New Report Exposes Risk of Nuke Reactors at War

[the.greenbase@green2.greenpeace.org]

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Original-TO:      World Press (Green2:Green2:Gnl:INET)
Original-Cc:      The Greenbase (Green2:Green2:Gnl:Main)
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                   GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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NEW REPORT EXPOSES THE SUPPRESSED RISK OF NUCLEAR REACTORS AT
WAR  
 
Lubiana, 16 April 1996 (GP) Today, Greenpeace presented a
report that concludes that it is not possible to construct
nuclear power plants in such a way that they can resist
deliberate military attacks.(1)
 
Since the end of the Cold War, there have been several armed
conflicts on or near industrialised countries' territory. The

destruction of energy systems is in addition of strategic
importance. The report "War & Nuclear Power Plants" shows that
after a direct hit or near miss of a reactor with a nuclear
device, the reactor's inventory would be thrown as steam and
dust high into the atmosphere. There are, however, also a 
number of conventional weapons that could breach the
containment of a reactor building. With today's precision
weapons technologies, such as laser guiding systems and the
deep penetration capacity of modern explosives, such devices
can be fired with a great accuracy from a large distance.
 
"They do not need atomic weapons to fight a nuclear war, the
nuclear 'bombs' are already amongst us", said Heinz
Hoegelsberger of Greenpeace at the presentation of the report
in the capital of Slovenia. He emphasised that on 1 July 1991,
a few days after Slovenia declared its independence, three
fighter jets from the Yugoslavian air force flew very low over
the Slovenian Krsko reactor.
 
A non-nuclear attack on a nuclear reactor could lead to a
complete range of releases, depending on whether the core
meltdown took place and how severely the containment was
damaged.  
Like the Chernobyl catastrophe demonstrated, the radioactive
cloud could cover the entire hemisphere. The delayed effects
of a non-nuclear strike against a nuclear power station could
far exceed the radiological effects of an isolated explosion
of a nuclear warhead. It is now recognised that Chernobyl for
example, released 200 times more radioactivity than Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The core of a nuclear reactor also contains more
long-life radioactive material than a nuclear warhead.
 
The typical centralised and large scale nature of nuclear
power plants make them a vulnerable and strategically
important target for those who want to disrupt an entire
society. Small scale and decentralised non-nuclear energy
options, based on energy efficient technologies and renewable
energy ources, are far less vulnerable. And above all,
attempts to eliminate sustainable power supply systems, will
not render vast territories of land uninhabitable due to
radioactive
contamination.
 
"While the effect of war can be devistating to the society,
human health and the environment, destroying
nuclear power stations in a war would irreversibly contaminate
whole stretches of land over a long period of time", said
Greenpeace's Heinz Hoegelsberger. And he concluded by saying
that "The only effective protection against violent outrages
directed against nuclear power plants would be the
decommissioning of all nuclear power stations".
 
Notes.
 
(1) The report "War and Nuclear power Plants" is written by
Dr. Gordon Thompson of the Institute for Resource and Security
Studies, Cambridge, MA-USA. Its is commissioned by Greenpeace
Germany and published as "Chernobyl Paper no.2" by Greenpeace
International.
 
For more information, please contact:
 
-Heinz Hoegelsberger: ++.43.664.338.65.04
-Eloi Glorieux: ++.32.2.280.19.87
 
 

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