Are nuclear reactors safe from terrorists?
In October 2007, WCBSTV New York did a report showing video footage of nuclear power plant security officers nodding off to sleep on the job. The video was shot by a fellow guard at Peachbottom Nuclear Plant, located just outside of Philadelphia. An attack on a power plant could kill or injure tens of thousands of people. Dan Hirsch, President, Committee to Bridge the Gap: “Terrorists can do to a reactor precisely what an accident can, and can unfortunately do it better. Terrorists can wait for the most unfavorable meteorological conditions, like when the wind is blowing towards the populated area. Terrorists can make sure that both the primary and the secondary systems are disabled. So these are, in some sense, pre-inplace nuclear weapons for our adversary. They can’t blow up like a nuclear bomb, but they can release very much more radioactivity than a classical fission nuclear weapon, and all it takes is a terrorist using conventional explosives, handguns, breaking in on the ground,
