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pointing out, the chances of somebody just going down the road and attacking the casks is <br /> slimmer since security would come and ask them to stop doing it. <br /> Are these vulnerabilities real or am I just up here Chicken Little, scare <br /> mongering? I think the indications that suggest that they might be real is that nuclear power <br /> plants cannot go out and get private liability insurance, because no insurance company would <br /> provide insurance for the level of damage that could come from the radiation released from a <br /> nuclear power plant. The federal government had to provide federal liability protection for <br /> Shearon Harris and all the other plants because the damage is so great. Whether that damage <br /> is accidental or by intent, it does not really matter. The vulnerability is there, and terrorists could <br /> exploit that vulnerability if we are not careful. In addition, if you look at nuclear power plants, <br /> they are ringed by an emergency planning zone. The reason for that is because the radiation <br /> could be released and it was thought prudent to provide some protection for people living <br /> nearby, a ten-mile zone was thought to be the prudent range, and there have been some <br /> discussions about whether that is enough or not. And lastly, the spent fuel that exists at <br /> Shearon Harris and the other plants is there because the federal government has not yet <br /> opened up a permanent repository for the spent fuel. The challenge facing the Department of <br /> Energy is to find a place where these can be safely isolated from the environment for 10,000 <br /> years into the future. It is a threat in the reactor, it is a threat for 10,000 years once you dispose <br /> of it; obviously, between those two places it is also a hazard. <br /> The further answer of whether these vulnerabilities are real is in October of 2000 <br /> the NRC released a report about the risk of spent fuel damage. Basically, among other <br /> conclusions, they said that if radiation were to be released from this spent fuel, roughly there <br /> would be over 2,300 cancer deaths to the people living within 100 miles, and there would be <br /> 26,800 cancer deaths out to 500 miles from the radiation released. So assume 100 per square <br /> mile population density. Ninety-seven percent of these fatalities would be caused by Cesium <br /> 137, which has a 30-year half-life. This stuff is not going away anytime soon. <br /> Where would the radiation go if it were to be released from Shearon Harris? <br /> Basically it would circle the globe. After the Chernobyl accident in 1986, our detectors at our <br /> plant saw the radioactive cloud as it went by. It was not enough to cause damage to people in <br /> this country, but it did cause damage to people living closer to the plant. How close? The <br /> picture closest to me is from the Chernobyl plant in 1996, ten years after the accident. This is <br /> the plant itself. This area up here is 120 miles away approximately, and it is still so heavily <br /> contaminated that people cannot go into it ten years later. That zone is still out there today. <br /> Most of the contamination is from Cesium 137. Approximately three million curies of Cesium <br /> 137 were released in this accident. There is about 20 times that much in the Shearon Harris <br /> spent fuel pools. <br /> One of the things we hear a lot but disagree with every time we hear it is that <br /> nuclear power plants are well protected, they are hardened targets, and smart terrorists would <br /> go down the street and attack softer targets. I am not a terrorist, I have never been a member <br /> of a terrorist group, and I do not know what terrorists think. But to look at what they have done <br /> in the past, they do not have a history of attacking soft targets. A few years ago they attacked <br /> U. S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. They could have attacked U. S. corporate facilities <br /> and offices in those two countries that were not protected by U. S. Marines, but instead they <br /> chose the harder target and were successful. Less than two years ago they bombed the USS <br /> Cole at Port Newman. They went by unarmed merchant ships in the harbor to attack an armed <br /> U. S. ship. And in the last year they attacked the Pentagon in Washington, DC. There were <br /> several other buildings in DC that were unarmed. The fact that it was one of the most secure <br /> facilities in DC apparently did not dissuade the terrorists. So I do not think that we need to trust <br /> our future on the fact that the terrorists may not choose to attack Shearon Harris, I think we <br /> need to make sure that Shearon Harris is protected to the extent possible so that terrorists will <br /> not be successful and not rely on them not attacking it to ensure our futures. Thank you. <br />