Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?

In article , (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

::::::: In addition statistically the longer something hasnt occured, the
::::::: more likely it will. its been a long time since TMI, so stats say
::::::: another meltdown is now more liikely

:::::: Wow. Just... wow.

: bob haller
: laugh all you want, just before the japanese plant problem fred j mc
: call was assuring us how safe nuke plants, and their waste core
: storage pools are.

Which has absolutely and positively nothing to do with stastics.
In fact, statistics says exactly the opposite of what you claim it says.
It says, very explicitly and in excruciating detail, length of time of
itself does *not* make an event more likely.

OTGH, long times without incidents tend to make the operators of the
plants complacent.

--
The Chinese pretend their goods are good and we pretend our money
is good, or is it the reverse?

On Jun 25, 4:54*pm, Quadibloc wrote:
On Jun 19, 11:36*pm, "Robert A. Woodward"
wrote:

You would think that, after all the rolling blackouts immediately
after the earthquake, they might have a clue.

And now I read that Tokyo is facing 100-degree weather without air
conditioning, because some rural areas are refusing to allow reactors
not near a coastline or a fault line to be turned back on...

John Savard

TEPCO ready to inject nitrogen into No.2 reactor

Tokyo Electric Power Company is ready to inject nitrogen into the
containment vessel of the Number 2 reactor at its Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant to prevent hydrogen blasts.

The company says it will monitor radiation levels around the compound
more closely as the nitrogen may force out tiny amounts of gas
containing radioactive substances.

Work is underway at the damaged nuclear plant to decontaminate water
and inject it back into the reactor for cooling.

But if the reactors are cooled to a stable level, less moisture will
be produced, raising the ratio of hydrogen in the air.

Hydrogen can cause an explosion when it reacts with oxygen.

TEPCO has been pumping nitrogen into the No.1 reactor since April and
has completed preparations to do the same at the No. 2 reactor.

The utility assessed the possible effects of nitrogen injection into
the No.2 reactor, and submitted its report to the government's Nuclear
and Industrial Safety Agency on Friday.

It plans to start the injection as soon as it obtains the consent of
the agency.

Sunday, June 26, 2011 02:50 +0900 (JST)

On 6/25/11 7:07 PM, bob haller wrote:
On Jun 25, 4:54 pm, wrote:
On Jun 19, 11:36 pm, "Robert A.
wrote:

You would think that, after all the rolling blackouts immediately
after the earthquake, they might have a clue.

And now I read that Tokyo is facing 100-degree weather without air
conditioning, because some rural areas are refusing to allow reactors
not near a coastline or a fault line to be turned back on...

John Savard

TEPCO ready to inject nitrogen into No.2 reactor


If you actually have no response, you might consider not posting,
rather than imitating Strumpet's posting of random, and irrelevant,
articles.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

"Once and for all...are humans or robots better for Mars?"

YES.

Now quit asking.

Quadibloc wrote:

On Jun 19, 11:36 pm, "Robert A. Woodward"
wrote:

You would think that, after all the rolling blackouts immediately
after the earthquake, they might have a clue.

And now I read that Tokyo is facing 100-degree weather without air
conditioning, because some rural areas are refusing to allow reactors
not near a coastline or a fault line to be turned back on...


It's their choice. They may find themselves without power for months
as the remaining power plants reach full capacity, but they have the
right to be stubborn.

--
It's easy to think outside the box, when you have a cutting torch.

Well just before the japanese meltdown and waste core pool fires, the
waste cores are reported to have melted too.

Fred J Mc Call assured everyone here a nuke plant meltdown and a waste
core pool fire were impossible.

so hpow can anyone trust what fred posts today?

Where do we get the AI Brain?

1) Quantum Computing
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...9841702354668#

2) Genetic Algorithm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5HWBNvf9U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5DIyUWR-YY

3) Simulated Evolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgG_VSP7f8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_8tNGKm87U

3) Content Addressable Memory/Associative Computers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-addressable_memory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUSUkBeOtS8

4)Confabulation (neural networks)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabu...al_networks%29

Implementing this in a microtublin structure allows significant
computation in a single virus sized device;

Microtubule
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQngptkPYE8

On Jun 24, 11:15*pm, (Wayne Throop) wrote:
:::: what you do for mars is send groups of robotic crawlers so they
:::: could help each other out if they get stuck.
::: The AI brain could be in geo sync orbit controlling many vehicles
::: all a once. *=A0this ght help kep the costs down

:: Why you think planning for a continuously operable orbiting platform,
:: adding both design difficulties and many one-point failure modes,
:: would keep costs *down* is a bit of a puzzle.

