Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:03:24 -0700
From: "Russell D. Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Subject: Re: C.E.C. Docket No. 04-IEP-1J: Dr. Richard Webb on nuclear
risks: "imminent danger of a catastrophic accident of immense scale"
(1990; and nothing's changed since then except the plants are older
and more worn)
To: California Energy Commission Dockets Unit;
Attn: Docket No. 04-IEP-1J
1516 Ninth Street, MS-4
Sacramento, CA 95814-5512
<docket@energy.state.ca.us>
Re: Energy Report: Nuclear Power, 2005 Workshops
Subject: C.E.C. Docket No. 04-IEP-1J: Dr. Richard Webb on nuclear
risks: "imminent danger of a catastrophic accident of immense scale"
(1990; and nothing's changed since then except the plants are older
and more worn)
Date: August 19th, 2005
From: Russell D. Hoffman, Concerned Citizen, Carlsbad, CA
To The Commission,
When I attended the California Energy Commission workshop earlier
this week, I brought with me approximately sixty books on the subject
of radiation, nuclear power, nuclear engineering, atomic theory,
terrorism, nuclear war, nuclear war's aftermath, proliferation, and
related subjects. I left a copy of one of them, Bennett Ramberg's
"Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized
Military Peril" with the Commission. During the public comment
period, I also quoted a second book, "The Anti-Nuclear Handbook", to
show that the threat from airplane strikes against nuclear power
plants was WELL KNOWN AND IGNORED decades ago. So the question must
be asked: Who was asleep at the wheel back then? We NEVER needed
these plants, and they have left us with a terrible mess, and they
put us at constant risk of catastrophe. Who in the world EVER
thought this was a good idea?
Regardless of past mistakes, it's time for California's state
government to stop ignoring the facts about the completely
unnecessary risks from nuclear power. It's time to try to save our
state, instead of letting "doing the right thing" slip and slip and
slip until it's TOO LATE, which may be tomorrow, or even today.
Another one of the books I brought (from my collection of over 500
books, videos, and bound government documents on nuclear issues) was
Dr. Richard E. Webb's "The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants"
(University of Massachusetts Press, 1976), about which Barbara Byron
of the CEC, who saw the book in my collection, stated she also had a
copy, which I assume she will loan to any Commissioner upon request.
I decided to check on the Internet to see what I could find by Dr.
Webb that was more recent. Commissioners: I hit the jackpot! This
is a very sad thing for you, because you are duty-bound to read
Webb's document, and to understand how significant Dr. Webb's
comments are to the issues at hand. Dr. Webb is a very "real" expert
on nuclear power. Unfortunately, you can bank on his words.
You could just as well bank on (and heed the warnings of) 1,000 other
experts who have broken rank -- dozens of their books are available
in any major city, if you scour the bookstores. But as in Ray
Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," the books disappear, either up in smoke
(think how many books have been lost in our wildfires, for instance)
or . . . well, some people claim that government agents buy up books
like Ramberg's, for instance. So please don't think it's been easy
to find (and protect) all those books while traipsing around the
country! And please keep the copy of Ramberg's book which was
submitted for reference in this docket for reference in ALL future
submissions to the CEC! That "simple" act may be quite difficult to
accomplish yet it might, in the end, be the most useful thing you do
out of these hearings, if you do it.
Let me quote the eminent Dr. Webb (a man who truly should need no
introduction in any frank discussion of nuclear power's dangers,
although frankly, I didn't know who Peter Schwartz was until he was
introduced at the workshop as needing "no introduction") on the
subject of government nuclear policies:
--------------------------------------
"The national Governments of the various nuclear countries have
indicated their intentions to continue pushing further nuclear
development and suppressing investigations into the nuclear accident
hazards. In America the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has
refused on several occasions my petitions to present analyses of the
nuclear accident hazards, and to allow me to question their experts
in the reactor licensing proceedings. It is futile to try any more."
-- Dr. Webb (See below for full comments. All quotes from Dr. Webb
in this letter are from the attached document.)
--------------------------------------
Futile to try? Is that also true in California, or are we smarter
than that? If countries half our size (or smaller) can make their
own decisions about nuclear power (which, supposedly, is how it
happens), then why can't a state the size of all but six countries
make ITS own decisions? Must our lives be put at risk by official
foolishness? Here's another quote from Dr. Webb:
--------------------------------------
"The official analyses of the accident hazards are . . . grossly
inadequate and make optimistic assumptions that conceal the full
dangers; and official secrecy about the accident potentials and
experience impedes the efforts of independent scientists to make a
full evaluation of the reactor accident hazards, toward establishing
scientifically the true extent of the risks of catastrophic accidents.
"There is also possibilities for sabotage. "
-- Dr. Webb
--------------------------------------
These statements, by a world-renowned nuclear expert (see "Webb's
Qualifications and Experience" in the attached document for details)
confirm that our four PWRs (Pressurized Water Reactors) are extremely
hazardous, and the California Energy Commission is risking the lives
of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, or even millions of
Californians by allowing these plants to remain open even one more
day.
Near the end of the text, Dr. Webb makes a statement which is of
primary importance to the CEC:
--------------------------------------
"Based on an extremely thorough legal research made over the years, I
have found that the United States Government's promotion of nuclear
power is unconstitutional - that the development of nuclear power
plants has been brought about by undemocratic and unconstitutional
U.S. Government acts."
-- Dr. Webb
--------------------------------------
Dr. Webb also points out a truly fatal flaw in the way the nuclear
regulators and the nuclear industry view accidents:
--------------------------------------
"Also, the Governments and their nuclear establishments take the view
that we can learn the accident risks by operating the reactors, and
that we can "manage" accidents when they occur and learn lessons from
them, to improve on reactor safety as we go along. This philosophy is
irrational; for there is no valid scientific basis to think that
accidents can always be controlled."
-- Dr. Webb
--------------------------------------
Dr. Webb also reminds us that the production of steam generators and
everything else IN a nuclear power plant takes energy to make:
--------------------------------------
"The components of the reactor plants do not grow on trees; but to
make them requires the present, extremely intense and heavy
concentrations of systems of industries, mining, and traffic
throughout the world with all of the pollution effects that we all
know about and the enormous rates of consumption of fossil fuels to
power the industries and transport."
-- Dr. Webb
--------------------------------------
These comments were made by Dr. Webb in Spain in the year 1990. At
the time, Dr. Webb was residing in Germany and his contact
information is included below. Dr. Webb's expertise was used
(grudgingly, one is forced to assume) by the US government during the
Three Mile Island near-catastrophe and it is not only possible but
PROBABLE that his suggestions (to keep the reactor coolant
circulation pumps running) saved us from a meltdown. Russia, after
Chernobyl, also followed the advice of Dr. Webb. (See additional
examples of Dr. Webb's accuracy in the text below.)
Should we ALSO wait until AFTER one of our PWRs melts down to ask for
his advice? Dr. Webb is old and may not be around if we wait. Let
me remind you, as he does below, that we might have only a matter of
seconds (if that) to prevent a meltdown.
Calling Dr. Webb! Calling Dr. Webb! You were right AGAIN, Dr. Webb!
But this time not listening might cost the lives of more than a
million Californians, and bankrupt our state! Ooops! (Note:
"Ooops" won't be good enough.)
In his comments shown below, Dr. Webb divides reactor accident
scenarios into four groups. They are:
--------------------------------------
- nuclear runaway (power excursions);
- core meltdown upon loss of cooling or loss of reactor coolant, due
to fission product heating and exothermic zirconium-steam chemical
reactions;
- reactor vessel ruptures, spontaneously or due to an over-pressurization; and
- reactor containment vessel ruptures on over-pressurization.
-- Dr. Webb
--------------------------------------
(You may want to take a look at my animation of PWR reactors (and
BWRs, if you're interested) which is available online -- I've
provided the URL in previously docketed testimony. The animations
are based on government and industry documents.)
And then, there is the added problem of CASCADING NUCLEAR
CATASTROPHES. The containment dome, for example, is not designed to
protect against multiple steam generator (heat REMOVAL systems)
failures, only against the failure of ONE steam generator.
California's N.P.P.s' steam generators are old and one steam
generator might burst INTO another steam generator, an accident the
NRC claims cannot happen (see below). Hogwash!
The Commission heard enormous amounts of evidence and reviews of
misbehavior on the part of the NRC and the DOE at the "workshop" this
week, from the State of Nevada, from other agencies in California,
and from citizens including the undersigned, who complained that
those federal agencies lied, ignored the obvious, are guilty of gross
obfuscation of the facts before numerous state agencies and The
People, of gross incompetence, gross ignorance, and criminal
negligence in the performance of their duties, if not in so many
words in all instances, certainly in so many examples.
--------------------------------------
"Official secrecy on the subject of the reactor accident hazards
still prevails."
-- Dr. Webb
--------------------------------------
It's safe to say that you have been lied to by the best the NRC and
DOE have to offer, let alone the NEI (whom I think we were all
PARTICULARLY polite while listening to) and many others! As you may
recall, only one interruption came from the floor during the entire
workshop: from a Dr. Robert Williams. Had a rational person
interrupted every time a pro-nuker made an irrational, unproven,
hopelessly optimistic, or patently false statement (all of which do,
in fact, deserve hooting and hollering and derision, in my opinion)
there would have been pandemonium throughout the pathetic
presentations by the NEI, NRC, DOE, PG&E and SCE representatives (not
to mention the professor from Berkeley, who was the most confused (if
not downright dishonest) of them all). Until, of course, you had
thrown us all out and there was no one left to witness (or try to
prevent, as is our duty as citizens) the crime which was being
committed against YOU (a separate letter to follow will have some
examples from notes I took during the meeting, and I'm sure I'll be
able to describe many more lies after the transcript of the workshop
becomes available). Dr. Webb goes into great detail (see below)
about some of the run-arounds a nuclear scientist/whistleblower such
as himself has gotten from various governments (including and in
particular our federal government) as well as from the entirely
pro-nuclear so-called "scientific" journals.
One has to wonder if you would have received at least slightly more
honest testimony by requiring all participants to be under oath.
Maybe next time you'll do that? It wouldn't have changed a word I
said.
Lastly, please note, with reference to remarks during my live
testimony on Tuesday (August 16th, 2005), that in the text below, Dr.
Webb describes the zirconium fuel rod cladding as "highly pyrophoric."
A copy of this letter will be provided in written form to the
Commission as part of a complete statement for Docket No. 04-IEP-1J.
Sincerely,
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
Items included below:
1) A review in Foreign Affairs of Dr. Webb's 1976 book: "civilian
nuclear reactors should be shut down."
2) Dr. Webb's 1990 comments given in Spain
3) A revision to Dr. Webb's TMI comments, from April, 2000 (with an
introduction by this concerned citizen)
Below is a review of Dr. Webb's 1976 book. Note the reviewer's
description of Dr. Webb's conclusion: That "Civilian nuclear
reactors should be shut down"
From:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19770101fabook14882/richard-e-webb/the-accident-hazards-of-nuclear-power-plants.html
The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants. Richard E. Webb.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976, 228 pp. $6.95
(Paper)
Reviewed by Andrew J. Pierre, Foreign Affairs,
<http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19770101fabook14882/richard-e-webb//1976/2.html>
January 1977
This study of possible malfunctions of nuclear reactors, written by a
nuclear engineer with AEC experience, comes to the controversial
conclusion that because the risks of accidents have not been
adequately examined, civilian nuclear reactors should be shut down,
and a moratorium placed on the construction of new plants until
society fully evaluates the balance of risks and benefits in the
nuclear program.
