NUCLEAR TERRORISM

But when it comes to terrorism, there is nothing to compare with plutonium in any non-nuclear energy facility, right?

Wrong. Here, too, the dangers are both greater and more probable in the non-nuclear field.

Take plutonium dispersal first. Only a terrorist stupid enough to believe the anti-nuclear horror fiction would put plutonium in, say, the ventilation system of a large building. He would be surprised to see the people walking out alive: The victims would die of lung cancer from 10 to 40 years later. What would be the point? Besides, unlike chemical and biological poisons, radioactive poisons signal their presence, and they can be detected in miniscule amounts.

As for making a bomb from diverted power fuel (plutonium oxide, not weapon-grade plutonium), the idea is not only far-fetched, but it is hardly worth the trouble. A team of criminal scientists would have to get hold of the fuel in transit from the reprocessing plant to the power plant (the only time they could hope to get at it without an enormous processing plant); they would somehow (undetectedl) have to cart away the containment cask weighing tons; the material inside is radioactive; they would have to work for months on the bomb and the triggering mechanism; if the whole enterprise succeeded (a fantastic assumption), they could destroy one, perhaps several, city blocks.

But they could do much "better" with dams, oil storage complexes and LNG tankers- let alone with methods that have nothing to do with the electric power generation cycle.

A dam break, say the experts, can kill as many as 100,000 people. How well are dams guarded? There is a place on the East Coast (no, it will not be revealed here), where 150 million gallons of fuel oil are stored immediately above a community of 35,000 inhabitants. How many engineering and physics PhD's does it take to set it alight and make the tanks explode? Large oil tankers carry the energy of a hydrogen bomb; is xploded, the effect would be similar to that of a nuclear bomb. If Nader were really worried about terrorism, he would have a lot more than plutonium to worry about.

And there are other methods more dreadful and even easier, but there comes a point where discussion becomes a set of directions, so we will just quote Prof. B.L. Cohen of the U. of Pittsburgh, who has made a detailed study of the problem: "Experts on terrorism consider the plutonium bomb publicity to be a great asset to society in diverting attention of would-be terrorists away from easier and much more harmful pursuits."