Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
Get Real! <br />In March 1975, a worker held a lit candle into the place where elec <br />penetration from the cable spreading room beneath the main <br />control room into the reactor building at the Browns Ferry <br />nuclear plant in Alabama. He was testing for air leaks. If the <br />candle flame flickered, it indicated that the packing material <br />around the cables wasn't sufficient to block air flow between the <br />buildings. This time, the candle flame ignited the packing <br />material. The fire burned for nearly seven hours. As insulation <br />bunged off cabling, wires came into contact with each other and <br />shorted out. All of the emergency systems for cooling the Unit 1 <br />reactor core were disabled as were most of those systems for <br />Unit 2. Heroic operator actions narrowly prevented both reactor <br />cores from meltdown. <br />Does anyone — other than the NRC — really believe that a terrorist at the <br />controls of a large, fast aircraft fully laden with jet fuel who crashes into a <br />nuclear power plant will do no more harm than one guy with one candle <br />inflicted at Browns Ferry? <br />The revised security regulations approved by the Commissioners upgraded defense against ground -based <br />attacks by a small band of intruders. The old regulation was reported to limit the small band to three persons <br />or less and the revised regulation has been reported as being less than double the old number. In simulated <br />force -on -force tests, sometimes the small group of mock attackers succeeds in damaging enough equipment <br />to trigger reactor core meltdown. Does anyone — other than the NRC — really believe that a terrorist crashing <br />a large aircraft into a facility will do less Kann than a handfiil of guys running about on foot? <br />The NRC has better things to do than make veracity - deprived statements. Like enforce fire protection <br />regulations, for a starter. <br />0 <br />