The following is from:
http://technidigm.org/c5001/nucl_haz.htm
The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents
at Nuclear Power Plants
by
Dr. Richard E. Webb
A paper for the Conferčncia Catalana per un Futur Sense
Nuclears, Barcelona, Spain, 25 April 1990
Preface (6 October 1999):
This paper needs considerably updated, particular in regards to the
health hazards of nuclear radiation and also the Three Miles Island
nuclear accident of March 28, 1979. The information given in this
paper, The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants,
is all still valid; but my subsequent research has uncovered that the
nuclear accident hazards are far worse even than evaluated in this
paper particularly in respect to the health hazards of nuclear
radiation and the potential catastrophic consequences to life on
Earth in the event of another nuclear eruption (the Chernobyl
eruption is small compared to the full potential for explosion and
radioactivity releases in the type of reactors used in United States,
France, Germany, Britain, Japan, Sweden, &c., mainly, the PWRS, BWRs,
AGRs and Magnox). I refer to the letter/essay addressed to the People
of the Area of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant, September
12, 1996. See especially Section V on the "Damaging Action of Nuclear
Radiation on Body Tissues (Health Harm). I refer also to my June 1998
Harmful Effects of the Radioactive Fallout in Bavaria from the
Chernobyl Reactor Eruption of April 26, 1986 A Mathematical Analysis
of the Official Statistics on Still Births and Infant Deaths in
Bavaria and other Parts of West Germany (1980-1993) Preview Report.
Present address (6 October 1999):
Raiffeisenstrasse 1
86868 Mittelneufnach
Bavaria, Germany
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#quals>Webb's Qualifications and
Experience<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#research> 2
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#research>Webb's Research of the Nuclear
Accident Hazards 3
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#summary>Brief Summary of Webb's
Analysis of the Nuclear Accident Hazards 5
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#release>Some examples of specific
accident mechanisms: 6
Nuclear Excursions 6
Boiling Water Reactors (6)
Pressurized Water Reactors (7)
Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs) (7)
Fast Breeder Reactors (8)
Loss of Water Coolant Accidents (PWRs and BWRs) 8
Other Types of Reactor System Rupture 10
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#release>Release of Radioactive Materials 11
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#consequences>Potential Accident Consequences 11
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#probability>Accident Probability 12
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#reports>Webb's Treatises and Reports 15
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#necessity>The Great Necessity for an
Urgent Review and Investigation of the Nuclear Accident Hazards 16
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#credibility>Credibility of R.E. Webb's
Analyses and Warnings of the Nuclear Accident
Hazards<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#situation> 20
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#situation>Our Situation 23
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#perspective>Constitutional Law Perspective 26
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#done>What Should be Done? 27
<http://technidigm.org/c5001/#notes>NOTES
The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents
at Nuclear Power Plants
by
Dr. Richard E. Webb
A paper for the Conferčncia Catalana per un Futur Sense Nuclears,
Barcelona, Spain, 25 April 1990
I am very honored to be invited to appear before this conference in
Catalonia and give my views of the risks of accidents in nuclear
power reactors. I believe the organizations who are sponsoring this
conference are very wise to have called together this conference to
review the matter of the nuclear accident hazards, and in particular
to learn about my research and analyses of the accident hazards of
nuclear power reactors. For I have determined by my research and
scientific analyses and calculations that there are extremely grave
and imminent dangers of catastrophic reactor accidents - reactor
eruptions and nuclear explosions - which potentially could be ruinous
for most of Europe, due to enormous releases of radioactive
substances into the Earth's atmosphere and its fallout on the land.
The People of the world, especially in Europe, America, and Japan,
where nuclear power plants are concentrated, are in an extremely
difficult predicament - having become more and more dependent on
nuclear energy while exposing ourselves to increasing risks of a
radioactive cataclysm, which the public is all too slowly becoming
aware of.
The issue of the safety of nuclear power plants has been vigorously
debated in America and Europe since about 1970 (the year of the first
"Earth Day"), beginning mainly with the public hearings in the atomic
licensing proceedings for the Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long
Island in New York. I participated in the Shoreham hearings in 1970
and raised in public for the first time my questions about the safety
of nuclear power plants. {See note no. 1.} In the last twenty years
throughout America and Europe, there have been countless public
meetings, law suits in courts, books and published articles, reactor
licensing proceedings, Government hearings, and public debates on the
issue of "nuclear safety" and the reactor accident risks. During
these years we have experienced a reactor core meltdown accident at
the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in 1979, which by sheer
luck ended without a catastrophic explosion, and a catastrophic
reactor accident in 1986 in the Soviet Union, which contaminated most
of Europe - the Chernobyl accident. Fortunately, the Chernobyl
reactor eruption was relatively small (roughly three percent release
of the radioactive material), compared to the full nuclear accident
potentials of the reactors used in western Europe, America, and
elsewhere in the world, namely, Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs),
Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs), Gas-Cooled Reactors, and Fast Breeder
Reactors. We also have had many near accidents, which are generally
not known about.
In addition, our body of knowledge of the nuclear accident hazards,
the potentials for reactor eruptions, and the potential harmful
radiation consequences of catastrophic accidents has been
considerably extended over the years by the scientific research of
many different scientists and nuclear laboratories, including my
research.
Yet, despite all of this debate and advancements of scientific
knowledge of the nuclear accident hazards, and the occurrence of a
catastrophic accident in Europe, and a near-catastrophic accident in
America, the nuclear safety issue is still far from being resolved.
The Governments of the nuclear developing countries are pushing for
more and more nuclear reactors, while the safety debate in Europe
drags on, still vigorously, but at a much reduced level after its
peak following Chernobyl. I have a sense that the nationally
organized nuclear safety debate in America has practically ceased (it
never was much of anything anyway, in my opinion; {See note no. 2.}
the substantive debate mostly was conducted at the local level with
private citizen initiatives, including, if I may add, my own efforts).
However, due to a good amount of news reporting, mostly about the
Three Mile Island accident and more on the Chernobyl accident and its
consequences, most people are now quite apprehensive about the
nuclear reactor dangers. They are not really sure about their safety
- they don't believe they really know the dangers. However, they do
not know what to do about it, other than resign themselves to accept
the nuclear risks as unavoidable. This existing state of affairs of
the nuclear accident risks cannot be allowed to continue
indefinitely. Our nuclear hazards problem must be resolved.
The purpose of this paper (my appearance before this conference) is
to summarize my analyses of the nuclear accident hazards, based on my
research and debates with the nuclear authorities and their experts,
to warn about catastrophic nuclear accident potentials and dangers,
to urge that a full review and investigation of the nuclear accident
hazards be undertaken in Spain, to reflect on the nature of our
predicament with nuclear energy, and to offer specific ideas on how
to resolve our great nuclear hazards problem. I believe that the
analyses of the nuclear accident hazards which I have made and
developed over the past twenty years of research are vitally
important to the safety of the people of the world; and therefore, I
shall try in this paper to demonstrate the necessity for a
full-scale, international investigation into the nuclear accident
hazards and a true resolution of the nuclear safety issue as soon as
possible.
Webb's Qualifications and Experience
As for my scientific qualifications for making analyses and
evaluations of the nuclear accident hazards, I refer to Attachment 1
of this Paper, which is a summary of my background. Basically, I have
a university baccalaureate degree in Engineering Physics from the
University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio, which I received in 1962, and a
doctorate degree in Nuclear Reactor Physics and Engineering from Ohio
State University in 1972. My doctoral research dissertation
investigated explosive power transients in fast breeder reactors.
Prior to my doctoral studies I served four years (1963-1967) in the
United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Division of Naval
Reactors, with responsibility as a junior engineer for the reactor
part of the Shippingport Pressurized Water Reactor - the first
civilian nuclear power plant in the United States and the forerunner
prototype of the PWRs now operating throughout the Western world.
While serving in the Atomic Energy Commission I studied and graduated
at the Reactor Engineering School of the AEC's Bettis Atomic Power
Laboratory in Pennsylvania in 1965, and trained at two prototype
naval reactor plants at the AEC's Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in
New York State. (The Bettis laboratory was operated by Westinghouse
Corporation for the Naval Reactors Division of the AEC.) I also
gained experience with the Boiling Water Reactor at the Big Rock
Point nuclear power plant in Michigan, where I was designated to be
the Reactor Engineer, until I resigned in January 1968, because of
questions in my mind about the safety of nuclear power plants. I then
studied for the doctorate degree in nuclear reactor physics and
engineering, in order to be able to make my own independent
evaluations of the accident hazards of nuclear power plants. I
believe that my graduate studies, and reactor engineering, schooling,
training and experience has made me fully qualified to research the
nuclear accident hazards and evaluate the reactor safety analyses of
the nuclear industry.
Webb's Research of the Nuclear Accident Hazards
I began my research of the nuclear accident hazards in 1970 with my
doctoral research into explosive power transients, or "super prompt
critical power excursions," in liquid metal cooled, fast-neutron,
plutonium breeding reactors, called "fast breeder reactors." I
investigated theoretically two conceptual possibilities for
autocatalytic reactivity effects in hypothetical core meltdown and
power excursion accidents in fast breeder reactors (two early
designs).
In parallel with my research at Ohio State University I studied
United States Constitutional Law (political science), and found that
the atomic law in America - the Atomic Energy Act of the U.S.
Congress - which is the statutory basis for the promotion of nuclear
energy in America, is unconstitutional - that the United States
Government was never given the constitutional authority (power) to
promote nuclear energy, nor any broader, general authority to promote
science, technology or industry. This finding led me to the
realization that the official United States Government's judgments of
the safety of nuclear power plants were (and still are) illegal -
that the subjective judgments of the safety of nuclear reactors, or
rather of the acceptability of the accident risks, made and forced on
the American society by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (now
divided into two organizations, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
the Department of Energy) are not valid with respect to the
constitutional, democratic process that was established in America by
the United States Constitution, and the Constitutions of the
individual States of the federal Union, for making the major public
policy judgments affecting the safety and well-being of the People
and what is to be promoted in the way of industry and technology in
America.
This realization of the unconstitutionality of the U.S. Government's
civilian nuclear power program and my original studies of possible
catastrophic reactor accidents caused me to undertake a comprehensive
and independent scientific investigation into the accident hazards of
all types of nuclear power plants and a thorough evaluation of the
official "reactor safety" analyses and "risk assessments." This
research, which was begun in 1970, and which continues to this day
(twenty years of full-time research), has covered all of the major
types of nuclear power reactors, namely:
Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs),
Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs),
Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs),
Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs),
CANDU (Canada's Heavy Water Moderated, Pressure-Tube Reactor),
Soviet's RBMK (Chernobyl type reactor), and
High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors.
I have concentrated in my research, however, on the PWRs, BWRs, FBRs,
and the AGRs.
My investigations of the reactor accident hazards covered all types
of reactor accidents, namely:
super-prompt critical power excursions;
loss of reactor coolant (e.g., coolant system pipe ruptures);
loss of reactor cooling (e.g., loss of feedwater to the steam
generators in PWRs);
reactor vessel rupture;
steam generator rupture;
reactor over-power transients; and
loss of cooling of the on-site spent fuel storage basins following a
reactor accident.
Furthermore, I have thoroughly investigated the Three Mile Island
accident, the Chernobyl accident, and many other mishaps that are not
generally known, in order to assess the probability or likelihood,
hence the risks, of catastrophic accidents. In addition, since my
calculations and analyses indicate that there exists potentials for
reactor eruptions and near full releases of radioactive fission
products and plutonium into the Earth's atmosphere as vapors and
smoke, my hazards analyses are extended to evaluate the potential
consequences of reactor eruptions in terms of the size land areas of
contaminated land which could have to be abandoned, the size land
areas ruined for food growing agriculture, the radiation doses to the
affected human population, and even estimates of the possible number
of cancer deaths due to radiation exposures from a reactor accident.
Over the years of my research I have written and issued many
treatises and reports which set down my various analyses. See
Attachment 2 for a list of my various reports and treatises. My first
comprehensive treatise, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants,
was published in 1976 by the University of Massachusetts Press,
Amherst, Massachusetts.
