America’s nuclear power plants, and the huge transformers they feed electricity to, are not protected from a growing collection of threats including terrorism, electromagnetic pulse and even solar weather, according to an extensive review of the industry.
And unless the industry and Washington move swiftly to install some protection, the chances are growing quickly that the nation could see a long blackout that could lead to riots and deaths.
“It’s going to kill us,” warned David Stuckenberg, chairman of the American Leadership and Policy Foundation.
His group’s report, “Electromagnetic Pulse and Space Weather and the Strategic Threat to America’s Nuclear Power Stations,” is the first to study the potential EMP and solar weather impact to the nation’s collection of nuclear plants.
The report, provided to the Washington Examiner, found that the industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have done little to address the threats. That’s despite a 2012 solar flare near-miss that could have dismantled some plants and growing fears of terrorism, such as a small atmospheric nuclear explosion over the U.S. that could scuttle the nuke plants and fry the transformers, causing huge blackouts.
What’s more, the report authors found that the industry has done little in reaction to the 2011 Japanese nuclear disaster that dismantled several power plants in a tsunami.
For example, some of the backup generators needed to fuel cooling in the six Fukushima nuclear plants were destroyed, resulting in catastrophe. In the U.S., there are inadequate plans to handle similar generator losses, the report said.
A condensed version of the report is to be published in the Harvard National Security Journal Online.
The report already has drawn the attention of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which agreed with the report’s conclusions that, like Fukushima, U.S. facilities that host multiple nuclear plants are at high risk.
“Prior to Fukushima, the consensus worldwide was that a nuclear accident would be confined to a single reactor,” said a top nuclear scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “But the report quite properly points out that the threat could challenge multiple nuclear plants. If so, our pre-planned mitigation resources might be as ineffective as the single-reactor resources had been at Fukushima,” he added.
Stuckenberg, an Air Force pilot who is the unpaid chairman of the independent think tank that produced the report, suggested a stopgap plan if the issue of EMP, terrorism and solar weather continues to be ignored: Store enough food and fuel to help people get through a prolonged blackout.
FEDS DISCOVER STINK BUG KILLER, AND IT’S FROM ASIA TOO
Federal scientists who for years have been searching for a natural killer of the brown marmorated stink bug accidentally imported from Asia finally have gotten a lucky break.
A tiny wasp that lays its eggs in stink bug egg masses — and also uses it to feed its babies — has been discovered around Washington and its suburbs. And just like the stink bug, it was accidentally imported from Asia.
“It hitched a ride somehow. It ended up here somehow, we don’t know how,” said the nation’s leading stink bug expert, Tracy Leskey, of the Agriculture Department.
She said it was found around Washington, D.C.; Winchester, Va.; and Laytonsville, Md., last summer and tested on stink bug eggs this year. The results were wonderful, at least for farmers and homeowners in the 42 states the pest has set up home in.
But the good news doesn’t end there. Leskey said native foes are starting to nosh on the dime-sized stink bug, which can coat houses and farm crops and which emit a cilantro scent when scared or squished.
And the cold winter in some areas resulted in a 90 percent kill. “It did a number on the stink bugs,” she said.
FEC HITS CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM CHAMPION
Democrat Russ Feingold was once the face of campaign finance reform, the former Wisconsin senator who teamed with Republican Sen. John McCain to author the McCain-Feingold legislation. That was before he lost to Ron Johnson.
Now, trying to win back his seat, he is taking money where he can find it and even has popular Sen. Elizabeth Warren coming in for a big-shot fundraiser later this month.
Even the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is investing in helping Feingold with issue ads, though in 1998 he told the group to “get the hell out of my state” with similar ads during his first re-election campaign.
But his money grab has caught the eye of the Federal Election Commission, which recently sent Feingold a demand to stop taking contributions over the legal limit and to return the overpayments.
It identified bigger-than-allowed contributions from movie star Kate Capshaw, Hollywood royalty Tim Disney, and Yvon Chouinard, founder of the pricey Patagonia clothing brand.
This article appears in the Sept. 14 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
