C.E.C. Docket No. 04-IEP-1J: Frank Barnaby on the costs of clean-up and other related issues

To: California Energy Commission Dockets Unit;

Attn: Docket No. 04-IEP-1J

1516 Ninth Street, MS-4

Sacramento, CA 95814-5512

Re: Energy Report: Nuclear Power, 2005 Workshops

Date: August 13th, 2005

From: Russell D. Hoffman, Concerned Citizen, Carlsbad, CA

To The Commission,

In the following article, the plutonium in the analogy could be replaced with some also amazingly small quantity of ANY grade of spent nuclear fuel, which could be obtained by attacking a nuclear power plant -- not to steal the spent fuel, but to ignite it in place.

And, the prospect of decontaminating an area of "five square kilometers" will depend in part on how carefully the terrorists grind up their poison before spreading it around. It might be impossible to clean up, similar to the possible results of a nuclear rocket failure -- permanent evacuation might be official government policy if clean-up is deemed too expensive or just "not worth it." (See NASA's 1997 "Final" Environmental Impact Statement for the Cassini Mission for an example where this is the stated potential decision after a "worst case" accident (which they did not deem sufficiently likely to stop the launch, although subsequent events, such as miscalculation errors causing other space probe failures, proved that to have been an improper decision at best, if not criminally negligent.))

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

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23 [du-list] Dr Frank Barnaby on nuclear electricity and nuclear terrorism

Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:56:50 -0700

"[Barnaby] said that if a dirty bomb contained a piece of plutonium the

size of a $1 [Australian] coin, it could radioactively contaminate an area

of about five square kilometres to such an extent it would have to be

evacuated and decontaminated."

That's a "Western Nations" cleanup, mind you.

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Expert warns of nuclear terror targets

Melbourne Age August 6, 2005 - 6:29AM

Increased risk of nuclear weapons proliferation is one of the major

arguments against moving to a new generation of nuclear reactors, a

visiting nuclear physicist and defence analyst says.

A new generation of nuclear reactors would be based on plutonium of a type

ideal for the fabrication of the most effective nuclear weapons, Dr Frank

Barnaby said.

Dr Barnaby, a nuclear physicist by training, is now a freelance defence

analyst and a prolific author on military technology.

He is the nuclear issues consultant to the Oxford Research Group in the UK

and was director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

from 1971-81.

Dr Barnaby will give the keynote speech at the Medical Association for

Prevention of War conference in Melbourne on Sunday.

He argues there are too many negatives to electing to move to nuclear power

as an alternative to greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuel technology.

A renewable energy future, such as with solar power, was a viable and safe

alternative, he said.

Dr Barnaby said the use of nuclear power significantly increased the risk

of nuclear terrorist attacks.

"Nuclear power reactors inevitably produce plutonium as a by-product as

they burn their uranium fuel to generate electricity," he said.

"If spent reactor fuel elements are reprocessed to chemically remove the

plutonium, some of it could be illegally acquired by terrorists and used in

a dirty bomb or used to fabricate a crude nuclear explosive."

He said that if a dirty bomb contained a piece of plutonium the size of a

$1 coin, it could radioactively contaminate an area of about five square

kilometres to such an extent it would have to be evacuated and decontaminated.

Dr Barnaby also said that, although nuclear power was often said to be

clean - meaning that it does not emit greenhouse gases - it actually

produced large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

"Every stage of the nuclear-fuel cycle ... uses electricity generated by

fossil fuel (oil or gas)," he said.

"If there is to be a nuclear renaissance worldwide, the question of the net

carbon production is a major issue that must be fully addressed."

Dr Barnaby said the nuclear industry wanted to move soon to generation III

reactors and looked forward to the time when generation IV reactors would

be built.

"The nuclear fuel used in generation III and IV reactors will be based on

plutonium of a type ideal for the fabrication of the most effective nuclear

weapons," he said.

"The increased risk of the proliferation of nuclear weapons to states and

terrorists is one of the major arguments against moving to a new generation

of nuclear reactors."