In order to subject my analyses to critical scientific reviews, I
have submitted my works to the atomic licensing authorities and
nuclear scientists in various nuclear laboratories in the United
States, West Germany and Great Britain, and to some extent in Sweden.
Most recently, I have participated in the British Government's
Hinkley Point 'C' Public Inquiry, which was held to consider the
application of the Central Electricity Generation Board to build a
second Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) in Great Britain (modified
Westinghouse design Sizewell-B type) at the Hinkley Point nuclear
power station in western England. In addition, I held over the years
countless discussions with nuclear experts in the U.S. Government and
in the nuclear laboratories, mostly in America, but also in West
Germany and Great Britain, when making my investigations, theoretical
calculations, and my various analyses.
In 1981-1982 I participated in the West German Government's study
project for analyzing the explosion accident risks of the SNR-300
fast breeder reactor at Kalkar, North-Rhein Westfalia in West Germany
- a project which I believe was undertaken by the West German federal
Government as a result of a series of treatises I issued in 1977-1979
on the "nuclear explosion potentials" of that reactor.
I also was involved in the Three Mile Island accident, giving
technical advice to the Pennsylvania state government officials and
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on how to cool down the
reactor core, which I determined was destroyed, with the least risk
of a catastrophic eruption. My technical advice was followed. (See
item of my list of works.) In August 1984 I issued a report
Catastrophic Nuclear Accident Hazards - A Warning for Europe. During
the Chernobyl accident I gave technical advice to the Soviet
authorities through discussions with the Soviet Embassy in
Washington, D.C. {See note no. 3.} Later in August 1986 I issued my
analysis of the Chernobyl accident, The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident -
A Summary Analysis of its Cause and Consequences with a Comparative
Analysis of the Accident Hazards of the Western Reactors.
Brief Summary of Webb's Analysis
of the Nuclear Accident Hazards
All of the major types of nuclear power reactors which I have studied
in depth - namely, the PWRs, BWRs, fast breeder reactors, and the
AGRs - have potentials for enormous reactor eruptions and explosions
in accidents. Furthermore, I find that the risks or probability of
such accidents is quite high, contrary to officials claims of
extremely low probabilities of catastrophic accidents and acceptably
low risks of accidents. It is not possible to predict with certainty
the magnitude of the release of the radioactive fission products and
plutonium into the Earth's atmosphere in such reactor eruptions or
explosions, but a near full release is plausible and definitely
cannot be excluded; nor can it be proven that, given a reactor
eruption/explosion, the probability of a near full release is low.
There is virtually an infinite number of different catastrophic
accident possibilities or potentialities for the pressurized water
reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs), which are the
types of reactors used in Spain and the rest of western Europe,
except for one gas-cooled reactor in Spain and in France, and the
gas-cooled reactors in Britain, and two FBRs. The accident
possibilities for PWRs and BWRs can be divided into several general
types, as follows:
- nuclear runaway (power excursions);
- core meltdown upon loss of cooling or loss of reactor coolant, due
to fission product heating and exothermic zirconium-steam chemical
reactions;
- reactor vessel ruptures, spontaneously or due to an over-pressurization; and
- reactor containment vessel ruptures on over-pressurization.
The first two types of accidents - nuclear runaway and core meltdown
- can result in enormous "steam explosions," by the process of mixing
molten fuel with water, like an explosive volcano. The last two have
the potentials for enormous explosions due simply to the explosive
release of pressure energy.
The fast breeder reactors have nuclear explosion potentialities,
defined as a super-prompt critical power excursion which vaporizes
the nuclear fuel and results in the explosion of the reactor core by
the force of high fuel vapor pressure generated extremely rapidly by
the power excursion. The Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs) used in
Britain also have nuclear explosion accident potentials, due to an
"autocatalytic reactivity effect" of fuel expansion in the coolant
channels of the reactor's graphite block during a nuclear runaway
caused by the melting down of the steel cladding of the fuel rods. (I
have not been able to analyze the Soviet's RBMK/Chernobyl type
reactor adequately for its full accident potentials; but I can
conclude that the Western reactors (PWRs, BWRs, AGRs, and fast
breeder reactors) are in most respects much more dangerous than the
RBMK reactor. (I refer to my Chernobyl Report, item in Attachment 2.)
Some examples of specific accident mechanisms are as follows:
1. Nuclear Excursions
(a) Boiling Water Reactors. The worst-case nuclear excursion accident
potentially in a BWR could occur by a sudden closure of the isolation
valves of the steam outlet pipes from the reactor vessel, while the
reactor is operating at full power, followed by a failure of the
automatic shutdown of the reactor (control rods scram), plus a
failure of an additional reactivity control action involving the
automatic stoppage of the reactor coolant recirculation pumps. In
this event the reactor steam pressure rises rapidly due to the closed
steam valves and the continued full reactor power level, causing
steam bubbles to be rapidly compressed in the reactor core, which, in
turn, causes a rise in the reactivity, and consequently a power
excursion. The heat of the excursion worsens the pressure surge,
which, in turn, causes continued steam bubble compression and still
more reactivity increases, which causes the power level to rise still
more and at a faster rate - an unstable positive reactivity feedback
process. The result, by my calculations, is a potential catastrophic
nuclear excursion within ten seconds! There is a great amount of
reactivity potential in the steam bubbles in the core, which would be
released by compressing the bubbles (pressure rise), or collapsing
the bubbles by cold feedwater injection, or sweeping the bubbles out
of the core by a surge in coolant flow through the core. This
reactivity potential creates catastrophic power excursion accident
hazards, and even unstable power oscillations, if the recirculation
pumps were shut off (natural circulation coolant flow through the
reactor core).
It has been assumed and predicted in past official safety analyses
that shutting off the reactor coolant recirculation pumps
automatically in the event of a reactor transient accident, in which
the steam valves trip shut without a prompt, automatic reactor
shutdown, would cause the water coolant in the reactor core to heat
up and boil more vigorously (the opposite of collapsing the steam
bubbles), due to the stoppage of the forced coolant flow, and that
this would by the growth of the steam bubbles prevent a dangerous
rise in the reactivity. However, unstable, divergent power
oscillations occurred in a BWR in America (the LaSalle reactor near
Chicago) following an accidental shut-off of the recirculation pumps
while at power (no reactor shutdown). These divergent power
oscillations were not predicted in the official safety analyses for
the reactor. This incident has thus revealed that there is no assured
protection in severe BWR transients (accidents involving a failure of
the automatic reactor shutdown) by the automatic back-up safety
action of shutting off the recirculation pumps, as has been
previously assumed. In other words, there is a danger of a
catastrophe in a BWR transient-accident, regardless of whether or not
the coolant-circulation pumps are automatically tripped off. If a
transient occurs where the reactor steam valves trip shut with a
failure of the reactor shutdown system to shut down the reactor
automatically, and if the recirculation pumps were not promptly shut
off, a catastrophic power excursion could occur. But even if the
recirculation pumps were promptly shut off, divergent power
oscillations could occur, which conceivably could still be
catastrophic. The latter possibility has yet to be evaluated by
scientifically established, experimentally verified theoretical
models of a BWR (to my knowledge). The former possibility would
definitely be catastrophic, I am sure.
(b) Pressurized Water Reactors. In a PWR a rupture of a defective
steel pressure housing for one of the fifty-five or so control rod
drive mechanisms (CRDMs) on top of the reactor closure head while the
reactor is operating could cause a chain reaction of such ruptures of
other CRDM housings, if similarly defective, due to violent
mechanical effects of the rupture, and consequently, cause the
ejection of a number of control rods from the reactor core, driven by
the sudden pressure differential created by the housing ruptures -
the reactor coolant pressure blowing the control rod drive shafts out
of the reactor and with them their attached control rods. The rise in
the reactivity due to the multiple control rod ejections would
produce a serious nuclear excursion - an accident which so far has
not been analyzed and evaluated in the open scientific literature,
including the published official reports of the nuclear industry or
the nuclear laboratories, as far as I have been able to determine.
Also, a rupture of a steam generator could produce missiles that
could slam into the CRDMs and conceivably cause a number of
simultaneous CRDM housing ruptures and control rod ejections.
The most serious nuclear runaway accident possibility in a PWR would
appear to be the sudden injection of unborated water into the reactor
from any one of four nitrogen-pressurized water tanks of the
Emergency Core Cooling System (called accumulators) while the reactor
is shutdown (all control rods inserted). This accident has never been
evaluated by theoretical calculations for its power excursion/energy
release potential; but the potential for reactivity increase is
enormous, so we must assume an extremely powerful reactor explosion
would occur.
(c) Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs). For the AGR a nuclear
explosion is potentially possible following a sudden loss of electric
power to the motors of the reactor coolant gas blowers/circulators
while at full reactor power, together with a failure of a prompt
automatic reactor shutdown. With the rapid loss of flow through the
reactor fuel/coolant channels in the graphite (neutron moderator)
block, and with the continued production of atomic fission energy
(high reactor power), I calculate that the steel cladding of the fuel
rods would begin to melt in about 30 to 60 seconds. (The calculation
is dynamical, allowing for doppler reactivity feedback by the fuel
heat up and the resultant power decay and other essential effects.)
The drainage of molten steel away from the most reactive region of
the reactor could trigger a nuclear runaway (power excursion), due to
the fact that steel absorbs neutrons, so its drainage-removal upon
melting is like removing control rods from the reactor, which raises
the reactivity. The resulting nuclear excursion would then tend to
melt and partially vaporize the fuel in the fuel/coolant channels in
the graphite block, to cause the fuel material in the channels to
expand vertically (frothing) and to expel itself from the fuel
channels. I have discovered by my theoretical calculations that this
fuel expansion/expulsion process would increase the reactivity, and
thereby intensify the on-going nuclear excursion. This is an
autocatalytic or positive feedback effect, where the intensified
nuclear excursion causes the fuel to boil more violently, to
accelerate the fuel expansion/expulsion process, and cause still
greater reactivity increases, and so on in a positive feedback
manner, until high fuel vapor pressures develop to explode the
reactor apart - a nuclear explosion. The explosion would be
compounded by a likely steam explosion due to the destruction of the
reactor boilers and the release of water to mix with the ultra-hot
molten fuel material, and also by the release of explosion energy
stored in the form of the high pressure coolant gas in the reactor
vessel, when the vessel is ruptured by the nuclear/steam explosion,
as well as by the exploding boilers.
(d) Fast Breeder Reactors. Great Britain is operating a fairly large
fast breeder reactor at Dounreay in northern Scotland - the Prototype
Fast Reactor (PFR), and West Germany has built but not yet operated
the SNR-300 fast breeder reactor, which is closely similar in core
design to the PFR. Of course, there is the Super-Phenix fast breeder
reactor in France. The fast breeder reactor has many possibilities
for autocatalytic reactivity effects and nuclear explosions. Because
the neutrons are maintained at high speeds (fast neutrons) in this
type reactor, the fast breeder reactor approaches the physical
character of an atomic bomb in its behavior in an accident. Perhaps
the most serious possibility is a loss of flow of the liquid sodium
coolant through the reactor core with a failure of a prompt automatic
shutdown of the reactor. Slight compactions or slumping of the mass
of fuel rods in the reactor core upon melting can cause the
reactivity to rise and a power excursion, which in turn can cause a
gross fuel meltdown and core disruption. A sodium vapor explosion
caused by a very small amount of liquid sodium (a few grams) mixing
with a few kilograms of molten fuel can, if occurring on the core
periphery, blast a relatively small amount of fuel into the core
interior to generate a catastrophic rise in reactivity - a nuclear
explosion. The consequences would be the vaporization of all of the
plutonium fuel and its fission products and the release of this
material into the Earth's atmosphere with enormous catastrophic
consequences.
