secrecy is not needed for security.
wha??? i can't believe you actually typed that!
name me one security organisation that is open, please.
can you have security and openness?
i believe we can and must gradually attain this, but it demands much more awareness and accountability.
a braver and more truthful media would help, ergo us!
advocating openness...that's the way, fo sho...we deserve truth from public officials, since their expertise or lack of it affects the lives of millions, and often they are appointed, not elected. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Public key encryption. All the information is public but the communication is secure. However, it is not absolutely secure. If you have sufficient computing power you can crack the code. But, if you have that amount of computing power you're essentially outside of the game. It's like saying that my house is not safe because an invading army could come in and destroy it. Well, yes, if there's an invading army I have other things to worry about. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
I understood security operation, not organisation.
Here's another security operation that is open. A club bouncer. You want to secure your joint, so you hire a 200-pound gorilla to stand at the door and look mean. That's in your face open. What? Twenty gangers can come in, beat the crap out of the bouncer and trash the joint? Well, yes, but if you have a mob attacking your joint no amount of secrecy is going to secure it.
Need I continue? Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
you are looking at the bottom of the 'security' food chain, when we both know that's not what we're really talking about. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
If your chosen attacker has the ability to use depleted uranium munitions, the attacker poses a higher radiation risk than a running nuclear reactor. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
and just in case we've forgotten, terrorists don't care if they risk their own persons, as long as their goal is furthered, their own death is a feature, not a bug.
to reiterate: it's not so much the nuke plant that needs security (though any idiot knows why that is so), its the people who live around them who need security and protection, and deserve corporations who milk them to be accountable and most of all truthful, and government who doesn't collude in hoodwinking us, and hypersubsidising the wrong choices, while poo-poohing the right ones.
and while starvid blames the media for hyping the negative aspects and amplifying possible panic, would any of us trust the media parroting the corporations' spiel about how safe and foolproof it is?
objectivity....for sale to the trickiest talker, rented by highest bidder. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
No, they are U238, the non-fissile uranium isotope. This doesn't come from nuclear reactor waste but from the enrichment process.
Yes, people need protection, that's why the nuclear industry is heavily regulated.
No, we don't trust the media parroting the industry. We do our own research. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/nuclear_safety/spent-reactor-fuel-security.html
The spent fuel pools for nuclear power plants with boiling water reactors are located above ground in the building surrounding the primary reactor containment structure. This can make some boiling water reactors even more vulnerable. The reactor containment structure is often a steel-lined, reinforced concrete building whereas the spent fuel pool building is usually made simply of reinforced concrete. An aircraft--or missile--would not need to completely level the fuel building to cause harm. It would merely need to crack the concrete wall or floor of the spent fuel pool and drain the water out. The spent fuel pool is designed to remain intact following an earthquake, but it is not designed to withstand aircraft impacts and explosive forces. What about spent fuel stored in dry casks? When the spent fuel pool in the "attic" of the nuclear plant fills up, some of the highly radioactive fuel assemblies are loaded into large casks and stored outside on concrete pads. Weapons available on the black market, and even some that can be legitimately purchased in the U.S., or explosives could cause the casks to be penetrated resulting in the release of large amounts of radiation. At some plants, the casks are line-of-sight visible from open access (i.e., unsecured) areas while other plants place casks inside unguarded chain-link fences. What should the NRC do about spent fuel security? Easy. Existing federal regulations (10 CFR 73.55) require plant owners to provide adequate security to protect spent fuel-- whether stored in pools or casks-- from radiological sabotage. All the NRC needs to do is simply enforce regulations already on the books. No more studies are required, no more rulemaking is needed, no more evaluations are necessary, and no more delays are warranted.
The reactor containment structure is often a steel-lined, reinforced concrete building whereas the spent fuel pool building is usually made simply of reinforced concrete.
An aircraft--or missile--would not need to completely level the fuel building to cause harm. It would merely need to crack the concrete wall or floor of the spent fuel pool and drain the water out. The spent fuel pool is designed to remain intact following an earthquake, but it is not designed to withstand aircraft impacts and explosive forces.
What about spent fuel stored in dry casks?
When the spent fuel pool in the "attic" of the nuclear plant fills up, some of the highly radioactive fuel assemblies are loaded into large casks and stored outside on concrete pads. Weapons available on the black market, and even some that can be legitimately purchased in the U.S., or explosives could cause the casks to be penetrated resulting in the release of large amounts of radiation. At some plants, the casks are line-of-sight visible from open access (i.e., unsecured) areas while other plants place casks inside unguarded chain-link fences.
