I don't know very much at all about security provisions that are provided for civilian lab, research or test reactors. However, as far as commercial nuclear power plants go:

http://www.nustartenergy.com/DisplayArticle.aspx?ID=20050408-5

Robust Security

04/08/05

Editorial Note: The article “Stopping the Bad Guys”, published by Forbes.com on January 31, 2005 discusses nuclear plant security.

Stopping the Bad Guys

FORBES.COM — Christopher Helman, Chana R. Schoenberger — Since Sept. 11 the nuclear industry has spent nearly $1 billion upgrading security at power plants. That money paid for, among other things, 8,000 armed guards. At Entergy's River Bend plant in St. Francisville, La. visitors could once drive right up to the office building some 200 feet from the reactor. Now gun-toting security forces stop every car half a mile from the plant and use handheld sensors to scan for explosives. Once inside, cars are forced down a circuitous path over steel plates that can be raised by remote control to block access. More armed guards watch from towers. Within the reactor building Entergy has recently installed dozens of additional cameras, as well as bulletproof glass and blast shields. But is it enough to prevent the worst?

1. Terrorists storm a reactor and try to steal uranium or plutonium to make bombs.

Not likely. Assuming attackers could shoot their way past the beefed-up phalanx of armed guards, traffic barriers and guard towers that now surround every nuclear plant, they'd still have to fight their way into the reactor building through multiple levels of remote-activated blast doors—where access requires the right key card and palm print—to get to the spent-fuel pond, says Michael Wallace, president of Constellation Energy's generation group, which operates five nuclear reactors. The pond is where highly radioactive used fuel sits in 14-foot-long stainless steel assemblies cooling under 40 feet of water. Terrorists couldn't just grab this stuff and run because, unshielded, it gives off a lethal dose of radiation in less than a minute. To avoid exposure, terrorists would have to force workers to use a giant crane inside the reactor to load the assemblies into huge transfer casks, then open the mammoth doors of the reactor building and use another crane to lift the cask onto a waiting truck—all the while being shot at by the National Guard.

2. Terrorists crash a plane into a reactor, leading to overheating and a meltdown.

Even less likely. Assume that terrorists could get past tightened airport security and fight off passengers to get through new, improved cockpit doors and take control of a plane. Even then they'd have to crash the jet directly into a reactor to have any chance of breaking containment. In 2002 the Electric Power Research Institute performed a $1 million computer simulation to assess such a risk. Conclusion: A direct hit from a 450,000-pound Boeing 767 flying low to the ground at 350mph would ruin a plant's ability to make electricity but not break the reactor's cement shield. Reason: A reactor, smaller in profile than the Pentagon or World Trade Center, would not absorb the full force of the plane's impact. And, for all the force behind it, a plane, built of aluminum and titanium, has far less mass than the 20-foot-thick steel-and-concrete sarcophagus enclosing a nuclear reactor. It would be like dropping a watermelon on a fire hydrant from 100 feet.

3. Terrorists attack a train or truck transporting nuclear waste to a disposal site.

A tough one. Despite accidents, as when a nuke-waste-laden truck in 1971 skidded off a highway, the safety record is good. Railcars have 100 tons of steel-and-lead shielding for a 19-ton shipment of fuel rods; 5-ton "impact limiters" can absorb huge shocks. The casks can survive slamming into concrete walls at 80mph, being hit by hurtling 100-ton locomotives and burned at 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, with little effect. A direct hit with an armor-piercing antitank missile would punch a grapefruit-size hole and release a small amount of radioactivity.

Even before Sept. 11 nuclear plants were the safest industrial sites in the U.S. Terrorists would have an easier time attacking softer targets like chemical or oil storage plants.

Copyright (C) 2005, Forbes, Inc.

Dusty,

You are correct. The Electric Power Research Institute did a study demonstrating that PWR commercial power plant containment buildings are invulnerable to aircraft impact:

http://www.nei.org/documents/EPRINuclearPlantStructuralStudy200212.pdf

However, concerns exist with the design for some GE BWR Reactor Buildings because while the reactor itself is completely encased in a drywell consisting of steel re-inforced concrete, the spent fuel pool within the reactor building (but outside the drywell) is elevated and the top 1/4 of the reactor building is essentially sheet metal and not concrete as the bottom 3/4 is. Nevertheless, to affect the spent fuel pool, an aircraft would have to dive straight down and hit the pool itself; if it flew level or at an angle to hit the top 1/4 of the reactor building which is steel vice concrete, it would go through the top of the reactor building and while causing some damage, it is very unlikely that the spent fuel pool would suffer catastrophic failure.

EPRI also did a study about the risk of the possible consequences of an armed terrorist attack against a commercial nuclear power plant. This study may be read at:

http://www.nei.org/documents/EPRINuclearPlantConsequencesStudy20032.pdf

A great deal of related safety and security information pertaining to commercial nuclear power plants may be found at:

http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=60

Regards,

Paul P.

Dusty,

You are again correct. I would encourage the interested reader to review what NRC Chairman Diaz has said about security for commercial nuclear power plants:

3rd Annual Homeland Security Conference; http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2004/s-04-009.html

Protecting Our Nation at the Nuclear Security Executive Forum: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2004/s-04-020.html

And while the following speeches include matters other than security, NRC Chairman Diaz's point on Realistic Conservativism applies equally to reactor safety and nuclear security:

Realistic Conservativism: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2003/s-03-009.html

Realism and Conservativism: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2003/s-03-023.html

Regards,

Paul P.