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Suggested Citation:"2.2 TERRORIST ATTACK SCENARIOS." National Research Council. 2006. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11263.
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2.2 TERRORIST ATTACK SCENARIOS

It is possible to imagine a wide range of terrorist attacks against spent fuel storage facilities. Each would have a range of potential consequences depending on the characteristics of the attack and the facility being targeted as well as any post-attack mitigative actions to prevent or reduce the release of radioactive material. The committee focused its discussions about terrorist attacks around the concept of a maximum credible scenario—that is, an attack that is physically possible to carry out and that produces the most serious potential consequences within a given class of attack scenarios.

The following example illustrates the concept: One of the scenario classes considered by the committee in this chapter involves suicide attacks against spent fuel storage facilities with civilian passenger aircraft. The physics of such attacks are well understood: In general, heavier and higher-speed aircraft produce greater impact forces than lighter and slower aircraft, all else being equal. Consequently, the maximum credible scenario for suicide attacks involving civilian passenger aircraft would utilize the largest civilian passenger aircraft widely used in the United States flying at maximum cruising speed and hitting the facility at its most vulnerable point. Such an attack provides an upper bound to the damage that could be inflicted by this type of aircraft attack.

The maximum credible scenario is particularly useful for obtaining a general understanding of the damage that could be inflicted, but it would not necessarily apply to every spent fuel storage facility. To be judged a “credible” scenario, the terrorist must be able to successfully carry it out as designed—for example, to hit a spent fuel storage facility with the largest civilian aircraft at its most vulnerable point. This would rule out attacks that are physically impossible, such as flying a large civilian aircraft into a facility that is located below ground level or protected by surrounding hills or buildings. This also would rule out attacks invoking weapons that are not available to terrorists (e.g., aircraft-launched weapons such as “bunker-buster” bombs or nuclear weapons).

This is not intended, however, to rule out attacks that are judged to have a low probability for success simply because terrorists might lack the skill and knowledge or luck to carry them out. In fact, if the consequences of such attacks were severe, policy makers might still decide that prudent mitigating actions should be taken regardless of their low probabilities of occurrence.5 This might be especially true if quick, inexpensive fixes could be implemented. The main benefit of analyzing the maximum credible scenario is that it provides decision makers with a better characterization of the full range of potential consequences so that sound policy judgments can be made.

The analyses carried out for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (described in the committee’s classified report) do not consider maximum credible scenarios. Instead, the analyses employ reference scenarios that are based either on the characteristics of previous terrorist attacks or on qualitative judgments of the technical means and methods that might be employed in attacks against spent fuel storage facilities. Although such reference scenarios are useful for gaining Insights on potential consequences of terrorist attacks, they

5  

The Department of Energy, for example, routinely examines the consequences of very low probability events involving nuclear weapons safety and security; see, for example, AL 56XB Development and Production Manual published by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration. See http://prp.lanl.gov/documents/d_p_manual.asp.

Suggested Citation:"2.2 TERRORIST ATTACK SCENARIOS." National Research Council. 2006. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11263.
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are not necessarily bounding. This becomes important when the reference scenario attack results in damage to a facility that verges on failure.

The committee prefers a maximum credible scenario approach for one important reason: It believes that terrorists who choose to attack hardened facilities like spent fuel storage facilities would choose weapons capable of producing maximum destruction. Of course, once the consequences of such attacks are known, an element of expert judgment is required to determine whether such attacks have a high likelihood of being carried out as designed. Such judgment is especially important when making policy decisions about actions to reduce the vulnerabilities of facilities to such attacks.

The consequences of terrorist attacks can be described in terms of either maximum credible releases or best-estimate releases. The former describes the largest releases of radioactive material following an attack based on quantitative analytical models (e.g., the MELCOR computer code described in Chapter 3). The latter describes the median estimates from such models. In both cases, the estimates may not account for mitigative actions that could be taken after an attack to reduce or even eliminate releases. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission analyses reviewed by the committee in its classified report are best-estimate releases for various terrorist attack scenarios. The estimates in NUREG-1738 (USNRC, 2001 a) and Alvarez et al. (2003a). on the other hand, describe maximum-credible to worst-case releases.6

The committee considered four classes of terrorist attack scenarios in this study:

  • Air attacks using large civilian aircraft or smaller aircraft laden with explosives.

  • Ground attacks by groups of well-armed and well-trained individuals.

  • Attacks involving combined air and land assaults,

  • Thefts of spent fuel for use by terrorists (including knowledgeable insiders) in radiological dispersal devices.

The committee devoted time at its meetings discussing these scenarios, it also received briefings on possible scenarios from Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff and suggestions for scenarios from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), other experts, and the public. Some scenarios were dismissed by the committee as not credible. An example of such a scenario is an attack on a spent fuel storage facility with a nuclear weapon. Such weapons would be relatively difficult7 for terrorists to build or steal. Even if such a weapon could be obtained, the committee can think of no reason that it would be used against a spent fuel storage facility rather than another target. There are easier ways to attack spent fuel storage facilities, as discussed in the classified report, and there are more attractive targets for nuclear weapons, for example, large population centers.

6  

Worst-case releases are based on the most unfavorable conditions that could occur in a given scenario, regardless of whether those conditions were physically realistic. For example, a worst-case estimate of the radionuclide releases from an attack on a spent fuel pool might assume that all of the volatile radionuclides contained in the spent fuel would be released, even if quantitative analytical models showed that such releases were very unlikely to occur

7  

Difficult but certainly not impossible. See Chapter 2 in NRC (2002).

Suggested Citation:"2.2 TERRORIST ATTACK SCENARIOS." National Research Council. 2006. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11263.
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Page 28
Suggested Citation:"2.2 TERRORIST ATTACK SCENARIOS." National Research Council. 2006. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11263.
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Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report Get This Book
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In response to a request from Congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Homeland Security sponsored a National Academies study to assess the safety and security risks of spent nuclear fuel stored in cooling pools and dry casks at commercial nuclear power plants. The information provided in this book examines the risks of terrorist attacks using these materials for a radiological dispersal device. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel is an unclassified public summary of a more detailed classified book. The book finds that successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. A propagating fire in a pool could release large amounts of radioactive material, but rearranging spent fuel in the pool during storage and providing emergency water spray systems would reduce the likelihood of a propagating fire even under severe damage conditions. The book suggests that additional studies are needed to better understand these risks. Although dry casks have advantages over cooling pools, pools are necessary at all operating nuclear power plants to store at least the recently discharged fuel. The book explains it would be difficult for terrorists to steal enough spent fuel to construct a significant radiological dispersal device.

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