nuclear-news

‘The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) used faulty data to estimate potentially ruinous risks of a nuclear-waste fire – one which could occur at any one of dozens of sites across the country,’ the report concluded.

Its main author, Frank von Hippel, cofounder of the Science and Global Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, noted the economic and political manipulations of that stance by the regulatory agency.

‘The NRC has been pressured by the nuclear industry, directly and through Congress, to low-ball the potential consequences of a fire because of concerns that increased costs could result in shutting down more nuclear power plants,’ Von Hippel charged.

The expert considered that that NRC inaction leaves the public at high risk from fires in spent-nuclear-fuel cooling pools at reactor sites.

‘The pools – water-filled basins that store and cool used radioactive fuel rods – are so densely packed with nuclear waste that a fire could release enough radioactive material to contaminate an area twice the size of New Jersey,’ adds the report.

‘On average, radioactivity from such an accident could force approximately 8 million people to relocate and result in $2 trillion in damages,’ he noted.

According to the scientist, those catastrophic consequences might be unleashed by a big earthquake or a terrorist attack.

That potential disaster might be prevented largely with regulatory measures that the NRC refuses to implement, he noted.

‘The agency excluded the possibility of an act of terrorism as well as the potential for damage from a fire beyond 50 miles of a plant,’ the scientist noted.