The most serious mechanism for a nuclear explosion is "autocatalytic
assembly," due to the physical fact of fast breeder reactors that the
fuel material in the reactor core, if fully compacted, can make about
twelve to fifteen "critical" masses of fuel material - where one
critical mass is sufficient to undergo a multiplying fission chain
reaction, or nuclear excursion. So, one super-critical mass could
form in a core disruption accident and produce a "small" nuclear
explosion. As the explosion develops (on the time scale of tens or
hundreds of microseconds), it could drive other fuel masses together
at high velocities to yield an extremely powerful secondary nuclear
excursion. One calculation that I have made using an idealized model
predicts an explosion potential of 3 kilotons of TNT, which
approaches atomic bomb size, like Hiroshima (13 kilotons), with no
upper limit yet established for the explosion potential by the
"autocatalytic assembly" mechanism, since the secondary
excursion/explosion could go on to compress or compact other fuel
material in the reactor to cause a tertiary reaction, and so on - all
happening in a few tens of microseconds or less maybe.
The matter of the fast breeder reactor explosion hazards is relevant
today not only because of the fast breeder reactors operating in
Britain and France, and the SNR-300 in Germany waiting for a license
to operate, but also because we can expect that in the future most
reactors (90%) will be fast breeder reactors, if the use of nuclear
energy is continued and further developed to replace the dwindling
fossil fuels, in order to support the present, highly industrialized
modern way of life in the developed world.
2. Loss of Water Coolant Accidents (PWRs and BWRs). A catastrophic
meltdown of the reactor fuel a PWR or BWR can occur in a number of
different ways. The most straight forward way is a spontaneous
rupture of a high pressure coolant pipe of the reactor coolant
circulation system, due to some defect of fabrication or welding,
followed by a failure of the emergency core cooling system to actuate
or function properly to supply sufficient cooling water to the
reactor to prevent severe over-heating and disintegration of the fuel
rods. Emergency coolant/water injection is needed to replenish the
water coolant that is lost through the rupture. The failure of the
emergency core cooling system could happen if just two valves of the
system are closed at the time of the reactor system rupture, instead
of being open, as is required for safety when the reactors is
operating. (The Three Mile Island accident was caused in part by two
valves having been closed when they should have been open.) The
valves in question are the isolation valves of the "accumulators"
(water tanks), which must promptly discharge their contents into the
reactor immediately after the reactor system pipe rupture (time scale
of seconds).
Another meltdown possibility in a PWR is for the reactor to suffer an
over-power mishap or loss of cooling (loss of feedwater injection to
the steam generators), resulting in core over-heating and a severe
rise in coolant pressure (normally operating at about 155 bar
pressure). The combination of defective (weak) piping and the
pressure surge could result in a pipe rupture. The Emergency Core
Cooling System is not designed for this type accident possibility. We
can expect that a fuel meltdown would result, since the designed-for
loss of coolant accident would impose severe demands on the Emergency
Core Cooling System; and so any worse loss of coolant accident would
more likely not be controlled.
Another possibility is a small rupture of a reactor coolant
circulation pipe together with a failure of a prompt automatic
reactor shutdown (rapid insertion of the control rods into the
reactor core). The Emergency Core Cooling System is not designed for
this type of accident possibility either; and a meltdown would
result, according to the official Reactor Safety Study of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This type accident has never been
analyzed in the open literature for the behavior of the reactor core,
to indicate how energetic or rapid the meltdown process would be.
A meltdown of the reactor core would pose the danger of a
catastrophic steam explosion, due to the interaction of molten fuel
and any residual water in the reactor vessel. The full potential of
such steam explosions is of the order of 100,000 pounds of TNT
equivalent explosion. The involvement of just ten to twenty percent
(10-20%) of the core fuel mass could cause a steam explosion of such
a force to propel the 100-ton reactor vessel closure head upwards to
a height of the order of a kilometer. The nuclear industry and the
nuclear licensing authorities (the NRC in America, though an
unconstitutional government body, in my opinion) claim that the
probability of a catastrophic steam explosion given a core meltdown
is low, because of a contention that the efficiency of an interaction
of molten fuel with water to convert thermal energy into destructive
mechanical energy would be low. However, this contention is mere
assumption, based on inadequate miniature-scale experimentation and
unscientific and arbitrary interpretations of the results of the
experiments. In fact, in a 1984 experiment at Sandia Laboratories in
the United States a surprise "spectacular" steam explosion occurred
in a small-scale fuel melt simulation experiment that destroyed the
test facility; and the chief scientist for the experiment has
published an analysis concluding that a fully efficient
thermal-to-mechanical energy conversion in the observed explosion
cannot be excluded. (The efficiency was not be measured in the
experiment, perhaps due in part to the destruction that occurred.) In
Great Britain, a small-scale steam explosion experiment resulted in
damage to the simulated reactor vessel - a fact not revealed to the
public by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), who
conducted the experiment, until I inquired into the facts of the
experiment, when I confronted the authorities with evidence that
damage had occurred. Furthermore, the UKAEA has refused my requests
for a disclosure of the full details of the experimental results,
which are needed so that one could determine just how energetic and
efficient the observed steam explosion was; and they refused my
requests to examine the test facility and question the scientists who
performed the experiments.
One would need full-scale reactor destructive experiments anyway, to
settle the questions of the efficiency and energy release of a
reactor meltdown type steam explosion. But since such experiments are
not practical, we can only assume that the chances of a catastrophic
steam explosion occurring in any core meltdown accident are high! The
destructive steam explosion experiment made at the Sandia
Laboratories occurred in the second of two trials/tests - the first
test or trial resulted in no explosion, merely vigorous boiling.
These facts show that steam explosions by molten fuel/water
interactions are unpredictable - a "chance phenomenon" that depends
on haphazard complex processes which cannot be modelled
theoretically. Therefore, based on the Sandia experiment we can only
conclude that the chances of a catastrophic steam explosion in a
reactor accident is about "fifty-fifty," that is 50%. Also, we must
remember that the Sandia experiment used only 20 kilograms of
simulated core melt material; whereas a reactor core meltdown could
involved nearly a hundred tons of molten material. There are sound
physical reasons to assume that the efficiency of a molten fuel/water
interaction to produce a steam explosion would be greater when the
mass of molten material and water in an interaction is greater, due
to inertia confinement of the thermal reaction of the melt material
with the water.
Incidentally, it has been found that about one half of the fuel in
the destroyed Three Mile Island reactor (the TMI accident in 1979)
had melted down - the molten fuel resided in the reactor core as a
single pool of molten material contained in a frozen shell embedded
in the remaining core debris and surrounded by water in the reactor
vessel. In view of the Sandia experiment we can only conclude that it
was pure luck that a catastrophic steam explosion did not occur in
that accident.
Moreover, a steam explosion is not the only way a core meltdown could
end in a catastrophic reactor plant eruption or explosion. A core
meltdown in an intact, highly pressurized reactor coolant system
following a loss of cooling accident (loss of feedwater to the steam
generators), or a loss of coolant (stuck open pressure relief valve)
could weaken the vessel and result in the core melting through the
reactor vessel. The resulting pressurized ejection of the molten core
material into the containment chamber could cause the containment
pressure to rise excessively and burst the containment vessel
(building) - an enormous explosion!
3. Other Types of Reactor System Rupture. The reactor vessel could
rupture spontaneously due to a design or fabrication defect; or it
could rupture as a result of an over-pressurization of the reactor in
an over-power or loss of cooling mishap. A reactor vessel rupture
could destroy the containment and eject the reactor core into the
atmosphere with consequences which can only be guessed, due to a lack
of analysis; but we should assume that a near full release of the
radioactivity into the atmosphere as smoke would occur (the material
could burn, as the zirconium fuel rod cladding is highly pyrophoric).
Another accident possibility is a reactor system disturbance which
results in a strong rise in the steam pressure of the secondary
system of the pressurized water reactor - the system of steam
generators, steam lines and feedwater. A defective steam line could
then rupture; or it could rupture spontaneously. If the other two or
three steam generators are not promptly isolated from the ruptured
line by automatic closure of isolation valves, then more than one
steam generator would blow out its hot, pressurized boiler water into
the containment chamber and over-pressurize the containment
vessel/building by steam and heated air, and burst it - a
catastrophic explosion, which could send reactor plant fragments
flying a mile or so in every direction. One can only imagine the
consequences in terms of radioactivity release to the atmosphere.
Alternatively, a steam pressure surge could rupture more than one
steam line (from a steam generator), due to a common defect, and
cause the "blowdown" of more than one steam generator in the
containment chamber, thereby bursting the containment. (The
containment vessel/building is not designed for a blowdown of more
than one steam generator.)
Release of Radioactive Materials
It is impossible to predict the amounts of each type of radioactive
substances in the reactor core which would be expelled or released
into the atmosphere in any of the reactor eruption or explosion
possibilities. However, the extreme high temperatures of the fuel
material involved and the enormous explosion potentials do suggest
that we ought to assume that practically all of the radioactivity
could be expelled into the Earth's atmosphere, where it could then be
carried and dispersed by the winds, to cause geographically
widespread fallout contamination. The official hazards analyses of
core meltdown accidents have assumed a small hole rupture of
containment building due to a steam explosion or containment
over-pressurization, with the containment vessel/building essentially
remaining intact to trap and contain most of the fission product and
plutonium radioactivity that could issue from the fuel material. Such
assumptions, I find, are arbitrary, and neglect the full potentials
for reactor eruptions or explosions, and explosive containment
ruptures. Moreover, the official hazards analyses examine only a few
severe accident possibilities, and ignore the great many worse type
possibilities, especially nuclear runaway, severe steam explosions,
and reactor vessel ruptures, etc.
Potential Accident Consequences
The potential harmful consequences of a reactor plant eruption are
truly catastrophic in magnitude. From a near full release of fission
products and plutonium from just one reactor, about 200,000 square
kilometers of land could have to be abandoned, due to high
Gamma-radiation levels from the ground fallout, according to my
analysis. (The size of West Germany is about 250,000 square
kilometers, and Spain, 490,000 sq. kilometers. A like size area could
have to be abandoned due alone to man-made plutonium fallout dust
(Alpha-radiation) - a lung cancer hazard - following a PWR or BWR
eruption, and up to one million square kilometers in the case of a
nuclear explosion accident in a plutonium-fuelled fast breeder
reactor, which contains much more plutonium. Several hundred thousand
square kilometers could be ruined agriculturally for food growing due
to long-lasting Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 fallout. There are many
other forms of radiation exposure, such as radiation damage to the
thyroid gland (cancer) from radioactive Iodine, and exposure of the
skin to Beta-radiation, and inhalation of radioactive fission
products besides plutonium dust. The combined effects are
incalculable in terms of injury and impaired health to humans (and
animals). The possibility of fifty million or more cancer deaths
cannot be excluded.
In addition, a reactor eruption or containment explosion can directly
destroy one or more adjacent reactors in a multi-reactor nuclear
power station, or otherwise trigger internal eruptions or explosions
in the other reactors on the nuclear power site. In Great Britain
nuclear sites typically have up to four rectors, in France, four to
six reactors side by side (e.g. Gravelines). Therefore, there are the
potentials for multiple reactor eruptions, to horribly multiply the
potential catastrophic consequences as much as six fold - all
triggered by a single reactor eruption. The radiation consequences
could be ruinous for most of Europe, and the social disruptions and
breakdown in social order and barbarism are all too horrible to
contemplate.
There is also the possibilities for releases of still more
radioactivity from stored spent fuel at a reactor plant. I do not
have any information on the quantity of spent fuel stored in the
storage basins in European reactors; but in America, where spent fuel
rods are simply accumulating at the nuclear power plants (compact
storage), due to the unsolved nuclear waste disposal problem, it is
possible and likely that a catastrophic reactor explosion would cause
the eruption of the spent fuel storage (zirconium fire), releasing up
to twenty times more Strontium-90, Cesium-137 and Plutonium into the
Earth's atmosphere as smoke than what one reactor eruption could
alone release. A set of reactor eruptions and their spent fuel
storages at the Browns Ferry nuclear power station in Alabama (three
BWRs), for instance, could make most of the Eastern United States
including Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, Boston
- that whole eastern region of the United States - uninhabitable for
hundreds of years, if not permanently due to the Plutonium
contamination.
