NRC Chief Says Future Reactors Should Include Better Protection Against Terror Attacks By Plane

Fox News Website ^ | 1/16/07 | AP via Fox News

[kerryusama04]

WASHINGTON — Future nuclear power plants should include design improvements to better protect against a terrorist attack by large aircraft, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday.

The chairman, Dale Klein, said the commission soon will give guidance to reactor manufacturers on "what we believe the reactors should be designed to withstand," including the possibility of a terrorist crashing a plane into the reactor.

-snip-

The NRC is gearing up for a rush of applications for new power reactors, the first such applications since the 1970s before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident.

Klein said four or five firm applications for new reactors are expected to be received this year with another eight likely in 2008. Most, if not all, of the new reactors are expected to be built on the sites of existing nuclear power plants.

[kerryusama04]

New nuke plants? Energy independence? Is this really going to happen?

[SteveMcKing]

And by hot-air balloon, and by zeppelin, and by ornithopter, and by Icarus wings....

[Cobra64]

Waste of time. Too many dopes in this country are against nuke plants. They're the same ones who want electric cars.

[manic4organic]

For a minute there, I thought it said "by Plame." Scooter on the brain.

[rjp2005]

Let's use our heads here. They know we will be looking for anything delivered via plane. They will not try that route again.

They also know we're scanning ship containers.

But the land borders remain open.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

In the interview, Klein expressed concern that the NRC won't be able to handle the license requests promptly unless Congress increases funding. The NRC, like other agencies, has not received a new budget and will run $95 million, or 12 percent, short. "It will slow (the licensing) down," said Klein, because there won't be money to train licensing specialists.

So they need "licensing specialists" and 95 million dollars just to process a handful of nuclear power plant applications??? Only in government...

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

—Said that the new, streamlined licensing process for new power reactors — now about 42 months — should be shortened even more, at least after the initial group of licenses. It can be done "with no compromise on safety," he said.

Forty-two months??? We'll all be speaking Spanish by the time new power plants are up and running!

[RightWhale]

Future nuke reactors are totally protected from attack of any kind simply by not being built. We are perfectly safe; every at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can go home.