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...panel concluded by warning that additional study of security at the nation's nuclear plants "is needed urgently." It said twice that the review should be done by someone "independent of the NRC and the nuclear industry." That's a frightening postscript. Since 9/11, virtually everything having to do with nuclear-plant security has been in the hands of the NRC and the nuclear industry. Diaz takes offense at the N.A.S.'s pointed snub of his agency's expertise. "The recommendation was not well justified," he says. "I don't believe we need anybody to come...
...growing, and prices for fossil fuels like natural gas are steadily rising. Even environmentalists like Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore and scientist James Lovelock have endorsed the once taboo energy source as a credible, clean alternative to coal- and natural-gas-powered plants. While most Americans still don't want a nuke plant in their backyard, some economically depressed areas, like Port Gibson, Miss., and Oswego, N.Y., are actively lobbying to be the home of a new reactor--and of all the jobs and tax revenue that come with it. Most important, the powers...
...recent relatively solid record of safety and efficiency has helped its image. In the past decade, electricity deregulation has ushered in a wave of nuclear consolidation, with major powers like Exelon, Entergy, Duke and Dominion Resources paying billions of dollars to buy up many of the nation's plants and squeeze more juice from them. Nuclear power now supplies about 20% of total electricity in the U.S., up from just 4.5% in 1973. At the same time, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given preliminary approval for three new modular, supposedly safer reactors, while simplifying the byzantine new-plant approval process...
Despite the criticism being aimed at it, nuclear-plant security in the U.S. is superior in some ways to that of other countries. Earlier this year the British government reported that from April 2003 to April 2004, nuclear-plant security was compromised more than 40 times; guards failed to answer an intruder alarm during a burglary, for instance. In 2003 Greenpeace volunteers breached the control building of a plant and scaled the reactor dome. Before 9/11, most plant guards were unarmed, but in April the government established the Civil Nuclear Constabulary to supply armed guards. So far, however, it consists...
Japan also traditionally used unarmed private guards. In May 2002 the National Police Agency sent armed members of its Gun Measures Corps to augment security around the clock at the 16 plants that house Japan's 53 reactors. But there has been little public outcry over the plants' vulnerability. Japanese nuclear watchdog groups are mostly also anti-gun. Armed guards will just "intimidate local residents and infringe on their rights," says Baku Nishio, co-director of Tokyo's Citizens' Nuclear Information Center. Japan does not legally require nuclear-plant workers to submit to background checks...