And finally, there is the ultimate possibility that a multiple of
reactor eruptions at a nuclear power station say in France or Great
Britain could cause indirectly reactor accidents at other nuclear
stations in Europe and Britain, due to the general social and
economic disruptions caused by the first accident, including failures
of electricity supplies needed for maintaining core cooling, to
continuously remove the perpetual fission product heat, and plant
crew members quitting the plants, because of high radiation levels
from fallout and the social chaos and crises of the families of the
crew members. So it is conceivable that a reactor accident could
trigger a chain reaction of reactor eruptions across Europe with more
and more radiation contamination to cause more social disruption and
consequently more nuclear accidents/eruptions, and so on in a
radioactive cataclysm. What then about the possibility of the
outbreak of war and the use of nuclear weapons by military commanders
and government leaders going mad. We need to fully evaluate the
nuclear accident hazards.
Accident Probability
To be sure nuclear power plants are equipped with various safety
systems, a degree of backup systems, and on-site emergency electric
power generators, all of which are designed to prevent a core
meltdown or a nuclear runaway (reactor eruptions or explosions) in
the event of certain types of accidents called "design basis
accidents." Basically, a particular design basis accident assumes a
single failure of some reactor system component, except the reactor
vessel in PWRs and BWRs, which is assumed never to rupture. Then the
reactor designers purport to show in their reactor safety analysis
reports for licensing that the safety systems would respond to such
faults and control the reactor and cool it down safely. Generally,
the official safety analyses assume one or a few additional component
failures in the various safety equipment/systems, to demonstrate some
margin of safety, to allow for the possibility of additional failures
in the safety action taken in the course of an accident; but there
are infinite possibilities for additional failures, and the
additional failures assumed in the official safety analyses are very
meager, and quite arbitrary and rather minor.
The catastrophic reactor accident possibilities generally involve
multiple reactor system and safety system failures following some
initiating fault - either common-mode failures, or
consequential/sequential failures of components, except for a
spontaneous reactor vessel rupture or steam generator rupture, which
are single failure type catastrophic accident potentialities. The
reactor and its containment vessel/building are not designed to
prevent a radiation catastrophe in an accident which is worse or more
severe than the design-basis accident, called "beyond design basis
accidents." Because of the enormous complexity of nuclear power
reactor plants, the enormous number of instruments, valves, pipes,
electrical cabling, and components, there is virtually an infinite
number of potentially catastrophic accident possibilities. If one
studies the Sizewell-B type PWR, for example, one would find that the
design-basis accident possibilities are arbitrarily defined or
selected. There are an innumerable number of worse accident
possibilities - beyond the design basis - which are potentially
catastrophic and which are just as credible as the design basis
accidents.
The fact is, that reactor experience shows that accidents or mishaps
occur, and involve multiple failures, which do not follow the
design-basis accident assumptions. The Three Mile Island and
Chernobyl accidents are examples. The fact that the past reactor
accidents and mishaps in western reactors have been controlled is
mostly due to luck. That no catastrophe has yet to occur in Western
reactors is due to the professional care given in the construction
and operation of the reactors; but nevertheless mishaps have been
occurring, and we have been lucky that the operators have managed to
control the reactors in those events.
The public's perception of the reactor accident risks is distorted by
the lack of published analyses, and therefore, knowledge, of the
catastrophic accident potentialities, and because the accidents which
have occurred at nuclear power plants in the West (fortunately short
of catastrophic) are not made known nor even analyzed by the
authorities, except for a few selected cases. In America the nuclear
reactor operators must give to the U.S. Government (the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission) written reports of any "abnormal incidents"
that occur which meet certain reporting criteria. Since the Three
Mile Island accident in 1979 there have been over 30,000 abnormal
incidents. These reports have never been analyzed to determine which
incidents and how many were beyond the design basis of the reactor
and its safety systems, so that we do not know how close we might
have come to a catastrophic accident in each of these instances. In
the very few cases that have been analyzed in published reports, we
have come very close indeed to catastrophic accidents. In Europe I
find that all abnormal incident reports are kept secret from the
public. But we know that mishaps are occurring. For instance, in 1987
at the Biblis PWR plant in West Germany, the operators violated
safety rules and opened a valve that was not designed to operate
under reactor coolant pressure. The result was a loss of coolant
accident, with hot steam being discharged in a room containing the
emergency core cooling equipment. Luckily, the operators managed to
shut off the valve, to stop the coolant discharge. This event became
known because someone revealed the secret report on the incident to a
journalist. In short, we really do not know much about what goes on
inside these reactor plants in regard to mishaps, accidents, and
violations of safety rules; so we cannot fully assess or perceive the
accident risks. The fact that no catastrophic accident has occurred
in the West does not mean necessarily that the reactors are safe.
There is also a credibility problem with official reports. Early this
year the Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain (two AGRs and two
Magnox reactors) suffered a loss of cooling mishap due to an electric
power failure that occurred in a storm. (The incident came to light
when workers at the plant revealed the fact of the mishap to a member
of Parliament.) The official statement on the mishap assured the
public that there was never any danger whatsoever of a fuel meltdown
in the mishap, and that the reactor continued to be cooled during the
power failure. However, when I investigated the incident, I found
that the emergency feedwater pumps to the reactor boilers are
electric powered, so that the electric power failure resulted in the
loss of feed water injections. Consequently, during the period of the
loss of electric power, the reactor was heating up, not cooling down;
and furthermore, the plant official who assured the public on
television that there was no danger of a reactor meltdown whatsoever,
did not know, when I asked him, how much time was available to
restore electric power and feedwater injection before the fuel
cladding would being to melt. (We still do not know.)
In America, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an
impressive, detailed report of their official investigation of a loss
of cooling (loss of feedwater) mishap at the Davis-Besse PWR in Ohio
in June 1985. However, the report neglected to reveal the most
important fact about the mishap: that the pressurizer vessel almost
filled completely with water due to the thermal expansion of the
over-heated reactor coolant, before the feedwater flow was restored
fourteen minutes into the mishap; and that had the pressurizer gone
"water solid" (filled completely with water), the reactor could have
undergone a rapid, severe pressure surge and exploded, because the
pressure relief valves ("safety valves") on the pressurizer vessel
were not designed to vent water, only steam on over-pressure - an
unpublished fact that I uncovered in my investigations of the mishap.
(The pressurizer is designed to be operated with a steam volume, and
is not designed for a water solid condition.) I found a similar lack
of candor by the West German authorities in their evaluation of the
Biblis loss of coolant mishap of 1987. Such shortcomings cause me to
conclude that there is a serious problem of establishing just what is
the accident experience at nuclear power plants in the world.
There is a fair amount of safety built into a nuclear power plant,
including a fair degree of back-up emergency equipment; and the
operators and maintenance crews and management personnel of nuclear
power plants are diligent in carrying out their responsibilities to
operate the plants with professional care and safety. Nevertheless,
there are risks of catastrophic accidents. Accidents can happen; and
the potential harmful consequences are practically infinitely greater
than the public has been led to believe by the official
safety/hazards evaluations.
The official analyses of the accident hazards are, therefore, grossly
inadequate and make optimistic assumptions that conceal the full
dangers; and official secrecy about the accident potentials and
experience impedes the efforts of independent scientists to make a
full evaluation of the reactor accident hazards, toward establishing
scientifically the true extent of the risks of catastrophic accidents.
There is also possibilities for sabotage. The Three Mile Island
accident may have been caused by sabotage. Very early in the accident
- in the first day or two - before it was disclosed how serious the
accident really was, CBS Television Evening News (a major prime-time
national television broadcast in the U.S.) reported that a local
magazine in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area, where the Three Mile
Island Plant is located, published in the summer before the accident
a fiction story of a reactor accident occurring at the Three Mile
Island plant; and the date of the accident in the fiction story,
according to the CBS news report, is March 28th - the date when the
actual accident occurred. (I have this news report on a tape
recording.) That the date in the fiction story is the same as the
date of the actual TMI accident, which occurred one half year after
the fiction story, is just too coincidental. I wrote to the CBS
Television headquarters in New York in 1985 for a copy of the fiction
article; but in their reply CBS refused to release any information
about the article.
Webb's Treatises and Reports
For details of my analysis of the nuclear accident hazards, I refer
to the various treatises and reports which I have issued in the
course of my researches. See Attachment___ for a list of these works.
I also refer to two short essays of mine which have been printed for
this conference, which give some further details:
- Hinkley Point Nuclear Accidents Hazards (two parts);
- Chernobyl and the Accident Hazards of Western Reactors.
For more details I draw special attention to the following treatises:
- The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants (University of
Massachusetts Press, 1976).
- Catastrophic Nuclear Accident Hazards - A Warning for Europe, August 1984.
- The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident: A Summary Analysis of its Cause
and Consequences with a Comparative Analysis of the Accident Hazards
of the Western Reactors, August 1, 1986.
- An Analysis and Evaluation of the Accident Hazards of, and the
official Safety Arguments for, the Sizewell-B Type Pressurized Water
Reactor proposed for the Hinkley Point Reactor Site in England,
Preliminary Report, Evidence for Submittal to the Hinkley Point 'C'
Public Inquiry, February 27, 1989, typed March 10, 1989, corrected
for typing errors and grammar, November 20, 1989.
- The Nuclear Explosion Accident Hazards of the British Advanced
Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs), June 20, 1988.
- Nuclear Explosion Hazards of the Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors
(AGRs) - a Critical Review of the Article "Transients in Gas-Cooled
Reactors," by Dr. John Askew, AGR Programme Director, UKAEA and
related correspondence, August 8, 1988.
- Boiling Water Reactors: Reactivity Accidents and Unstable Power
Oscillations.
The Great Necessity for an Urgent Review and Investigation of the
Nuclear Accident Hazards
In my opinion the Public, the scientific community, Governments and
their atomic licensing and supervising authorities, and the
Legislatures of the various Countries that operate nuclear power
reactors must undertake urgently a full review and investigation of
the nuclear accident hazards, including a review and evaluation of my
various analyses of the nuclear accident hazards. We must take
measures to make certain that no catastrophic nuclear accident
occurs; for the notion that we can tolerate accidents is unfounded.
The first step is to seriously and fully investigate the nuclear
accident hazards, and the analyses of these hazards which I have
developed. There is the great necessity for forming a scientific
consensus on the extent of the accident hazards. Only qualified
scientists can make the needed rational evaluations of the nuclear
accident hazards for the people of society. In order to make the
evaluations and perceive the accident risks, scientists must study:
(a) the details of the reactor plant designs to perceive the
mechanisms of the many different accident possibilities;
(b) the detailed physics and mathematical models of the reactor
systems in accident conditions and transients; and (c) the details of
the available published analyses of the accident hazards; and they
must check the details of my calculations and those of the nuclear
industry and laboratories, and make independent calculations of
accident potentials. It is a complicated and formidable task, which
requires substantial funding support.
A Plan of work that I propose and urge to be undertaken is as follows:
1. Study my various treatises. Toward this end my various treatises
and reports should be printed and distributed. In this way scientists
can have the benefit of my twenty years of full time research.
2. Develop a document library, and acquire the essential literature
on reactor safety and hazards analyses.
