2
TERRORIST ATTACKS ON SPENT FUEL STORAGE
This chapter addresses the final charge to the committee to “explicitly consider the risks of terrorist attacks on [spent fuel] and the risk these materials might be used to construct a radiological dispersal device.” The concept of risk as applied to terrorist attacks underpins the entire statement of task for this study. Therefore, the committee addresses this final charge first to provide the basis for addressing the remainder of the task statement.
The chapter is organized into the following sections:
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Background on risk.
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Terrorist attack scenarios.
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Risks of terrorist attacks on spent fuel storage facilities.
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Findings and recommendations.
2.1 BACKGROUND ON RISK
“Risk” is a function of three factors (Kaplan and Garrick, 1981):
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The scenario describing the undesirable event,
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The probability that the scenario will occur.
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The consequences if the scenario should occur.
In the context of the present report, a scenario describes the modes and mechanisms of a possible terrorist attack against a spent fuel storage facility. For example, a scenario might involve a suicide attack with a hijacked civilian airliner. Another might involve a ground assault with a truck bomb. Several such scenarios are described later in this chapter and discussed in more detail in the committee’s classified report.
Probability is a dimensionless quantity that expresses the likelihood that a given scenario will occur over a specified time period. If the occurrence of a scenario is judged to be impossible, it would have a probability of 0.0. On the other hand, if the scenario were judged to be certain, it has a probability of 1.0. A scenario that had a 50 percent chance of occurrence during the period contemplated would have a probability of 0.5.
Consequences describe the undesirable results if the scenario were to occur. For example, a terrorist attack on a spent fuel storage facility could release ionizing radiation to the environment.1 The exposure of the public to this radiation could have both deterministic and stochastic effects. The former would occur from short-term exposures to very high doses of ionizing radiation, the latter to smaller doses that might have no immediate effects
but could result in cancer induction some years or decades later.2 Consequences also could be described in terms of economic damage. These could arise, for example, from the loss of use of the facility and surrounding areas or costs to clean up those areas. There also could be severe psychological consequences that could drive changes in public acceptance of commercial nuclear energy.
The quantitative expression for the risk of a particular scenario, for example a suicide terrorist attack with a hijacked airliner, is
(1)
The total risk would be the sum of the risks for all possible independent attack scenarios. For example, if a spent fuel storage facility was determined to be vulnerable to attacks using airliners, truck bombs, and armed assaults, the total risk would be calculated as
(2)
Such equations are routinely used to calculate the risks of various industrial accidents, including accidents at nuclear power plants, through a process known as probabilistic risk assessment. Each accident is assigned a numerical probability based on a careful analysis of the sequence of failures (e.g., human or mechanical failures) that could produce the accident. The consequences of such accidents are typically expressed in terms of injurles, deaths, or economic losses.
It is possible to estimate the risks of industrial accidents because there are sufficient experience and data to quantify the probabilities and consequences. This is not the case for terrorist attacks. To date, experts have not found a way to apply these quantitative risk equations to terrorist attacks because of two primary difficulties: The first is to develop a complete set of bounding scenarios for such attacks; the second is to estimate their probabilities. These depend on impossible-to-quantify factors such as terrorist motivations, expertise, and access to technical means.3 They also depend on the effectiveness of measures that might prevent or mitigate such attacks.
In the absence of quantitative information on risks, one could attempt to make qualitative risk comparisons. Such comparisons could estimate, for example, the relative risks of attacks on spent fuel storage facilities versus attacks on commercial nuclear power reactors or other critical infrastructure such as chemical plants. Although a comparison of such risks is beyond the scope of this study, the committee recognizes that policy decisions about spent fuel storage may need to take into account such comparative risk issues,
especially for decisions regarding the expenditure of limited societal resources to address terrorist threats.
The 2002 National Research Council report Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism framed this issue as follows (NRC, 2002, P. 43):
The potential vulnerabilities of NPPs [nuclear power plants] to terrorist attack seem to have captured the imagination of the public and the media, perhaps because of a perception that a successful attack could harm large populations and have severe economic and environmental consequences. There are, however, many other types of large industrial facilities that are potentially vulnerable to attack, for example, petroleum refineries, chemical plants, and oil and liquefied natural gas supertankers. These facilities do not have the robust construction and security features characteristic of NPPs, and many are located near highly populated urban areas.
Groups seeking to carry out high-impact terrorism will likely choose targets that have a high probability of being attacked successfully.4 If success is measured by the number of people killed and injured or the permanent destruction of property, then spent fuel storage facilities may not make good terrorist targets owing to their relatively robust construction (see Chapters 1 and 3) and security. Industrialized societies like the United States provide terrorists a large number of “soft” (i.e., unprotected) targets that could be attacked more easily with greater effect than spent fuel storage facilities. These include chemical plants, refineries, transportation systems, and other facilities where large numbers of people gather (see NRC, 2002).
On the other hand, there are other success criteria that might influence a terrorist’s decision to attack a “hard” (i.e., robust or well protected) target such as a commercial nuclear power plant and its spent fuel storage facilities. Such attacks could spread panic and shut down the power plant for an extended period of time even with no loss of life. Moreover, an attack that resulted in the release of radioactive material could threaten the viability of commercial nuclear power.
These considerations led the committee to conclude that it could not address its charge using quantitative and comparative risk assessments. The committee decided instead to examine a range of possible terrorist attack scenarios in terms of (1) their potential for damaging spent fuel pools and dry storage casks; and (2) their potential for radioactive material releases. This allowed the committee to make qualitative judgments about the vulnerability of spent fuel storage facilities to terrorist attacks and potential measures that could be taken to mitigate them.
