The Aug. 16 story “Probe: All U.S. nuclear reactors are vulnerable” appears to raise alarms regarding U.S. nuclear reactors as being unsafe because they might be targets for terrorist attacks.
The story says that terrorists might steal bomb-grade material from these plants. Impossible. There are no bomb-grade materials in any nuclear power plant. The fuel used is uranium enriched to between 5 and 20 percent. To make nuclear material explosive it is necessary to enrich uranium to 95 percent.
A terrorist could damage boilers in which water is being heated with resulting damage to the system. Even this is not likely to be serious given all the fail-safe devices present in any nuclear plant.
All new U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and submarines are powered by nuclear power. Does anyone seriously think that the Navy would put these ships into battle if their power plants could be blown up by enemy activity?