3. My treatises and reports need to be supplemented with write-ups
of the details of my calculations, theoretical models, assumptions,
and mathematical methods of calculations. The enormous complexity of
the nuclear hazards analyses, and the necessity over the years to
make a great many calculations, to develop many different kinds of
theoretical models of reactor accident processes and spent fuel heat
up, and to analyze or investigate one thing after another and
research so many things, in order to make a sound, substantive
analysis of the nuclear accident hazards, has left little time to set
down in treatise form the full details of my various calculations.
Examples of the topics which I have investigated are as follows: the
Three Mile Island Accident, Chernobyl, spent fuel storage heat-ups in
loss of cooling, steam explosion experiments, mechanisms for nuclear
explosions in fast breeder reactors, heat transfer coefficients for
AGR fuel rods in a loss of flow accident, reactor vessel rupture, the
Davis-Besse loss-of-cooling mishap in 1985, atomic bomb size
explosion potentials in the fast breeder reactor, sodium vapor
explosion models in fast breeder reactor accidents, AGR nuclear
explosion potentials, the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry - a one year
effort - potential consequences of large releases of radioactivity
into the atmosphere, mathematical analyses of the cancer mortality
statistics of radiation workers and the atomic bomb survivors,
neutron streaming reactivity effects in fast breeder reactor
accidents, and so on ad infinitum (a very great many more matters).
It was not possible to write up detailed mathematical treatises of
each analysis and calculation that I have made.
Consequently, my reports and treatises are of the nature of summary
analyses with the details of the calculations and mathematical theory
omitted for the most part. One exception is my 1980 treatise on the
potential accident consequences, which includes the mathematical
details of my accident consequence calculations. Yet, in order to
prove the claims I make in my reports, the details of the
calculations must be supplied. This is a serious deficiency of my
works; though you will find that the voluminous reports of the
official nuclear hazards and safety analyses have the same deficiency
- the reports are little more than a presentation of results without
the details of the calculations. The great problem in my case is the
lack of financial support to be able to write up the details of my
calculations.
To take an example, after I made a set of complicated computer
calculations which led to my discovery of nuclear explosion hazards
of the British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor - a year of full time
research - I estimated that it would take about six months to compose
and write a full mathematical treatise, to prove scientifically the
nuclear explosion hazards that I have calculated. There is a very
great amount of detail. It took over one month just to write a
summary report, which is about 200 pages. Greenpeace UK, who
supported my AGR research, after I issued a scoping analysis which
indicated possible nuclear explosion hazards of the AGRs, withdrew
their financial support just when I made the definitive calculations;
so that I had not the financial means to write up the needed detailed
mathematical treatise (proof). (I suppose that one year of research
was too much for Greenpeace to support; but scientists at the
Berkeley Laboratories in the Britain have told me that they are
amazed that I was able to do all of the AGR research, analysis,
development of theoretical models, and calculations that I have made
in just one year's time.) Without the support I resigned myself to
writing and issuing a summary analysis report (see item ___ in
Attachment 2). So, the treatise on the AGR nuclear explosion
potentials which I have planned to write remains to be written up and
printed.
Fortunately, after I issued my AGR report I was given the opportunity
to participate in the British Government's Public Inquiry into the
question of building another Sizewell-B type PWR in England - an
opportunity which I seized, as a forum to debate my findings on the
AGRS as well as the PWRs.
I have made a great many other analyses and calculations which also
need to be written down in treatise form, such as calculations of
atomic bomb size nuclear explosion potentials of SNR-300, reactor
vessel rupture (calculations of the mechanical energy imparted to the
closure head as a missile), sodium vapor explosion models, molten
core behavior, heat up of a PWR in a loss of cooling mishap, computer
codes for fast breeder reactor power excursion accidents, and so on.
There are a number of other major projects of research that I have
undertaken over the recent years which must be completed. These are:
1. A full analysis of the accident potentialities in the Sizewell-B
type PWR. My Hinkley Point Evidence, cited on page 15, though quite
comprehensive, is still only a "preliminary report." The rest of my
analysis needs to be set down in a full report.
2. A mathematical analysis of the cancer mortality statistics of
radiation workers, to evaluate the probability of cancer death per
unit dose of whole body gamma radiation. I have drafted a
mathematical treatise. It needs to be printed up and additional
calculations made.
3. Calculations of an estimate of the reactivity effect of neutron
streaming in an fast breeder reactor core - a quantity which is
needed to evaluate a possible nuclear explosion potential in a fast
breeder reactor due to a "neutron streaming cutoff" effect (see my
August 1984 report, Warning for Europe, cited earlier on page 15. I
have found in my research that the various conventional theories for
calculating the neutron streaming reactivity based on the use of
neutron diffusion theory are unsound (useless), and have developed a
mathematical solution to the problem based on neutron transport
theory. I need to make the necessary computer calculations based on
this mathematical solution, and write up a treatise on the subject of
neutron streaming in fast breeder reactors. This work is essential.
4. Finish and write my detailed critical evaluation of the analyses
of the potential consequences of "beyond design basis accidents" in
the Hinkley Point 'C' PWR which has been made by the National
Radiological Protection Board of Britain.
5. Complete my critical analysis of the steam explosion experiments
made in the Molten Fuel Test Facility at the U.K. Atomic Energy
Authority's Winfrith Laboratories (see the Addendum to my Hinkley
Point Evidence).
6. Write a full treatise of my calculations of atomic bomb size
explosion potentials in the fast breeder reactor. I refer to the
April 4, 1986 Addendum to my Warning for Europe report.
A way must be found to establish an international scientific
consensus of the accident hazards of nuclear power plants. Surely, in
order to achieve this necessary goal, scientific proofs of the many
various accident potentials must be made and set down in treatise
form, not mere reports of results of analyses. We need scientific
proofs not mere statements in an official report, or in papers such
as this present one. Toward this end, I suggest the development of an
International Nuclear Hazards Analysis Treatise - a loose leaf
multi-volume work that would contain analyses of the most major
nuclear accident possibilities and their potential consequences,
including the complete details of the theoretical/mathematical models
and the calculations. I further suggest the convening of a series of
scientific conferences to debate the analyses of the Hazards Analysis
Treatise, toward establishing the accident potentials, including
reaching a consensus of the radiation exposure and contamination
limits for assessing the potential consequence of nuclear eruptions.
In addition, of course, I suggest that every nation who operates
nuclear power plants create its own internal forums for reviewing and
investigating the nuclear accident hazards. In this regard I suggest
two models:
1. The SNR-300 Risk Oriented Analysis Study Project in West Germany
(1981-1982). This project was commissioned by the West Germany
federal Government and consisted of a pro-nuclear group and a nuclear
critics group. The pro-nuclear group was the West German company
which makes reactor safety analyses for various licensing authorities
in West Germany, Gesellschaft für Reaktorsicherheit. The critics
group consisted of a group of physics students and professors who
were critical of the fast breeder project. (I was asked to join the
critics group.) The project had a mandate to conduct scientific
debates between the pro-nuclear group and the critics group with the
aim of resolving as many technical issues as possible, and to issue a
single report to the West Germany Parliament. The actual working of
the project did not reach the goal of a unified report, nor were the
promised conferences with the pro-nuclear group (GRS) held -
conferences in which I was to debate the GRS about my analyses of the
nuclear explosion potentials of the SNR-300 reactor. Still, the
project was nevertheless very productive from my point of view, and
useful. Besides each side submitting written analyses, the project
held a scientific debate between a group of experts of Karlsruhe
Nuclear Research Center and myself, which was tape recorded and
transcribed. I issued a treatise which analyzed the debate in detail.
The conference did much toward establishing the facts of the accident
hazards. This type of project could be improved upon. The shortcoming
of the project, however, was that it was controlled by the
pro-nuclear interests, and the promised series of debate conferences
with GRS about my analyses of the SNR-300 nuclear explosion
potentials were never held. The remedy would be to put the direction
of such a project under control of independent scientists.
2. The Hinkley Point 'C' Public Inquiry of the British Government
(1988-1989). The Inquiry was a public forum conducted by a presiding
officer (called the "Inspector"), who was joined by two engineering
and scientific experts (called "Assessors"), appointed by the
Secretary of State for Energy of the British Government. In the
Inquiry the issue was whether or not the Inspector should recommend
consent to build a Sizewell-B type pressurized water reactor at the
Hinkley Point nuclear power station, which already has two AGRs and
two Magnox gas-cooled reactors. The Central Electricity Generation
Board (CEGB) presented their scientific evidence in favor of their
application for consent to build a PWR (or PWRs) at Hinkley Point,
and I was given the privilege of questioning (cross-examining) the
CEGB officials and other nuclear experts giving evidence, including
the atomic licensing authority officials and the director of the
National Radiological Board. Likewise, I presented my evidence and
various supporting treatises, and underwent cross-examination by the
CEGB lawyer. The Inspector and the assessors also took part in
questioning each side during the debates; and the entire proceeding
was thoroughly documented, including a verbatim transcript of the
proceedings.
The inquiry ended on December 4, 1989. By law the Inspector must
issue a report of the Inquiry with his recommendation on whether or
not consent to build a PWR station at Hinkley Point, and he must
attach any report which an Assessor may want to write. However,
whether a report will ever be issued remains to be seen; for near the
end of the Inquiry the Secretary of State for Energy and his
Department of Energy announced a cancellation of their plans to build
any more PWRs, including the PWR station planned for Hinkley Point
and three other PWRs that were planned, subject to a nuclear policy
review in 1994. The change in policy is confusing, for CEGB still
maintained its application for consent to build the reactors. I fear
that the change in policy may be just a scheme to avoid a legal
requirement for issuing a report of the inquiry, so that my analyses
of the nuclear accident hazards will not have to be addressed and
dealt with in a published Government report.
I believe that the most effective way to investigate the nuclear
accident hazards within a nation is the creation of a special
Scientific Commission of experts whose only mandate is to determine
the nuclear accident hazards (develop objective information), and not
to judge the acceptability of the risks and make subjective
judgments. The subjective judgments can be made by the politicians
representing the public in the parliament of a country. {See note no.
4.}
Credibility of R.E. Webb's Analyses and Warnings of the Nuclear
Accident Hazards
I believe that my warnings of nuclear accident hazards ought to be
taken seriously. A few points in this regard:
1. My book The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, which was
published in 1976, warned that accidents worse than the "design basis
accidents" - mainly, multiple-failure accidents - are credible, at a
time when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, followed by the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory commission, asserted that such accidents are
"incredible." They asserted that multiple-failure accidents are so
extremely low in probability that they may be disregarded. Two and a
half years later the Three Mile Island accident occurred, which was
caused by a multiple of failures, hence a beyond-design-basis
accident.
2. During the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident, about five days into
the accident, I had determined that the core was destroyed. The NRC
did not reveal his fact to the public until I caused them to admit
it, after reporters of a major newspaper listened to tape recordings
of my discussions with a key NRC technical official 24 days into the
accident.
Early in the accident (five days into it) I advised the NRC and the
Pennsylvania Government officials not to turn off a large reactor
coolant circulation pump that was running, because the core was
destroyed, I contended. I reasoned that we ought to maintain the
forced coolant circulation, since forced coolant flow through the
collapsed core had up to that time been successful in avoiding a
catastrophic core meltdown/steam explosion, and that such forced flow
could very well be necessary to assure adequate coolant circulation
through the disintegrated core mass (collapse of the normal coolant
flow channels between the fuel rods). At that time the NRC was
preparing to turn off the pump and attempt to cool the core by
natural convection. Fortunately, my technical advice was followed -
the pump was left running. I refer to my analysis of the Three Mile
Island accident, and to the Transcript of my telephone discussions
during the accident (see item ___ in Attachment 2).
Later in the accident - about one month - I met with the chief safety
managers of the NRC to debate a planned experiment with the destroyed
core - the experiment was to turn off the coolant circulation pump.
