Greenpeace activist punks media outlets with "report" on nuclear terrorism

[wtmusic]

"Anti-nukes were downright gleeful this week after a graduate student in Public Affairs at the University of Texas, claimed in a report that nuclear plants are vulnerable to terrorist attacks and the plants must be able to defend against them independently, by themselves.

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But if you read the press on this report, it sounds like it was actually commissioned by the “Office of the Secretary of Defense, which provided financial support for the research”. Inquiries to DoD say the report was not requested by the department. DoD just funds the program as a whole at the University and has no knowledge what’s coming out, until it’s out. We all know how this works.

There was no expert peer review, and the report only represents speculations of the student and her advisor. Even the cartoon on the front page is childish. The authors confuse nuclear weapons with nuclear energy, and have no first-hand knowledge of the security aspects of these facilities, since they have no access to such highly classified information.

But hey, just wing it! What could go wrong?"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/08/17/anyone-can-write-a-story-about-nuclear-terrorism/

[kristopher]

1. Conca is rabidly pronuclear.

And he is the only person making this claim. All other reports state that the DOD commissioned the study group for the specific purpose of looking at the Design Basis Threat on which civilian nuclear plant security is based. The paper was one part of that effort. As usual, it is the nuclear shills that are misleading the public about the facts.

...According to report co-author Professor Alan J. Kuperman, Ph.D., the coordinator of the NPPP, the study came about after the Pentagon approached UT seeking to find out whether some of their nuclear facilities were under-protected or overprotected. Kuperman said the NPPP’s role was to assess the government’s reliance on the Design Basis Threat (DBT), which is used to establish requirements for protecting U.S. nuclear facilities. The report compares the DBT approach within and across three agencies – the Pentagon, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"The Design Basis Threat varies not only between the agencies, but between facilities within each agency," Kuperman said in a press conference on Thursday.

Additionally, Kuperman said that the report also assessed proposed alternatives to the DBT approach and not only examined the theoretical benefits of these methods, but the obstacles to implementing them. The problem with the DBT, according to Kuperman, is that the DBT is not defined as the maximum credible terrorist attack, but rather the attack that operators are required to protect against.

"The Design Basis Threat, as currently implemented, leaves U.S. nuclear facilities, especially NRC-licensed reactors, but not only those facilities, vulnerable to credible terrorist threats of theft of bomb grade material and sabotage that could cause a massive meltdown and release of radiation," he explained. "The second thing we find is that the alternatives to the Design Basis Threat approach have their own shortcomings – theoretical and practical – that make them inferior to the Design Basis Threat approach."

In addition to the aforementioned vulnerabilities facing NRC-licensed nuclear facilities...

http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/11117139/report-finds-us-nuclear-reactors-are-vulnerable-to-acts-of-terrorism

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Thank you for that information.

"As usual, it is the nuclear shills that are misleading the public about the facts. "
and the beat goes on.........

[FBaggins]

3. And Kuperman is anti-nuclear

You don't find it odd that one bias makes a person less credible in your estimation while the other makes him more credible?

All other reports state that the DOD commissioned the study group for the specific purpose of looking at the Design Basis Threat on which civilian nuclear plant security is based.

Yet that isn't the criticism of the report. They didn't just compare the design basis threat standards of the multiple government agencied and provide academic input on how they should be harmonized/enhanced. They went on to pretend that they could determine whether or not nuclear plants could handle that adjusted threat.

Nobody involved in the report (let alone the sole grad student assigned the task) has the least bit of relevant experience (nor classified information) to begin to answer that question... nor was it remotely what they were commissioned to do.

It's as ridiculous as people claiming that since the design basis of a given plant is a 6.0 earthquake... a 7.0 would cause a meltdown.

[kristopher]

4. Typical pro-industry horse shit.

Every single academic that comes down the pike that writes anything that damages the prospects of this industry is relentlessly attacked on every front.

Your behavior is reprehensible and totally dishonest. You have no basis AT ALL for besmirching the academics that wrote this study. It is ALEC motivated propaganda at its worst.

[FBaggins]

5. There's no content to your reply... just bluster.

Of course we both know that's because you can't rebut the facts. They weren't asked to produce a report regarding whether or not nuclear facilities were vulnerable to attack... because nobody in his right mind would ask a grad student with zero relevant experience/education/information to make such an analysis.

But as usual... when you can't argue the facts... you pound on the table.

Transparent... and childish (as is your recent BS that anything pro-nuclear is now tied to ALEC).

[kristopher]

6. There was no content in your post - just baseless smears and falsehoods.

No more bumps for this garbage.

[FBaggins]

7. How could you possible pretend that they're baseless?

Oh wait... I forgot for a moment who I was talking to.

By all means... regale us with whatever experience she has that you think is relevant to being able to draw the conclusions she does. Education? Nope. Professional background? Nope. Access to classified information? Nope. Active imagination? Ah! There it is.

But we need only look to their ridiculous claims to see how clueless they are. The folks at Fukushima have thousands of people working for years to extract spent fuel from a pool safely... yet they think that 19 terrorists can get into a plant and escape with enough spent fuel to extract enough material to make a bomb?

How? Put a big "open house!" sign on a reactor... leave the doors wide open... and walk away from the plant and 19 guys still can't remove tons of spent fuel from a spent fuel pool.

Similarly... they display incredible ignorance by pretending that .50 caliber sniper rifles would make the plant more vulnerable... or that an attack from a boat could get a plant into meltdown in minutes.