: bob haller
: first constant recording of all functions would allow better fault
: tracking. *so why did it go off that 300 foot cliff? *oh the data says
: it saw so and so........ *ok software patch so we dont lose another one

And the swarm of rovers can't record each other's telemetry... why exactly?
I mean, your alleged answer to why an AI in an orbital platform is useful
doesn't mention anything requiring either an orbital platform, nor an AI.
And certainly provides no rationale to expect it would be less *expensive*
as originally claimed.

Microtubules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQngptkPYE8

Microtubles are capable of significant information processing They
appear to be responsible for organisms like paramecium's ability to
learn and function without synapses ...

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=...pv_zk1kCoEYfpA

Microtubles also detect light and collections of microtubules create
compound structures that image surroundings.

So, cell sized robots of significant ability are possible. A
collection of dusts networked together can image and chemically sense
large areas and operate together as phased array elements to send
information back to Earth.

A 23 micron diameter sphere has a 6,370 cubic micron volume. With a 2
gram per cubic meter material the device has 12.7 nanograms. So, 1 kg
of materials contain 78.5 billion devices. This is sufficient to
place 1 device every 48.5 meters on the surface of Mars. Shipping 100
kg reduces this separation to one device every 4.85 meters.

So, an entry probe, slows and releases 100 kg of particles that create
a fog as it descends. This solar powered fog then spreads at high
speed around the planet covering its entire surface. All units being
networked share information and operate as separate elements in a
phased array, allowing the entire planet to operate as a single
emitter to beam information back to Earth.

Elements operate together to move things and process things on Mars
surface to explore and act on the Mars surface.

In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:

"Robert A. Woodward" wrote:

In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:

bob haller wrote:


Well lets look at this another way, Our NRC is very concerened because
the US is at risk for a japanese type melt down right here in the
USA..........


For some microscopic value of "very concerned".


Now imagine a power plant in california on the coast melting down, one
right on the ocean. California has lots of faults and sunami risk too.


When was the last tsunami in California that was over 1 foot tall?


Er, how quickly people forget
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...t-city-harbor-
destroyed-people-swept-into-sea.html. Crescent city also got hit
by one from the Alaska Earthquake back in 1964
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_City,_California#Tsunamis).


Is that all tsunami, or is that a little tsunami on top of regular
tide?

I note they saw 'waves', so I would say the latter.

The wikipedia mentioned 11 events with waves of more than 1 meter;
that's not the tide and I would expect that they don't mean storm
waves either. I found a site that stated that the height of the
March 27, 1964 tsunami was 4.3 meters.

--
Robert Woodward
http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw

Bulletin 22 – Nuclear Policy, Terrorism, and Missile Defense


Radiological Terrorism: Sabotage of Spent Fuel Pool
Hui Zhang
The September 11 large-scale terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon show the threat of nuclear and radiological
terrorism is real. A successful attack or sabotage on a nuclear
facility could cause the most potentially devastating radiological
release into the atmosphere. While many people focus their concerns on
the vulnerability of reactor containment buildings, an increasing
number of nuclear experts are concerned about the spent fuel pools
(SFP) which would be more vulnerable than the reactor containment
building, because most SFPs are housed in far less robust structures
than the reactor containment vessels. Moreover, a SFP would contain
much more radiation than a reactor core. [1] In particular, one major
concern is the vulnerability of the pools' cooling systems. In absence
of cooling water, the spent fuel would overheat, and the fuel-cladding
could melt or catch fire in some cases. Thus it could release
radioactive substances to the environment.

In fact, a number of countries are taking spent nuclear fuel
vulnerabilities very seriously. For example, France has installed anti-
aircraft missiles around its spent fuel ponds at its reprocessing
facility. However, some scholars and experts argue that these nuclear
facilities could not be vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Risk of Spent Nuclear Fuel at Reactor Pools
In this paper, I will explain the potential consequences of the
sabotage of spent fuel pools and the vulnerabilities of these pools to
terrorist attacks. Finally, I will suggest some security measures to
protect these spent fuel facilities.

Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel

Each year, a typical 1 GWe light water reactor (LWR) discharges about
20 to 30 metric tonnes of heavy metal (tHM) in spent nuclear fuel
(SNF). The SNF is very radioactive. Typically, each tonne SNF would
emit above 200 million curies of activity at the time of reactor
shutdown [2]. Thus, the SNF is very hot. For example, one day after
shutdown, 30 t LWR spent fuel has a thermal output of about 6 MW. [3]
To prevent the spent fuel from melting, once discharged from the
reactor, it is placed on storage racks in rectangular pools, typically
10-20 m long, 7-15 m wide, and 12-13 m deep. [4] The pool is usually
made of reinforced concrete walls four to five feet thick with
stainless steel liners. Pools at pressurized water reactors (PWR, the
most common reactors) are usually outside the reactor containment
building and partially or fully embedded in the ground. Most of the
spent fuel pools at boiling water reactors (BWR) are housed in reactor
buildings and above ground. A pool can have a 15 to 30 year storage
(i.e. about 400-800 t for a PWR) of SNFs discharged from a reactor.
Spent fuel pools could hold about 10 times more long-lived
radioactivity than a reactor core. After a period of cooling time, the
spent fuel can be removed from the wet pool for a dry storage or
reprocessing.

Today, about 10,000 tHM spent fuel is generated annually. Over 150,000
tHM spent fuels were in storage by 2000. More than 90% of the spent
fuel in the world today is stored in pools at reactor sites or in away-
from-reactor facilities. [5] The abandoning or delaying of
reprocessing and the absence of established geologic repositories
through the world have resulted in an increase of spent fuel stored at
the power plants or in central repositories. Moreover, most reactors
were built with an originally planned reprocessing program that made
these reactors have much less pool storage capacity. Thus, in many
cases, these pools are approaching or have exceeded their original
design capacity. To compensate, in practice, many reactor operators in
the world are "re-racking" the spent fuel in the pool so that the
spent fuel is stored more densely. For example, at most operating
reactors in the United States, the 're-rack' of spent fuel has been
done. As discussed below, these densepacked pools would be more
vulnerable to a pool fire and cause a large amount of radioactive
release.

The Consequence of Cesium-137 Release

A 400 t PWR pool holds about 10 times more long-lived radioactivity
than a reactor core. A radioactive release from such a pool would
cause catastrophic consequences. One major concern is the fission
product cesium-137 (Cs-137), which made a major contribution (about
three quarters) to the long-term radiological impact of the 1986
Chernobyl accident. A spent fuel pool would contain tens of million
curies of Cs-137. Cs-137 has a 30 year half-life; it is relatively
volatile and a potent land contaminant. In comparison, the April 1986
Chernobyl accident released about 2 Mega Curies (MCi) Cs-137 into the
atmosphere from the core of the 1,000 MWe unit 4. It is estimated that
over 100,000 residents were permanently evacuated because of
contamination by Cs-137.The total area of the radiation-control zone
is about 10,000 km², in which the contamination level is greater than
15 Ci/km² of Cs-137. [6]

A typical 1 GWe PWR core contains about 80 t fuels. Each year about
one third of the core fuel is discharged into the pool. A pool with 15
year storage capacity will hold about 400 t spent fuel. To estimate
the Cs-137 inventory in the pool, for example, we assume the Cs137
inventory at shutdown is about 0.1 MCi/tU with a burn-up of 50,000 MWt-
day/tU, thus the pool with 400 t of ten year old SNF would hold about
33 MCi Cs-137. [7] Assuming a 50-100% Cs137 release during a spent
fuel fire, [8] the consequence of the Cs-137 exceed those of the
Chernobyl accident 8-17 times (2MCi release from Chernobyl). Based on
the wedge model, the contaminated land areas can be estimated. [9] For
example, for a scenario of a 50% Cs-137 release from a 400 t SNF pool,
about 95,000 km² (as far as 1,350 km) would be contaminated above 15
Ci/km² (as compared to 10,000 km² contaminated area above 15 Ci/km² at
Chernobyl). Thus, it is necessary to take security measures to prevent
such an event from happening.

Vulnerability of Spent Fuel Pools

Until today, no accident or sabotage happened to cause the release of
radioactivity from a spent fuel pool. However, many scientists and
nuclear security experts are very concerned about a significant
release of radioactivity by a possible spent fuel fire, especially in
the case of dense packing of pools – a method that has been used by
many reactor operators worldwide including for most pools in the US.