In the meeting I argued that the reactor core was destroyed, that its
condition with regard to whether or not it was already molten or on
the verge of melting down was unknown, and that, therefore, turning
off the pump (by stopping the forced coolant circulation flow) could
cause or worsen a core meltdown, and thereby threaten a catastrophic
steam explosion. I therefore argued against the experiment.
The NRC safety managers in the meeting contended that the TMI
reactor core was severely damaged and partially crumbled, but not
molten, and that the core material was being adequately cooled with
water coolant circulating through the +crumbled core material by the
pumped flow, and that it would continue to be adequately cooled by
natural convection flow when the pump is turned off. {See note no.
5.} The next day the NRC ordered the pump turned off. Ten years
later, we learned by probes of the destroyed reactor core that half
of the core was molten (a molten pool), and indeed threatened a
catastrophic steam explosion. As we know now from the Sandia steam
explosion experiment, it was pure luck that a catastrophic steam
explosion did not occur in that accident. Such an explosion could
have caused the adjacent reactor to erupt as a consequence, to
compound the catastrophe. Also, the Three Mile Island core meltdown
could have occurred as a result of turning off the coolant pump, as I
warned in my meeting with the NRC.
3. My book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants (1976) and
my 1984 Warning for Europe report both warned that nuclear runaway
accidents, including autocatalytic power excursions, are the most
serious type of accident; whereas the report of the U.S. Government's
official Reactor Safety Study played down the nuclear runaway type of
accident potentiality. Indeed, the report mentions this class of
accidents only in an addendum to the report, in response to the
comments on the draft report which I sent to the NRC. The Chernobyl
accident in 1986 was caused by a nuclear runaway, more specifically,
by an autocatalytic power excursion. The specific mechanism was due
to something called a "positive void coefficient of reactivity." My
book Accident Hazards warned (warns) about the danger of an
autocatalytic power excursion occurring in the Canadian type, CANDU
reactor, due to a positive void coefficient of reactivity in that
type of reactor. CANDU was a pressure tube reactor, where the neutron
moderator is separate from the reactor coolant, which causes the
positive void coefficient. The Chernobyl reactor was also a pressure
tube reactor, and, therefore, it also had a positive void
coefficient. (Incidentally, I have learned that in the early 1980's
Romania has begun construction of five CANDU reactors.)
4. My 1984 Warning for Europe report warned of the potential for the
reactor containment building of a PWR exploding upon
over-pressurization; whereas the official hazards analyses assume a
small-hole rupture - a relatively minor rupture upon
over-pressurization. Several months after my report was issued, a
small-scale containment vessel exploded in an over-pressure
experiment, contrary to the official laboratory predictions of a
small leak that was to develop upon the over-pressurization and which
was to vent the pressure with a catastrophic-type rupture. The
fragments were blown to heights that were previously predicted in my
August 1984 Warning for Europe report (500 feet!).
5. In the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry, the British nuclear
authorities confirmed my research discovery of nuclear runaway
hazards in the AGRs, after earlier denying publicly that the AGR
could suffer a nuclear runaway (their denial was made before I
undertook my research). Moreover, a senior CEGB reactor physicist,
Dr. John Young, has written an evaluation of my treatise on the AGR
nuclear explosion accident hazards; but the CEGB has refused to give
me and the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry a copy of Dr. Young's
evaluation, which suggests that my treatise is right.
6. My book Accident Hazards and other treatises and papers which I
have issued in the past have warned that the theoretical models and
calculations used to make the official evaluations of the nuclear
industry's design basis accidents for reactors cannot be relied on,
because the theoretical models lack experimental verification and
other shortcomings. In 1988 a loss of flow fault in a BWR in America
triggered unstable, divergent power oscillations; though previous
reactor design calculations predicted stable, decaying power
oscillations following such a reactor coolant flow disturbance. The
incident underscores my warning.
7. In my works I argued that a full thermodynamically efficient
steam explosion could occur upon a core meltdown in a PWR or BWR
accident; whereas, the nuclear establishment contended that the
efficiency of any real steam explosion in a core meltdown accident
would be low. My contentions were partly based on a successful
theoretical model of sodium vapor explosions which I developed for
evaluating accidents in fast breeder reactors. (My model explains
very well observed sodium vapor explosions in miniature-scale
experiments.) The Sandia steam explosion experiment, which I have
mentioned before, has confirmed my warning: the efficiency of the
observed steam explosion, which destroyed the experimental test
facility, could not be determined, but according to the Sandia
scientist who conducted the experiment, Dr. Marshall Berman, the
possibility that the explosion was fully efficient thermodynamically
cannot be excluded.
8. The Soviet authorities now are saying that the radiation
consequences of the Chernobyl accident are far worse and more
extensive than previously reported. This tends to confirm my analysis
of the possible consequences of the Chernobyl accident. I refer to my
1986 Chernobyl report, where I warned that the consequences could be
far worse than the authorities had projected, and that urgent counter
measures were (and still are) needed to limit the exposures to
radiation that the human population would receive, especially in
eastern Europe.
9. The State of North Rhein Westfalia in West Germany has refused to
grant an operating license for the SNR-300 fast breeder reactor at
Kalkar. I believe that this position of the atomic licensing
authority there is mainly due to my analyses of the nuclear explosion
potentials/hazards of the SNR-300 reactor, which I have set down in a
series of ten treatises that have been submitted to the nuclear
authorities in West Germany over the years. Also, the U.S. Government
cancelled plans to build a fast breeder reactor in America, after I
issued analyses of the nuclear explosion hazards of fast breeder
reactors.
10. Finally, the British Government has cancelled plans to build a
PWR station at Hinkley Point (and at three other plants). The
Government announced their cancellations near the end of the Hinkley
Point Public Inquiry. Though there were many press stories suggesting
that the reason behind the Government's decision to cancel the PWRs
is economics, the fact is that the Government has not given the
reasons for its decision. I believe that we must assume that the
decision was largely due to my Evidence on the PWR accident hazards
which I presented to the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry, as well as the
facts which were disclosed and established in the debates in the
Inquiry as a result of my cross-examination of the nuclear officials
in the Inquiry. This can only be appreciated by studying the record
of the Inquiry - the transcripts of my cross-examinations of the
officials and my evidence and statements given at the Inquiry.
I truly believe, therefore, that my analyses of the nuclear accident
hazards must be taken seriously.
Our Situation
The industrialized countries of America, Europe, and Japan are in a
most difficult predicament in regard to nuclear power plants and
their accident hazards. There are hundreds of nuclear power reactors
located throughout America and Europe, and with them the imminent
danger of a catastrophic accident of immense scale potentially. The
responsible thing to do is to carefully shut down all nuclear power
reactors while we investigate the reactor accident hazards and
resolve the safety/risk issue. However, the nuclear problem is
extremely difficult now to resolve, because of the enormous vested
interests and money behind the nuclear development, including jobs
and fortunes, and the enormous revenues and money profits from the
sale of electricity from the reactor plants, and the politics of
Government power, as well as modern society's heavy dependency now on
electricity from the nuclear power plants. For example, France claims
over 70% to 80% of their electric power comes from nuclear energy,
and in Catalonia the situation is similar, according to what I have
been told. Also, there are about 125 reactors operating in America.
Even if we resolve to shut down the reactors, it would still be
difficult to do so, because of the large amounts of electric power
needed to maintain cooling of the reactors, to continuously remove
the fission product heat from the reactor cores, which is practically
perpetual. Without electric power for reactor cooling, a catastrophic
reactor eruption or explosion would likely occur.
At least there should be a full scientific investigation of the
nuclear accident hazards; but our situation is that there is no
mechanisms for the financial support - funding - for this urgently
needed international undertaking. Virtual total control over the
funding for nuclear hazards research is exercised by Governments, and
they seem bent on promoting nuclear power, and ignoring my hazards
analyses. Fortunately, I have managed to find intermittent random
support over the last twenty years to carry out my research, though
not without periods of financial crisis and homelessness. My support
has come from private individuals, a couple of universities (a meager
total of $12,000), bank borrowing, a single town Government in
America ($30,000 total), and two government administrations in West
Germany (a 11,000 DM reward for my recent BWR reactivity accident
hazards treatise, and my participation in the SNR-300 risk study in
1981-1982). Such bare support is not adequate to conduct the needed
investigations, to say the least.
The Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents have caused
considerable interests in my nuclear hazards analyses, particularly
in Europe after Chernobyl. However, the national Governments of the
various nuclear countries have indicated their intentions to continue
pushing further nuclear development and suppressing investigations
into the nuclear accident hazards. In America the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission has refused on several occasions my petitions
to present analyses of the nuclear accident hazards, and to allow me
to question their experts in the reactor licensing proceedings. It is
futile to try any more.
In West Germany the Federal government's reactor safety authorities
in Bonn have refused my request for a meeting to discuss my hazards
analyses, and refused my request to participate in their October 1987
international scientific conference on the power excursion accident
hazards of the SNR-300 reactor. The atomic licensing authority in the
state of North Rhein Westfalia has attempted to sponsor an
investigation of the nuclear excursion accident hazards of the
SNR-300 fast breeder reactor, including an investigation of my
analyses of these hazards; but the federal Government in Bonn has
ordered the North Rhein Westfalia Government not to make the
investigation.
The British Government so far shows no signs of accepting my
recommendations for the creation of a scientific Commission to
investigate my analyses of the nuclear accident hazards. (The report
of the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry has not yet been issued.)
Official secrecy on the subject of the reactor accident hazards still
prevails. The nuclear establishment seems bent on keeping the
scientific discussions within their own established system of
expertise (the nuclear laboratories, etc.) and international
scientific conferences, attended by their own appointed
delegate/experts, and do not subject their experts to serious
critical questioning, except in the Hinkley Point Inquiry, which is a
rare exception. My involvement in the Inquiry was made possible by
the support of a lone citizen in England, who sponsored my
involvement from money left to him by his Aunt, Hilda Murrell, who
was murdered one week before her scheduled appearance before the
Sizewell-B public inquiry to object to the nuclear waste aspect of
nuclear energy. The Governments accept what the experts of the
Nuclear Establishment say without serious independent reviews and
investigations.
The common reaction of governments to my analyses of the nuclear
hazards is to ignore them, or to advise me that I should submit my
analyses to scientific journals and let the customary scientific peer
review process evaluate the merits of my analyses; and then if any of
my analyses are published in the so-called scientific journals, the
scientists of the nuclear establishment will decide individually what
they each might want to do about my analyses. In short, the
Establishment expects that any changes in the conventional thinking
about nuclear accident hazards will be done in a slow, evolutionary
process through scientific articles in journals. There is no time for
such an evolutionary process! The accident dangers are an extremely
urgent matter, and always have been. Also, there is no space
available in any journal to publish the huge volume of analyses that
I have developed and which must be published.
Anyway, the scientific journals of nuclear reactor engineering and
science are pro-nuclear - there is no hope that they would ever
publish anything that I would submit. Such as been my experience. For
instance, the journal Reviews of Modern Physics published a
voluminous NRC-sponsored {See note no. 6.} reactor safety study in
1975, which concluded no serious short term concern about the safety
of reactors; but the journal rejected a hazards analysis that I
submitted for publication on the grounds that they have no space in
their journal. Also, the NRC-sponsored reactor safety study which the
journal published omitted any reference to a secret report on the
nuclear runaway accident hazards of nuclear power reactors, which was
made by the national reactor testing laboratory in the U.S., and
which I sent to the leaders of the NRC-sponsored study project in the
middle of the study, before they wrote their report. I uncovered the
secret report in the course of my own investigations by questioning
the scientists of the reactor testing laboratory.
The reactor accident potentials are so extremely large that the whole
issue and problem of the nuclear accident hazards needs to be
resolved urgently by independent Scientific Commissions, not by some
notion of an evolutionary process controlled by pro-nuclear industry
oriented scientific journals and their nameless reviewers of article
who screen the articles and decide what is to be published.
