Press Release

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Summary and Recommendations

Chapter 2: Energy System Security Criteria

Chapter 3: The Bush Administration and the IEER Energy Plans

Chapter 4: Vulnerability Comparison: The Bush and IEER Energy Plans

Chapter 5: Policy Recommendations

References

The September 11 attacks have pointed up severe vulnerabilities in the energy system. As discussed above, studies, one of them going back to 1952, and many dating from the 1970s and early 1980s, have discussed energy system vulnerabilities to accidents, import disruption, war, and terrorist attacks. Every portion of the infrastructure has been covered. The comparison on vulnerabilities between the IEER and Bush plans provides measures of key vulnerabilities. In general the Bush plan vulnerabilities would intensify the weaknesses of the existing system, which are considerable in many areas, with one exception. That exception relates to the assumption in the Bush plan that the unit size of a central station electric power generation unit would be 300 megawatts, which is lower than the present typical size of baseload plants.

By far the most severe vulnerabilities in the Bush plan relate to oil imports and to various aspects of the nuclear power enterprise. The nuclear vulnerabilities will, in many ways, be the most severe with the Bush plan. The proposed expansion of nuclear power will result in a need to store spent fuel in pools for the indefinite future. A change to Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMRs), which do not require spent fuel pools, will mean the widespread adoption of reactors that are proposed to be built without secondary containment, making them far more vulnerable to attack than present light water reactors. PBMR vulnerabilities may be comparable to that of most spent fuel stored in pools, since much, though not all, of the vulnerability of the latter arises from the fact of storage outside the secondary containment structure.

We cannot at present quantify what role plutonium may have in the energy system in the year 2040. This is because at present the only specific plutonium fuel plan relates to surplus weapons plutonium, which would presumably have passed through the reactor by then and stored as spent fuel. There is the non-quantifiable vulnerability in the Bush plan that by pursuing plutonium fuel, the United States will encourage other countries to do so. The United States is also obligated, under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to provide commercial nuclear technology to non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the treaty. The pressures to do so will be great. The diplomatic and consequences from a prolonged failure to do so could be substantial, even if the denial were motivated by non-proliferation. It would also encourage the Russian nuclear establishment in its ambition to pursue a plutonium fuel based electricity system. A great deal will depend on the evolution of nuclear energy in the next decade.

Spent fuel pool vulnerabilities for existing reactors cannot be reduced significantly in case of a successful attack. For new reactors, spent fuel pool vulnerabilities can be reduced by requiring them to be inside the secondary containment in all cases. New reactors can also be required to withstand large aircraft crashes, which is not a requirement at present. The Bush administration's energy plan did not contain such proposals. No such requirement has been added since September 11.

The table above shows a static picture of vulnerabilities in the year 2040. Figures 3 through 7 in Chapter 1 show the evolution of these vulnerabilities between the years 2000 and 2040. Note that the numbers for the first ten years in the IEER plan have not been worked out in detail and should be treated as notional. They will depend a great deal on how the long-term policies that are advocated here are actually implemented and what the phasing of these policies in the first decade is in practice.

Next: Chapter 5: Policy Recommendations