What should the NRC do about spent fuel security?
Easy. Existing federal regulations (10 CFR 73.55) require plant owners to provide adequate security to protect spent fuel-- whether stored in pools or casks-- from radiological sabotage. All the NRC needs to do is simply enforce regulations already on the books. No more studies are required, no more rulemaking is needed, no more evaluations are necessary, and no more delays are warranted.
i'm glad these folks are on the case. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
CASTOR have been mentioned by DoDo recently:
I note that current chancellor Angela Merkel is also close to nuclear power. She used to be a physicist, first came into Helmut Kohl's conservative government to oversee R&D, and was then environment minister. It was during the latter time that the big scandal of nuclear waste transport containers (named Castor) blew, e.g. that contamination was found on their outside with radiation levels that were orders of magnitude above the limit (up to 3000 times). In the run-up to the scandal, Merkel rejected all doubts. once it blew big, she made a stand against the companies, acting all outraged. A cunning and cynical move foreshadowing a great tactician: wasn't it her ministry, as oversight authority, that should have caught this at home, or pressed the French authorities for better information flow?
I have had a very heated argument about CASTOR with DoDo, by the way.
DoDo: the point with the security risk was: if treehugger protesters with a simple infrastructure can accomplish trespassing, so can a terror group with military training, and they wouldn't just want to stop the train. ... DoDo: ... no CASTOR can be hurt by a simple derailment ... (In fact CASTOR containers were marketed as indestructible, with videos showing them thrown from airplanes and hitting the ground hard, though later it was found that some hard operation can cause structural damage.)
...
DoDo: ... no CASTOR can be hurt by a simple derailment ... (In fact CASTOR containers were marketed as indestructible, with videos showing them thrown from airplanes and hitting the ground hard, though later it was found that some hard operation can cause structural damage.)
uh-huh, aren't depleted uranium munitions a byproduct of nuclear fission?
Err, no. Depleted uranium is the by-product from the isotopic separation step before the uranium is used as fuel. It's produced before any fission takes place.
Natural uranium coming from the mine is composed of 0.0054% U-234, 0.7204% U-235 and 99.2742% U-238. Light water reactors need a higher proportion of U-235 - 3 to 5% - to sustain nuclear fission. The isotopic separation does that. It concentrate the U-235 on one side and on the other side outputs depleted uranium with 0.4 to 0.1% of U-235 left.
Depleted uranium never sees the inside of a nuclear reactor. Actually, that's the whole point of the isotopic separation.
I don't know why that idea about depleted uranium coming out of a reactor is so prevalent. It must be a confusion with recycled uranium.
But people are arguing that certain technologies (nuclear power, but it could be others) cannot be made safe because to be safe it needs to be secure, and to be secure it has to be secret. And they're using the terrorism/organised crime bogeyman to buttress the argument.
Isn't it agreed that if someone is determined to die trying, there's no amount of security that will make any target safe? But that is the problem, you have to either assume overwhelming force or willingness to die trying in order to justify secrecy for security or safety. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Chemical industry. Also a problem (and before someone curses Greenpeace et al again, I note one that gets attention -- say BASF's spills into the Rhine), though stakes are less.
cannot be made safe because to be safe it needs to be secure, and to be secure it has to be secret.
You short-cut it there. For you the info-anarchist, the main issue seems to be the theoretical possibility of safety without secrecy. While I would contest that, too, a more important question is the practical issue of whether there are people who (1) do think that safety needs secrecy, and (2) are in position to influence actual policy. Be them military or police, as I try to argue towards you, or François's blockhead politicians, I think there are and there always will be such people.
they're using the terrorism/organised crime bogeyman
I don't think they're only bogeymans. They should be taken into account just like earthquakes. There is safety and excessive safety. On the other hand, you left out the most probable willfull human-caused damage concern, mentioned by rdf, sabotage, especially by on-site workers, which is not theoretical. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
the main issue seems to be the theoretical possibility of safety without secrecy. While I would contest that, too
I'd like to see that.
Chemical industry. Also a problem
And that's why we have strong regulation. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Agree, though tiered clearances and access to information may reduce the risk (or at least are argued to reduce the risk by those who influence policy).
And that's why we have strong regulation.
And we also have protected perimeters and secrecy. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
As for secrecy, that's an ongoing battle ("freedom of information" laws). Or are you agreeing that the government and industry cannot operate with freedom of information laws? Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