The most serious risk is the loss of pool water, which could expose
spent fuel to the air, thus leading to an exothermal reactions of the
zirconium cladding, which would catch fire at about 9000 °C. Thus, the
Cs-137 in the rods could be dispersed into the surrounding atmosphere.
Based on a Technical Study of Spent Fuel Pool Accident Risk at
Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plant in 2000, the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) conceded that "the possibility of a zirconium fire
cannot be dismissed even many years after a final reactor
shutdown." [10] Recently, a number of nuclear scientists outside the
government agency arrived at the same conclusion. For example, the new
technical study Reducing the hazards from stored spent power-reactor
fuel in the United States by R. Alvarez et al. [11] points out that
"In the absence of any cooling, a freshly discharged core generating
decay heat at a rate of 100 kWt/tU would heat up adiabatically within
an hour to about 600 °C, where the zircaloy cladding would be expected
to rupture under the internal pressure from helium and fission product
gases, and then to about 900 °C where the cladding would begin to burn
in air." In addition, although the cooler fuel could not ignite on its
own, many scientists are concerned that fire from freshly spent fuel
could spread to adjacent cooler fuel by some mechanisms, including
zircaloy oxidation propagation. [12] Finally, even for the case of non-
dense-packed pools, there could still be some sabotage scenarios that
cause a significant amount of radioactive release as discussed in the
following section.

Thus, a loss of pool cooling could cause a pool fire. Then the
question is how such a loss of pool water is brought about. A
terrorist group could cause a loss of cooling water in a number of
ways, such as,

causing the loss of cooling, thus boiling the water off through the
failure of pumps or valves, through the destruction of heat
exchangers, or through a loss of power for the cooling system. It is
estimated that, in the case of a loss of cooling, the time it would
take for a spent fuel pool to boil down to near the top of the spent
fuel would be as short as several hours, depending on the cooling time
of the discharge fuel. [13] Moreover, in the case of terrorist attack,
the operators of nuclear facilities might not have enough time to
provide emergency cooling.
causing the drainage of coolant inventory by piping failures or
siphoning, and by gate and seal failures. Furthermore, a heavy load
including a fuel transport cask could be dropped in the pools thus
causing a collapse of the pool floor and a water leak. As reported,
"The analysis exclusively considered drops severe enough to
catastrophically damage the SFP so that pool inventory would be lost
rapidly and it would be impossible to refill the pool using onsite or
offsite resources. There is no possibility of mitigating the damage,
only preventing it." "The staff assumes a catastrophic heavy load drop
(creating a large leakage path in the pool) would lead directly to a
zirconium fire." [14]
puncturing the pool and causing a drainage by suicide airplanes,
missiles, or other explosives. For the case that spent fuel pools are
located above ground level, a suicide airplane could breach the pool
bottom or sidewalls and cause a complete or partial drainage. A US NRC
study estimated that a large aircraft (one weighing more than 5.4
tonnes) would have a 45% probability of penetrating the five-foot
thick concrete wall of a spent fuel pool. The NRC staff has decided
that it is prudent to assume that a turbine shaft of a large aircraft
engine could penetrate and drain a spent fuel storage pool. [15]
However, there are some opposing arguments regarding the impact of an
aircraft on a spent fuel pool. For example, a study conducted by the
Electric Power Research Institute at the request of the Nuclear Energy
Institute, which considers the impact of a Boeing 767 on spent fuel
storage pools concluded that "the stainless steel pool liner ensures
that, although the evaluations of the representative used fuel pools
determined that there was localized crushing and cracking of the
concrete wall, there was no loss of pool cooling water. Because the
used fuel pools were not breached, the used fuel is protected and
there would be no release of radionuclides to the environment." [16]
However, many experts are concerned about the spent fuel pool damage
from an aircraft crash.

A terrorist could also use anti-tank missiles to puncture a pool.
Modern anti-tank weapons can be fired by shoulder or from a vehicle or
boat, and launched as far as 2 km away. It is reported that some
modern anti-tank missiles would be able to penetrate up to 3 m of
reinforced concrete. Thus these weapons could be used to conduct an
off-site attack on the pools. Moreover, a terrorist attack could
include some kinds of on-site explosions to damage the pools, such as
if a large truck bomb were detonated near the pool; or if a terrorist
carried a certain type of explosive to the pool and blew a sizeable
hole in the pool. In particular, the truck bomb would pose a big
threat.

