Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report (2006)
Chapter: 3.3.1 Could a Terrorist Attack Lead to a Loss-of-Pool-Coolant Event?
In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks, a great deal of additional work has been or is being carried out by government and private entities to assess the security risks posed by terrorist attacks against nuclear power plants and spent fuel storage. The committee provides a discussion of these studies in the following subsections. Some of these studies are still in progress.
The committee’s discussion of this work in the following subsections is organized around the following two questions:
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Could an accident or terrorist attack lead to a loss-of-pool-coolant event that would partially or completely drain a spent fuel pool?
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What would be the radioactive releases if a pool were drained?
3.3.1 Could a Terrorist Attack Lead to a Loss-of-Pool-Coolant Event?
A terrorist attack that either disrupted the cooling system for the spent fuel pool or damaged or collapsed the pool itself could potentially lead to a loss-of-pool-coolant event. The cooling system could be disrupted by disabling or damaging the system that circulates water from the pool to heat exchangers to remove decay heat. This system would not likely be a primary target of a terrorist attack, but it could be damaged as the result of an attack on the spent fuel pool or other targets at the plant (e.g., the power for the pumps could be interrupted). The loss of cooling capacity would be of much greater concern were it to occur during or shortly after a reactor offloading operation, because the pool would contain a large amount of high decay-heat fuel.
The consequences of a damaged cooling system would be quite predictable: The temperature of the pool water would rise until the pool began to boil. Steam produced by boiling would carry away heat, and the steam would cool as it expanded into the open space above the pool.13 Boiling would slowly consume the water in the pool, and if no additional water were added the pool level would drop. It would likely take several days of continuous boiling to uncover the fuel. Unless physical access to the pool were completely restricted (e.g., by high radiation fields or debris), there would likely be sufficient time to bring in auxiliary water supplies to keep the water level in the pool at safe levels until the cooling system could be repaired. This conclusion presumes, of course, that technical means, trained workers, and a sufficient water supply were available to implement such measures. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires that alternative sources of water be identified and available as an element of each plant’s operating license.
The pool-boiling event described above could result in the release of small amounts of radionuclides that are normally present in pool water.14 These radionuclides would likely have little or no offsite impacts given their small concentrations in the steam and their subsequent dilution in air once released to the environment. Moreover, as long as the spent fuel is covered with a steam-water mixture, it would not heat up sufficiently for the cladding to ignite.
A loss-of-pool-coolant event resulting from damage or collapse of the pool could
