn't color her views at all.

Ummm, Joe Wilson's diplomatic career began in the 1970s; he worked under Reagan and Bush Sr. as well as Clinton. When he was in Iraq before the Gulf War he dared Saddam Hussein to kill him (Saddam had threatened diplomats if they didn't leave during the crisis) by wearing a noose for a necktie on television. George Bush Sr. called him "an American hero." Of all the things you can say about Joe Wilson, "political hack" isn't one of them.

She was working in Langley, driving to work every day, living in the suburbs. You don't drive into the CIA offices on a daily basis if you care about anyone knowing where you work.

You obviously haven't read the book, or the work of multiple journalists at the time, who showed that she was in fact traveling to Iran among other places. And saying you don't drive into CIA offices on a daily basis just shows how little you know about the agency and about Plame.

It wasn't "blown up" by anyone with "hatred for the administration." Are you kidding me? Who do you mean, Patrick Fitzgerald? or the CIA?

I mean every liberal who hated George Bush and would do anything to spread that fear and hate, while trying to pretend that Bush was the one who was spreading fear and hate. The CIA didn't out her, and the CIA didn't spread the information when she was. It was people like Begala(1) and Stephanopolous(2) and CNN and MSNBC (with their completely unbiased "reporters" like Olberman) who picked up the info and spread it so widely that you couldn't miss it if you tried, all the while crying about how the information was being spread around.

There's so much wrong with what you're saying I hardly know where to begin. Novak was the journalist who first published her name and status, as I recall. I didn't say the CIA outed her; the CIA went to the Justice Department and asked for an investigation after she was outed. Pat Fitzgerald led the investigation. That you see Begala or Olbermann as instrumental in any of this is just bizarre, but I guess that's how it is with loony conspiracy theories.

Look, this only became an issue because the CIA asked the Justice Dept to investigate a breach of classified information, not because Olbermann whined about it.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[Obfuscant]

She didn't write that book about her covert employment;

If she didn't write about her covert activities, there would be no reason for the CIA to redact anything. If it ain't a secret, it ain't a secret. Her employment at CIA wasn't a secret.

That you see Begala or Olbermann as instrumental in any of this is just bizarre, but I guess that's how it is with loony conspiracy theories.

It is hardly a "loony conspiracy theory" to admit that the liberal media had a field day covering this alleged Bush plot to out Plame. In fact, it's the opposite: the loony conspiracy theorists are the ones crying about how Bush and Cheney and the CIA all conspired to get her killed for being an agent.

Look, this only became an issue because the CIA asked the Justice Dept to investigate a breach of classified information, not because Olbermann whined about it.

This only became an "issue" because the liberal media plastered it all over the airwaves and newspaper headlines. It was a simple request to investigate an alleged act prior to that; after the request the "alleged" bit was forgotten and the media tried and convicted the popular targets. They overlooked the real leak; he was a journalist and thus exempt from contempt.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[commodoresloat]

Her employment at CIA wasn't a secret.

Yes. It was a secret. That's why the CIA asked for an investigation by the Justice Department. This was explained to you earlier.

It is hardly a "loony conspiracy theory" to admit that the liberal media had a field day covering this alleged Bush plot to out Plame. In fact, it's the opposite: the loony conspiracy theorists are the ones crying about how Bush and Cheney and the CIA all conspired to get her killed for being an agent.

The media had a field day because it was a national scandal. Nobody said there was a conspiracy to get her killed. However, there was a rather overt attempt to punish her husband by disavowing her publicly. Rove said Wilson had to know his wife was not off limits.

Look, this only became an issue because the CIA asked the Justice Dept to investigate a breach of classified information, not because Olbermann whined about it.

This only became an "issue" because the liberal media plastered it all over the airwaves and newspaper headlines. It was a simple request to investigate an alleged act prior to that; after the request the "alleged" bit was forgotten and the media tried and convicted the popular targets. They overlooked the real leak; he was a journalist and thus exempt from contempt.

Journalists don't leak things; they get leaks from others and publish those leaks. Novak did not figure out who Plame was on his own. The media "plastered" this all over because, again, it was a national scandal. An ongoing covert operation was compromised, and the ability of the CIA to recruit covert agents was dealt a severe blow when people saw an administration willing to turn its back on those agents to settle a petty political squabble. That's kind of important stuff, and that's why the media might have taken an interest.

