CBG’s Beamhenge Proposal

PROTECT REACTORS FROM TERRORIST ATTACK!

Update: 12/21/07 — CBG comments on NRC proposed rulemaking that does not include protection for a 9/11 style attack at a reactor.

Result: Although the NRC failed to adopt CBG’s Beamhenge proposal, CBG’s focus on reactor vulnerability to air attack sparked a national debate. Recently, the New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the NRC for failing to adopt Beamhenge.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has initiated an important rulemaking on reactor security, for which your comments are critical.  A successful terrorist attack on a nuclear facility could release massive radioactivity, capable of producing tens of thousands of immediate deaths and hundreds of thousands of latent cancers, as well as contaminating an area the size of a big state for generations.  Yet the NRC is proposing to DO NOTHING to improve the security of the nation’s nuclear plants.  The proposed rulemaking explicitly is designed to codify the status quo, which is woefully inadequate, with no security upgrades at all from the situation currently in place.  Write them to indicate how inappropriate their proposal is, and that security at reactors needs to be dramatically improved.