Nuclear fears debated at forum
Energy, safety issues weighed in Plymouth
PLYMOUTH -- It will be at least two years and probably longer before federal regulators decide whether to grant a 20-year extension of the operating license for the Pilgrim nuclear power plant. But the question is already prompting debate.
More than 100 people attended a forum last week held by the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters to stimulate public dialogue on
The plant is one of the town's largest employers and taxpayers, but also the source of some of its residents' biggest fears. The forum centered on the issues of nuclear waste, which continues to be stored at the 33-year-old plant, and Pilgrim's security from terrorist attack. As such, it was a preview of the debate to come.
Specialists on both sides of the nuclear issue were invited to address the forum.
Gordon Thompson -- executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies, an independent think tank based in Cambridge -- said that used nuclear fuel stored inside the power plant in Plymouth's Manomet section has a radioactive emission potential greater than the bombs that destroyed Japanese cities in World War II and the deadly 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Chernobyl released 20 million curies of radiation, he said, while Pilgrim holds 5 million curies in use in its reactor and 25 million to 30 million more in the spent fuel pool, where used fuel rods are cooled in water. ''All it takes to trigger that release is to eliminate the water," Thompson said.
But Gilbert Brown, coordinator of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, said that no energy source is risk free and that the chance of a terrorist attack could succeed in destroying the spent fuel pool and causing a meltdown of the plant's core is minuscule. ''If we worry about everything, we will never get out of bed in the morning," Brown said.
That view was shared by Richard Sheirer, a security specialist whose company, Giuliani Partners, consults with nuclear power plant operators. Following his own skeptical examination of the plants' security plans resources, Sheirer said, he is convinced that nuclear power plants are ''safe, secure, and vital."
Edward Lyman, a senior staff scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said his organization is agnostic on nuclear power, but lacks confidence in some policies and practices of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Lyman said that in considering license renewal for a plant, it is short-sighted to decide that security issues are off the table, because conditions such as population density, traffic patterns and terrorist behavior have changed since the original license was granted.
Lyman said that a terrorist attack could cause core meltdown and a Chernobyl-style release of radiation at a nuclear plant. For example, a meltdown at the Indian Point plant, near the New York City metropolitan area, would cause 44,000 immediate deaths from radiation exposure and a half-million long-term deaths from cancer, he said.
Thompson called for engineering changes in the storage of nuclear waste at Pilgrim to reduce the odds of a meltdown. An increasing number of spent fuel rods results in tighter racking in their watery container. Thompson said a large percentage of the rods could be securely stored in dry casks and buried, allowing the others to be racked loosely and reducing the changes of ignition in case of a nuclear accident.
But Brown said that dry cask storage is unnecessary, because the current storage system is safe.
The pronuclear specialists asked the forum attendees to see the big picture on energy use, in which, they said, nuclear power is a less dangerous alternative than fossil fuels. The question of relicensing plants involves ''the quality of our lives, the way we live, and particularly energy," Brown said. ''We want electricity. How should it be made?"
The dangers of nuclear power are less than those of relying ever more heavily on fossil fuels, he said. Worldwide demand for energy may double in a decade, Brown said, while nuclear power produces energy in a ''safe, environmentally sound way." It produces 20 percent of America's energy.
But some members of the audience were skeptical. Richard Neely of Plymouth pointed out that the NRC has hired Wackenhut, the company that provides security at many nuclear plants, to conduct mock attacks to test the plants' response. ''Should the system be tested by the same company that provides the forces?" Neely asked.
Lyman said the NRC should have avoided the appearance of a conflict of interest by hiring someone else to do the tests. He also questioned the NRC's commitment to a security standard that is high enough, saying that the NRC has not asked that plants be protected from an attack on the order of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Brian Sullivan of Plymouth, a retired Federal Aviation Administration security agent, said security at general aviation airports is ''extremely weak."
Thompson said after the forum that the use of a commercial or corporate jet, similar to the Sept. 11 attacks, to deliver a pinpoint assault on a nuclear reactor was unlikely. The use of a small plane armed with a missile does pose a risk, he said. He said the odds could not be calculated, but since the cost would be catastrophic, extraordinary protective measures were called for.
Other residents who attended the forum but did not speak said they had questions about the effectiveness of the Plymouth area's emergency evacuation plans and the potential economic benefits to Plymouth from relicensing. The League of Women Voters plans to make those subjects the themes of future forums.
Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox@gmail.com. 
