Nuke cask strength decried

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2002 | 11:14 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nuclear industry and federal tests show that a missile could blow a hole in a nuclear-waste transportation cask, potentially sending radiation into the environment, industry experts told the Sun.

Reacting to a videotape of a 1998 test at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland that shows an anti-tank missile blowing a grapefruit-sized hole in a waste-storage container, experts said it is possible to breach the casks, but they disagreed over the severity and the likelihood of that happening.

A government test in 1978 proved a missile could puncture a cask, experts said, noting that some in government and industry have known that for years.

"The (current transportation casks) are extremely robust," said John Vincent, a senior project manager for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top trade group.

"But we have said all along that if you got a good hit it was likely to perforate the cask. But it is likely to be very small (damage) and you won't get much (radioactive) material out, so you don't have a huge problem."

As Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham prepares to make his recommendation that Yucca Mountain become the nation's nuclear waste repository, Nevada officials are studying the video to determine if it bolsters their arguments that transportation of nuclear waste is unsafe and susceptible to terrorist attack.

"I believe it represents what our worst fears are, especially in the wake of 9-11," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said.

Industry experts, though, say the risk of a successful terrorist missile strike or a widespread leak from such an attack is minimal.

Industry analysts said the video proves only that a perfectly orchestrated explosion under ideal test conditions could puncture a nuclear waste container. It's highly unlikely a terrorist could successfully strike a moving target under tight security, several experts said.

"It could happen, but given the level of protection provided around these shipments, they are not an easy target," nuclear industry consultant and nuclear engineer Eileen Supko said.

Experts also stressed that a small missile likely would create a small hole that could be quickly plugged and would release minimal radiation. The waste -- spent fuel rods taken from nuclear reactors -- would be tough to dislodge, they said.

"These warheads are designed to make a hole but are not designed to dislodge much of the material inside," said Skip Young, a security official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He declined to say how much radiation could be released.

Retired nuclear engineer Bob Jefferson oversaw tests at the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratory that started in the late 1970s in which the containers were burned, submerged, dropped, even hit by a train. The containers were not breached in those tests, a fact often touted by nuclear industry officials.

But in a 1978 test that has not been widely discussed, scientists simulated a missile strike using a detonated charge, Jefferson said.

"It poked a hole in the cask," he said.

The container was similar in construction to casks used to transport U.S. waste today, Jefferson said. Asked about any other tests in which casks failed, Jefferson declined to comment, saying the tests were classified.

But he said a terrorist would have a difficult time blowing a hole in a cask in a real-world situation. He said test coordinators at Sandia and Aberdeen detonated charges directly into the cask at a perfect 90-degree angle for maximum damage. And transportation casks likely would be surrounded by some type of screen that could trigger the missile's explosion before it reached the cask.

Terrorists likely would have to hijack the truck hauling the cask to get enough time to blow a hole in it, Jefferson said.

The experts also acknowledged Monday that some government and industry officials have known for years that an explosive charge detonated in a test under ideal circumstances could penetrate waste containers and theoretically release radiation into the environment.

"I don't think this is a new story," Supko said.

But Yucca watchers and state officials disagreed.

"There's been no public publicity of that information and it seems like a big secret," said Kevin Kamps, an anti-Yucca activist with Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "Our organization tries to stay on top of this kind of information and we've never heard of it."

The vulnerabilities of waste containers to missiles have not been widely publicized, several people said.

"Not only have they not been publicized -- the reverse has been publicized," said Joe Egan, a Washington-area lawyer hired by Nevada. "The industry has made numerous representations that these casks are virtually indestructible and that they have been fully analyzed against armor-piercing weapons."

Officials who knew about the missile tests should have made them public, Berkley said.

"If they knew about this then they had an obligation to disclose to the people who live along the transportation routes the fact that these casks are vulnerable," Berkley said.

On Sunday the Sun reported that Nevada's congressional delegation is studying 4 1/2 minutes of video footage from the 1998 Aberdeen test that shows an anti-tank TOW missile blowing a hole in a German-made storage cask.

That cask -- licensed for transportation in other nations, but not in the United States -- is essentially the same strength as casks currently usedto transport U.S. nuclear waste, Vincent and several other experts said. Vincent said he had seen the tape.

Both Jefferson and Supko said the cask's failure was known by some in the industry and government, and several industry experts shrugged off the significance of video footage recently obtained by Nevada officials.

The Aberdeen video has stirred interested because it shows a 50-inch TOW missile blowing a grapefruit-sized hole in a 15-inch thick iron cask called a Castor V/21. The missile was mounted on the cask, not fired at it, said Thomas Kirch, a private nuclear industry executive who arranged the test. But the detonation was rigged to simulate the most powerful missile strike possible, Kirch said.

The cask in the video is certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a storage cask, not a transport cask, although it is used in other nations for both purposes. The cask is cast iron; the casks currently in use for transportation in the United States are mostly steel and lead or steel and depleted uranium, industry sources said.

The NRC has not tested the containers currently certified to transport waste to simulate a missile strike, spokeswoman Sue Gagner said.

But Young said the Energy Department and the NRC oversaw missile-simulation tests at Sandia in the early or mid-1980s, although he would not disclose the results.

The Aberdeen video shows two experiments. In one the missile blows a hole in the container. In the second, the missile merely cracks the cask surface because the cask was protected by a concrete compound "flak jacket," roughly one yard thick.

The video was produced by a New York-based company called International Fuel Containers Ltd., a marketing arm of a German company called Gesellschaft Fur Nuklear Behalter, or GNB, which manufactures the Castor V/21. The video was produced to showcase the strength of the new concrete compound, patented by IFC in 1999, said IFC president Kirch.

The experiments were conducted at Aberdeen in June 1998, in cooperation with the military.

Kirch had hoped to sell the concrete compound flak jacket to nuclear utility companies, to use for encasing the waste stored in casks at nuclear plants.

Kirch has had no buyers -- most utilities store waste in casks in cheaper concrete bunkers, he said.

Kirch gave the video to Berkley after she requested it, he said. Although he originally produced the footage to help advertise a product, he agrees with Nevada lawmakers who believe it may also demonstrate the dangers of shipping waste.

"This definitely shows the potential exposure of a naked cask," Kirch said.

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