Re:put down your pitchforks

[DocFloyd]

Actually, yes, I was hoping to see someone held accountable. Instead it was further proof that laws are only for the little people. There are no consequences for the powerful.

The real problem here

[Joebert]

Someone accidentally released a 266-page report on hundreds of sites in the US for stockpiling and storing hazardous nuclear materials for civilian use.

I think the real problem here is that there are nuclear materials being stockpiled for civilian use !

Re:The real problem here

[icegreentea]

I don't know how you think radioisotope therapy, radioisotope tagging, smoke detectors, and such work. But they all involving 'stockpiling' nuclear materials.

what you are referring to:

[circletimessquare]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

link is from another commenter in this same thread. one of the worst nuclear disasters ever. note: link may not work because it contains portuguese characters and fucking slashdot doesn't use unicode encoding yet. welcome to 1994. follow the link and go to "search for..." and wikipedia will resolve it to the right article

as for house: i remember that episode. ll cool jay was the actor and he found a cool piece of metal in the trashyard he worked and hung it around his neck (shudders)

Re:what you are referring to:

[Plunky]

Well I never heard of that but it was quite interesting. btw I don't see the problem with posting the URL in HTML mode, try Goiânia Accident

Nuclear tourism

[Animats]

Not only are most of those places well known, there are even tours. There's a nostalgic interest in nuclear tourism, visiting the interesting Cold War spots.

that's good news then

[circletimessquare]

unfortunately old machinery is probably still in use in poor countries, or comes back from the dead in unpredictable ways, like this nightmare:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

I misread this as...

[Maxo-Texas]

Secret US List of Civil War Nuclear Sites Released

---

Abraham Lincoln scowled and told his generals, "I don't care if it will give us a quick victory to nuke Atlanta. I will not condone the use of nuclear weapons on the continent!"

Re:I misread this as...

[R3d M3rcury]

We'll try to stay serene and calm, when Alabama gets the bomb.

DOE ....Thanks for update...

[FirstOne]

A quick scan of the .pdf file indicates..

Prototype Sodium cooled Fast reactor is wayyy off in the distant future 2020-2030 depending on funding. (Joint project with France and Japan.)

No projects involving thorium are on the drawing board.
A couple of projects involving reprocessing spent fuel.

That indicates that Nuclear power industry will likely be SOL by the end of the century, as the higher grade U-ore depsoits are mined out.
     

whew!

[mattwarden]

Whew... at least only the list was secret and not the nuclear sites. That would have been embarrassing!

Nothing to see here...

[hesaigo999ca]

Apparently even though something like this makes you cringe, it has been dubbed as not really that critical in nature, and even though
you would have at the most materials to make a dirty bomb, it would take too much effort to counter all the security in place, as well as the motion activated satellite images of surroundings, leading you to know about an intrusion way before it is a problem.
Usually, the MIB answer these calls, and they are usually very quick to intercept.

Re:incompetent government agency of an incompetent

[Prien715]

The government has recently been a circus of one distraction after another.
Yeah, health care, the economy, and Afghanistan are distractions to the real issues facing America: why didn't Lambert win American idol? Will Michael Vick play football again? And why didn't the president asked for change when he got a hamburger?

I demand real answers to these very real questions facing America!

Declassification is nearly non-existent

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former DoE contractor:
I was being interviewed to work at a "facility". I found a copy of what was essentially "the" manual for the "facility" I would be working at in the University Library in the governments documents section with an inside cover note that the document could be purchased for $16.95 from the Government Printing Office. I bought it. I was hired for the job.
When I went to find a copy of the document in the "facility" library, I was informed that I could not see the document because it was "classified" above my clearance level. Whereupon I brought in MY copy from the GPO with the purchase receipt and asked my supervisor, her supervisor, his "manager" and the deparment PHD head WHY it could NOT be immediately declassified so that I did not have to buy copies of documents from the GPO to do the job which they hired me for.
GO FIGURE.
BEST non-sequiter of the DoE in my not-so-humble opinion: UCNI - Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information B-)