As
US bombs and missiles began to rain on Afghanistan, the certainty of
terror retaliation inside the US has turned our 103 nuclear powerplants
into potential weapons of apocalyptic destruction, just waiting to be
used against us.
One or both planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on
September 11 could have easily obliterated the two atomic reactors now
operating at Indian Point, about 40 miles up the Hudson River.
Indian Point Unit One was shut long ago by public outcry. But
Units 2 and 3 have operated since the 1970s. Reactor containment domes
were built to withstand a jetliner crash but today’s jumbo jets are far
larger than the planes that were flying in the 1970s.
Had one of those hijacked jets hit one of the operating reactors
at Indian Point, the ensuing cloud of radiation would have dwarfed the
ones at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
The intense radioactive heat within today’s operating reactors is
the hottest anywhere on the planet. Because Indian Point has operated
so long, its accumulated radioactive burden far exceeds that of
Chernobyl.
The safety systems are extremely complex and virtually
indefensible. One or more could be wiped out with a small aircraft,
ground-based weapons, truck bombs or even chemical/biological assaults
aimed at the work force.
A terrorist assault at Indian Point could yield three infernal
fireballs of molten radioactive lava burning through the earth and into
the aquifer and the river. Striking water, they would blast gigantic
billows of horribly radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Thousands of
square miles would be saturated with the most lethal clouds ever
created, depositing relentless genetic poisons that would kill forever.
Infants and small children would quickly die en masse. Pregnant
women would spontaneously abort or give birth to horribly deformed
offspring. Ghastly sores, rashes, ulcerations and burns would afflict
the skin of millions. Heart attacks, stroke and multiple organ failure
would kill thousands on the spot. Emphysema, hair loss, nausea,
inability to eat or drink or swallow, diarrhea and incontinence,
sterility and impotence, asthma and blindness would afflict hundreds of
thousands, if not millions.
Then comes the wave of cancers, leukemias, lymphomas, tumors and
hellish diseases for which new names will have to be invented.
Evacuation would be impossible, but thousands would die trying.
Attempts to quench the fires would be futile. More than 800,000 Soviet
draftees forced through Chernobyl’s seething remains in a futile
attempt to clean it up are still dying from their exposure. At Indian
Point, the molten cores would burn uncontrolled for days, weeks and
years. Who would volunteer for such an American task force?
The immediate damage from an Indian Point attack (or a domestic
accident) would render all five boroughs of New York City an
apocalyptic wasteland.
As at Three Mile Island, where thousands of farm and wild animals
died in heaps, natural ecosystems would be permanently and irrevocably
destroyed. Spiritually, psychologically, financially and ecologically,
our nation would never recover.
This is what we missed by a mere 40 miles on September 11. Now
that we are at war, this is what could be happening as you read this.
There are 103 of these potential Bombs of the Apocalypse operating
in the US. They generate a mere 8 percent of our total energy. Since
its deregulation crisis, California cut its electric consumption by
some 15 percent. Within a year, the US could cheaply replace virtually
all the reactors with increased efficiency.
Yet, as the terror escalates, Congress is fast-tracking the
extension of the Price-Anderson Act, a form of legal immunity that
protects reactor operators from liability in case of a meltdown or
terrorist attack.
Do we take this war seriously? Are we committed to the survival of our nation?
If so, the ticking reactor bombs that could obliterate the very
core of our life and of all future generations must be shut down.
Harvey Wasserman is author of The Last Energy War and co-author of Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation.
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