Also, the Governments and their nuclear establishments take the view
that we can learn the accident risks by operating the reactors, and
that we can "manage" accidents when they occur and learn lessons from
them, to improve on reactor safety as we go along. This philosophy is
irrational; for there is no valid scientific basis to think that
accidents can always be controlled. The theoretical analysis and
calculations underlying the official evaluations of the design basis
accidents lack experimental verification (as we have learned from the
divergent power oscillations of the LaSalle BWR), so we ought not to
trust the official design-basis accident evaluations. Furthermore,
any serious accident is likely to be beyond the design basis of a
reactor plant; so that there is not even a theoretical basis of
analysis to assume that such accidents can be controlled. Therefore,
the public safety is not assured by the so-called safety equipment or
the reactor containment building; but instead the protection of the
public depends essentially on the careful operation and maintenance
of the reactors - that is, on the prevention of serious reactor
system malfunctions. However, this protection is limited. Accidents
will surely happen. Human activity is not perfect - we all know this.
Also, the capabilities of reactor pressure vessels to operate for
their full designed service life without spontaneous rupture, even if
made without detectable flaws, has not been demonstrated; and we
really do not know how a reactor system will behave when a major
piping rupture occurs. Operating the reactors is nothing but a grand
experiment - colossal risk taking.
Though some may think that our situation in modern society requires
the acceptance of the risks of catastrophic accidents from nuclear
power plants, I question the benefits of nuclear energy. The
components of the reactor plants do not grow on trees; but to make
them requires the present, extremely intense and heavy concentrations
of systems of industries, mining, and traffic throughout the world
with all of the pollution effects that we all know about and the
enormous rates of consumption of fossil fuels to power the industries
and transport. Then there is the unsolved nuclear waste disposal
problem, {See note no. 7.} and the exposure of the workers at the
reactor plants and the nuclear fuel reprocessing and nuclear waste
processing plants to nuclear radiation with risks of genetic harm to
their offspring besides the risks of cancer and other impaired health
to the workers themselves.
Finally, there is the prospect of a great many more nuclear power
reactors built in the future as the Earth's supply of fossil fuels
dwindles. I made an estimate once that eventually ten thousand
nuclear power reactors would be needed in the United States alone,
when the coal and oil runs out, if America tried to maintain the
present highly industrialized way of life. Therefore, we can
certainly expect that at least a thousand reactors would be
operating, if we continue to rely on nuclear energy to maintain the
present way of life. We can also expect a similar development of
nuclear power in Europe, and with it the much greater likelihood of
catastrophic - indeed, cataclysmic - accidents. Contrast this
prospect of a huge number of nuclear power reactors operating in the
world with the reactor accident potentials, where not even one fully
potential catastrophic reactor accident can be tolerated, and we must
conclude that the nuclear development is impractical, if we want to
ensure against a potential nuclear cataclysm. Furthermore, we should
ask why take the risks of nuclear power today with mostly the water
cooled and gas-cooled reactors, when the fast breeder reactor, which
would be needed in the not too distant future to maintain nuclear
energy production, is even more dangerous with respect to nuclear
explosion hazards? We truly are in a most difficult predicament. The
way to solve our problem is to investigate the nuclear accident
hazards, work for a scientific consensus of the extent of the
hazards, and take actions toward resolving the nuclear issue
democratically.
Constitutional Law Perspective
In order to be able to find the way to resolve our great nuclear
problem, I believe that it is vitally important to consider the
causes of the development of nuclear power plants in America, and
America's promotion of nuclear power reactors and nuclear technology
in Europe and elsewhere throughout the world (for instance, China). I
particularly mean the CAUSES in relation to the United States
Constitution. Based on an extremely thorough legal research made over
the years, I have found that the United States Government's promotion
of nuclear power is unconstitutional - that the development of
nuclear power plants has been brought about by undemocratic and
unconstitutional U.S. Government acts. I believe that the same kind
of undemocratic process is also behind the development of nuclear
power in Europe, and of course, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere. I
refer to my essay "Democratic and Constitutional Principles Reviewed
and Asserted," for elaboration and a proposed remedy. This essay has
also been printed for this Conference. {See note no. 8.}
What Should be Done?
I proposed the following steps, to promote a timely resolution of the
nuclear problem:
1. Form a committee of scientists to study my treatises and the
record of the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry in regard to my Evidence
and my cross-examinations of the nuclear establishment officials in
the Inquiry; and arrange for copies of my works be made and
distributed.
2. Support the completion of the various works that I have
undertaken (see page 17-18). {See note no. 9.}
3. Create a Scientific Commission in Spain to fully investigate the
nuclear accident hazards and issue an evaluation report.
4. Join in and support the formation of an International Scientific
Commission to investigate the nuclear accident hazards and work for
an international scientific consensus of the hazards.
5. Support and contribute to the making of a Nuclear Hazards
Analysis Treatise for each type of nuclear reactor in operation in
the world.
6. Form a committee of political scientists, legal experts, and
democratically minded politicians to review the principles of
democracy and United States constitutional law, and then review the
government policy making processes in Spain (the system of
government), and other nations in Europe, and work for developing a
sound democratic process for resolving the nuclear problem, which
necessarily includes reviewing the present modern way of life and
systems of industry and economics.
7. In parallel to the investigation of the nuclear hazards,
investigate the feasibility of alternatives to nuclear energy,
including changes in the way of life, to see if there is a way of
life without nuclear energy and the heavy chemical pollution of
modern society - a way of life that we might find would be better -
one that we would be more happy with and one which hopefully could be
powered by renewable energy sources.
This concludes my paper. I wish your country success in resolving the
nuclear issue wisely. Thank you for your attention.
___________________________
Notes
1. The Shoreham reactor - a Boiling Water Reactor - was eventually
built and tested at low power, but has not yet been operated at high
power, and may never be, due to a political struggle led by the State
of New York Government to scrap the reactor plant, which seems to be
succeeding, though the U.S. Government is apparently bent on trying
to put the reactor into full operation.
2. The major so-called anti-nuclear campaign organizations based in
Washington, D.C. actually support nuclear energy, though they gave
the opposite impression to the public over the years in their
mass-mailing brochures for fund raising. Their campaigns have pursued
really minor or false issues over the years, in my opinion, and gave
no support toward promoting any of the nuclear hazards issues that I
have tried to push. I believe that this accounts for the poor state
of the nuclear risks debate in America.
3. Perhaps influenced by my advices, and my report Catastrophic
Nuclear Accident Hazards - A Warning for Europe, which was hand
delivered to the Soviet Embessy during the accident, the Soviet
engineers at Chernobyl drained the water basin beneath the reactor to
preclude a possible steam explosion if molten fuel should collapse
into the basin.
4. By my remarks about the SNR-300 Risk Study and the Hinkley Point
Public Inquiry I do not mean that these particular forums were well
conducted. On the contrary I found that they were irresponsibly
conducted. The Hinkley Point Inquiry Inspector, Mr. Barnes, has
recently issued his report, which I find is terrible. The report is
replete with false statements that give false impressions of a fair,
objective inquiry, and essentially ignores the wealth of evidence
that I submitted, except for several topics, which the report treats,
but in way that distorts my evidence and paints my evidences as some
outsider scientists who doesn't know very much about what he has
written about. I plan to thoroughly refute the Inquiry report in a
future treatise. The same with the SNR-300 risk study; though I have
already published a through critique in a report I issued in January
1984.
5. In the meeting the NRC managers gave me the official safety
analysis reports for the planned experiment, which set down the
official contentions about the state of the reactor core.
6. NRC is the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commision. The Study was made
by a group associated with the American Physical Society. See Chapter
8 of my book "The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants," which
critically reviews the report of this study.
7. I refer to my 1977 treatise "An Inquiry into the Safety of Nuclear
Waste Disposal."
8. I refer also to Chapter 13 of my book The Accident Hazards of
Nuclear Power Plants. This chapter, which is titled, "Who Should
Decide?", contains my constitutional law analysis. I have also made a
paper which contains additional proof of my contention that the whole
nuclear program in the United States is unconstitutional. The paper
is titled, Unconstitutional Government - Sketch of Constitutional
Analysis with respect to the Nuclear Hazards Issue," (May 1984,
revised slightly, August-October, 1990).
9. I have recently issued a paper titled, "Proposals for an Urgent
Book on the Imminent Dangers of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear
Power Plants and for Continuing Research and Major Undertakings to
Promote the Public Safety in regard to the Nuclear Hazards." I
believe that the most effective thing to do immediately is to support
my work toward publishing the Book that is outlined in that Proposal,
and the others works described in the Proposal. Copies of this
Proposal are available from me on request.
(End of Dr. Webb's 1990 comments)
Comment by Russell D. Hoffman: The following is from a secondary web
page at Dr. Webb's web site. While it admits that proof has been
hard to come by for the use of the word "far" it asserts that things
are almost certainly at least worse than the official government
sources would suggest. Perhaps most important is all the things it
does NOT revise. He's been thinking about these issues not just so
we don't have to, but because most of us are INCAPABLE of resolving
these issues. Dr. Webb states unequivocally that no one has
corrected any of his conclusions about how dangerous nukes really
are. -- rdh
From: http://technidigm.org/c5001/revision.htm
Revision for TMI Essay
In <http://technidigm.org/c5001/tmi.htm#t24>Section V of my TMI
essay, To the People of the Area, &c., the following statement is
given:
"I have also analyzed the semi-official cancer mortality statistics
of the atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who suffered
varying degrees of nuclear radiation exposure from the bombs, and
found by mathematical calculations that the cancer effect of nuclear
radiation as indicated by these statistics is far greater than that
officially assessed. [See note no. 24 in the appendix.] I am
preparing a treatise on the health hazard of nuclear radiation which
will contain my full scientific analysis of the health hazard of
nuclear radiation, including my statistical analyses, and my physics
analysis of the damaging action of radiation on the living cells of
human body tissue."
The note No. 24 is as follows:
"(Note No. 24) I find that the official statistical analyses on
"radiation effects" are mathematically unsound. The reports and
articles which present these analyses do not derive and prove the
mathematical theory used for making the analysis calculations, nor is
the theory described enough to be able to figure out just what the
mathematical theory ("models") are that have been used, nor is the
data used in the analysis verifiable, and in most cases, the data
which was used to make a statistical analysis are not even made
available."
I have since improved on the mathematical calculations for my
statistical analysis, and do not now calculate for certain that the
cancer risk coefficient is "far greater" than what has been official
evaluated, but that a value far greater cannot be excluded that there
are positive indications that it is far greater. However, I also find
that the statistics are not reliable; and so any mathematical
analysis is not wholly meaningful. This will be elaborated upon in a
scientific article which I am preparing for publications. Also, the
official view, at least as of about 1990, was that there is no
evidence of any cancer death effects of the radiation exposure among
the atomic bomb survivors at doses less than 50 rads. I found the
contrary. I refer to my 1991 treatise A Mathematical Analysis of the
Cancer Mortality Statistics of the Japanese Atomic Bomb Survivors and
Workers at the Hanford Nuclear Installation - An Evaluation of the
Probability of Cancer Death by Exposure to Nuclear Radiation at Low
Dose. My final calculations as of March 2000 show positive risk
coefficient for doses less than 20 rads even.
Richard E. Webb, Ph.D.
Present Address (as of April 2000):
Raiffeisenstrasse 1
86868 Mittelneufnach
Bavaria, Germany
Telephone: (49) 8262 - 960 857
=======================================================
The above text has been submitted to the California Energy Commission by:
========================================================
Russell D. Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
*************************************************
** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936
** (800) 551-2726
** (760) 720-7261
** Fax: (760) 720-7394
** Visit the world's most eclectic web site:
** http://www.animatedsoftware.com
*************************************************
Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention nukes -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=NUKES&increment=weeks&many=52
[only articles for the last one year will be indexed]