Risk of Spent Fuel Pools at Reprocessing Plants
Another risk is from the spent fuel pools at reprocessing plants. A
reprocessing plant has even greater pool storage capacity than that of
a reactor pool. Before reprocessing, the received spent fuels are
stored in wet pools at the reprocessing plants. The buildings that
house the pools could be even weaker than those pools at reactor
sites. In particular, the roof of the building could be more
vulnerable. Most of the sabotage scenarios conceivable for reactor
pools could be applied to these pools at reprocessing plants. However,
unlike those freshly discharged spent fuels at reactor pools with
dense packing, the cooler spent fuel at reprocessing pools, which is
at least two years old, could be difficult to ignite automatically in
the absence of cooling.

Nevertheless, there might still be some ways to cause a significant
radioactive release by a successful terrorist attack. For example, a
two- or multiple-stage attack by truck bombs, aircraft impacts or
other kinds of on-site explosion could at least breach the zircaloy
cladding or even partly melt the fuel cladding. Even though this would
not ignite a spent fuel fire, a significant fraction of Cs-137 in the
rods could be released into the atmosphere. For example, a pool with
2,000 t ten-year-old SNF would hold about 170 MCi Cs-137. If 3% of
this Cs-137 inventory were released, [17] about 5 MCi Cs-137 would be
released, which is two times more than the 1986 Chernobyl accident.
Furthermore, terrorists could pour fuel in the pool and start a fire
that would cause ignition of the zircaloy cladding and lead to a
greater release of the Cs-137 inventory. Recent results from France
indicate that heating at 1,500 °C of high-burnup spent fuel for one
hour caused the release of 26% of the Cs inventory. [18] Thus it would
release about 44 MCi of Cs-137 into the environment, which would be
twenty times more than the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

The major operating reprocessing plants are at French La Hague,
British Sellafield, and Russian Mayak, and Japan is currently building
a major reprocessing facility (with a capacity of 800 tHM/y) at
Rokkasho, which is about 90% complete. UK's British Nuclear Fuels Plc.
(BNFL) operates two reprocessing plants at Sellafield, the Magnox B205
and the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP). The B205 plant has a
capacity of 1,500 tHM/y and reprocesses SNF from 16 British Magnox
reactors. THORP has a capacity of 1,200 tHM/y and reprocesses SNF from
14 British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGR) as well as imported SNF.
Like the Magnox reprocessing plant, THORP uses the standard Purex
method. As reported, the French La Hague nuclear reprocessing
facilities (with a normal capacity of 800 tHM/year in each of the two
facilities) holds a stock of radioactive substances that greatly
exceeds those of all the French nuclear reactors put together.
According to a Cogema presentation on the situation of its storage
pools on 30 June 2001, 7,484.2 t varied nuclear fuel (of which 7,077.7
t from France), is spread in five pools (which provide a total storage
capacity of 13,990 t.) In addition, over 55 t separated plutonium,
over 1,400 m³ highly radioactive glass, and 10,000 m³ of radioactive
sludges are located there. [19]

Some experts are already concerned about the possible consequence of a
terrorist attack on the La Hague nuclear reprocessing facilities. As a
COGEMA-La Hague spokesman declared after September 11, as far as the
design basis is concerned, the facilities are no more protected
against an airliner crash than any other nuclear power station. [20]
The World Information Service on Energy, Wise-Paris, estimated the
potential impact of a major accident in La Hague's pools. [21] The
calculation was made for the case of an explosion and/or fire in the
spent fuel storage pool D (the smallest one), assuming that it is
filled up to half of its normal capacity of 3,490 t, supposing a
release of up to 100% of Cs-137. Based solely on the stock of Cs-137
in pool D, it is shown that a major accident in this pool could have
an impact up to 67 times that of the Chernobyl accident. Moreover, the
total Cs-137 inventory in the pools of La Hague reprocessing
facilities is about 7,500 kg, 280 times as much as the Cs-137 amount
released from the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

In fact, since 11 September 2001, attention has been drawn to the
physical protection of nuclear power plants and reprocessing
facilities. For example, France has installed anti-aircraft missiles
around its spent fuel pond at the La Hague reprocessing facilities.
Also in the UK, the House of Commons defense committee stressed that
attention should be focused on the vulnerability of nuclear
installations, including reprocessing plants. The Royal Air Force
Tornado F3 fighters based at Coningsby, Lincolnshire, are responsible
for intercepting hijacked commercial aircraft deemed a threat to UK
nuclear sites. In July 2002, the British government published a White
Paper entitled Managing the Nuclear Legacy: A Strategy for Action
which proposed to transform the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Autority
(UKAEA) Constabulary into a stand-alone force, the Civil Nuclear
Constabulary (CNC). [22]

