--- In Know_Nukes@yahoogroups.com, John Schmidt <nuclearbetrayal@...> wrote:
>
> Well, imagine this... in my upcoming book, Nuclear Betrayal,
> I have a chapter devoted to the Spent Fuel Rod Storage area
> at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station. There are
> approximately 40 cask stored at a location about a mile
> from the site. Cameras monitor the area but no security officers
> are posted out there. Now here's the kicker.
> Should the storage area be attacked, one officer is dispatched
> to a bunker about 500 ft from the facility. He is to report
> what he sees but not engage the adversaries. Instead, the
> Pennsylvania State Police are called in to challenge the
> terrorists. Problem: the police are 40 minutes away. Plenty of
> time for our enemies to blow up the facility, walk back through
> the woods to their vehicle(s) and leave the area. I'm sure an
> attack on this unguarded facility would bring the world media
> to Pennsylvania but unfortunately not to the site. It would be
> so contaminated, no one would be allowed in the area.

The site would not be contaminated. Spent fuel rods that are old
enough to go in casks have little residual power to heat
themselves, and so no tendency to leak anything. Also,
the attackers would have little chance of exposing any.


--- G.R.L. Cowan, ('How fire can be domesticated')
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/