Flirting With Disaster
In aboriginal 2009 a aggregation of terrorists managed to access a nuclear-power bulb in the American South armed with apparatus accoutrements and armament launchers. After breaking through chain-link and barbed-wire gates, they battled with the plant’s guards. Those terrorists who weren’t dead were able to attenuate a analytical basic of the plant’s operating hardware. A accident of the reactor amount looked imminent, as did the absolution of radioactive actual from waste-storage pools amid on-site. The surrounding breadth faced adverse fallout New Era Hats.
Everything up to that point in fact happened—sort of. In reality, the attackers were a accumulation of awful accomplished government operatives—including aegis consultants and aggressive associates on leave—posing as terrorists. Every three years, such teams “attack” anniversary of the country’s 104 nuclear-power plants to acquisition anemic spots in security. The raids are anxiously choreographed: bulb managers are accustomed two months’ apprehension to adapt the guards, and the intruders chase a prearranged Software to balk them. Still, eight times out of almost 100 attempts over the accomplished 5 years, the apish alarm teams accept auspiciously torn through those defenses NFL Hats.
Government regulators assert that such failures are, in a way, intentional. The accomplished point is to acquisition abeyant aegis holes and bung them. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the federal bureau that oversees the industry, insists that inspectors abide on-site until aegis systems are fixed, and that American nuclear plants are safer than ever. But industry watchdogs aren’t so sure. A growing amount of plants are advancing the end of their operating lifetimes, and data about the aegis of absolute accessories are classified. “The industry is ambuscade abaft the 9/11 tragedy to abstain information—like which plants accept bootless tests and aliment that accept been made—that should be available,” says David Lochbaum, a nuclear analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists NBA Hats.
Worries are decidedly astute because the nuclear-energy industry is experiencing a new era of growth. In his State of the Union abode in 2010, President Obama asked Congress to accede nuclear ability axial to America’s following of activity security. A ages after he proposed $8 billion in accommodation guarantees to activate architecture a scattering of new plants. “To accommodated our growing activity needs and anticipate the affliction after-effects of altitude change, we’ll charge to access our accumulation of nuclear power,” he told a barn abounding of harder hats in Lanham, Md., in mid-February. Leading Democrats, who accept about resisted an amplification of nuclear accessories on assurance grounds, were apathetic to agree. Then, aboriginal endure month, Activity Secretary Steven Chu agreed to allocate nuclear as “clean energy” in hopes of admiring Republicans to canyon an activity bill in 2011 DC Hats.
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