Reducing the Risks Posed by Spent Fuel Pools
Spent fuel facilities could become a tempting target for terrorists.
Indeed, on September 11, the terrorists just used simple box-cutters
to convert a fuel-laden jetliner into guided missiles and cause mass
destruction. Similarly, terrorists could use conventional means to
turn an adversary's nuclear spent fuel facilities into radiological
weapons. Therefore it is an urgent priority to enhance the current
nuclear security system worldwide. Here it is suggested that several
security measures should be taken to improve the existing security
systems for nuclear installations including spent fuel facilities.

Every country with SNF facilities should review and upgrade its basis
used for designing physical protection for these facilities to ensure
that it reflects the threat as perceived after September 11. It should
take some effective measures including a strong two-person rule
protecting against well-trained insiders. It also needs to deny access
to these nuclear facilities either by land or air to protect against
sabotage. This would include, for example, re-examining the size of
exclusion zones and adding effective physical barriers and delay
mechanisms around nuclear facilities to prevent against truck bombs or
boat attacks, and setting up a no-fly-zone around nuclear facilities
to exclude attacks of suicide aircrafts. Moreover, all these
facilities should be protected by well-trained, armed guard forces.
Each country should enhance its security system to reduce the risk
posed by spent fuel pools. To protect against terrorist sabotage on
these pools, some specific measures should be taken, which would
include hardening the pool floor and walls to prevent the breach by
weapon attacks or heavy load drop, thus reducing the risk of the leak
of coolant, and providing for emergency ventilation of spent fuel
buildings or installing emergency water sprinkler systems to reduce
the likelihood of fire in case of a loss of coolant. Furthermore, to
reduce the likelihood of a pool fire, as much spent fuel as possible,
especially SNF at pools with dense packing, should be moved into the
less vulnerable dry storage type of cask as soon as possible. Unlike
wet pools, dry casks are cooled by natural convection that is driven
by the decay heat of the spent fuel itself, thus they are not
vulnerable to loss of coolant. In the U.S., for example, only about 4%
of the spent fuel inventory is in dry storage, because there is no
financial incentive for the owner to move wastes to safer dry storage.
It is estimated that the cost of onsite dry-cask storage for an
additional 35,000 t of older spent fuel is about 0.03-0.06 cents per
KWh generated from that fuel. [23] Nevertheless, such a cost is
justified to reduce the potential catastrophic consequences of a pool
fire.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should re-examine and
update its guidelines for the physical protection of nuclear
facilities. Today there is no multilateral treaty that requires
nuclear facilities, including reactors and spent fuel facilities, to
be protected from sabotage. The only related treaty is the 1980
Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. However, it
only applies to the protection from theft of material in international
transportation. In 1999, the IAEA made a substantial revision of its
recommendations on physical protection (INFCIRC 225/Rev.4). After the
September 11 attacks, the IAEA General Conference accepted twelve
physical protection principles developed by an experts' group, which
include commending the IAEA's programs of training, guidance, and
technical assistance to assist states in establishing or improving
systems of physical protection; requesting the IAEA to strengthen its
work to prevent acts of terrorism; and urging IAEA members to support
all of these programs. [24] However, all these recommendations are not
mandatory. Given the threat of sabotage of nuclear facilities, the
IAEA should review its guidelines for physical protections of nuclear
facilities and create new requirements for regulations and standards
of physical protection with their new understanding of the threat in
the aftermath of September 11. At a minimum, each related country
should immediately apply these standards of physical protections as
recommended in INFCIRC 225/Rev.4 and by the experts' principles.
Furthermore, the IAEA should soon conduct an amendment to the
convention on physical protection with adoption of stronger physical
protection standards against these threats and require each country to
accept and apply those standards to its nuclear facilities. Also, the
IAEA should be able to provide guidance, training, advisory services,
and technical assistance to help countries improve their protection
practices and to implement the new principles and recommendations.
Finally, the international community should further enhance the
international cooperative effort to improve current security systems
of these nuclear facilities, including spent fuel facilities.