”The federal government’s new focus on preventing disaster in a natural or terrorist electromagnetic pulse attack is drawing attention to a lack of testing and preparation at the nation’s nuclear power plants, where a resulting meltdown could cause radiation deaths” ~ At long last . . . Hope springs eternal!
This introductory paragraph to an important August 23, 3019 article in the Washington Examiner harkens a most welcome recent report from the Electromagnetic Defense Task Force (EDTF) — and particularly its Appendix 1. Before commenting further on the frustrating years of warning from many knowledgeable folks that have been ignored, consider Paul Begard’s entire article below. (Highlights added.)
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Feds fear EMP ‘meltdown’ of nuclear power plants
by Paul Bedard , Washington Examiner, August 23, 2019 11:31 AM , https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/feds-fear-emp-meltdown-of-nuclear-power-plants
Tucked into the back of a new report [Click here.] from the Electromagnetic Defense Task Force compiled to highlight the EMP threat to U.S. infrastructure and military installations, the nation’s nuclear regulators admitted that the electric generating plants are not prepared for an attack.
What’s more, they don’t know how deadly an attack would be or how far the radioactive “plume” from a meltdown would extend and suggested instead that deaths would first come from an inability to find food and clean water.
“If all engineered and proceduralized mitigation measures failed and a meltdown were to occur, there is a very large uncertainty in off-site consequences,” said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in response to the concerns raised in the report, provided to Secrets. [Note: Secrets refers to the OPINION: WASHINGTON SECRETS section of the Washington Examiner.]
“The NRC staff has not analyzed scenarios with extended and widespread failure of off-site protective actions, which continue for more than several days. Without prompt protective actions, off-site doses may reach levels where there is an elevated lifetime risk of cancer to off-site populations. For the population, failure of access to food and clean drinking water would likely prove much more hazardous to health and safety,” added the agency.
As for the size of any impact, the NRC said “modeling” suggested that there would be “no early radiation dose fatalities far from the plant.” But it didn’t say how far, prompting the task force to cite about 10 miles.
“More information is needed to determine if the extended plume release (beyond 10 miles) will impact the public and military assets and personnel. The potential release of radiation can trigger panic,” said the task force.
And the NRC apparently won’t protect the energy plants, referred to in the report as the nation’s “crown jewels,” from an attack. The reason: That’s the Pentagon’s job.
The growing concerns about an EMP attack from Iran, China, Russia, or North Korea, or a natural one created by the sun has prompted the Pentagon to take moves to protect some facilities and resulted in the first-ever presidential executive order on the issue.
The appendix, including the NRC and task force reaction, is in the 2.0 version of its earlier 2018 report.
Sources said that President Trump is about to unveil a second executive order that will “put teeth” into his initial order that called for “improving the nation’s resilience to the effects of EMPs.”
The NRC staff’s responses have raised concerns among members of the task force and national security community who feel the agency isn’t doing enough to protect against EMP attacks, or even test for it.
“We are very glad the NRC has taken a serious interest in these issues as we have and is moving forward with experts and the interagency to assess potential issues. We have some work to do to ensure all potential hazards are well mitigated. It all begins with a candid assessment. That is very much what this dialog was about,” said a task force spokesman.
The agency said that it had run computer simulations of attacks but that plants are not required to protect against an EMP.
It also seemed to dismiss some of the task force’s concerns, including the need for lots of diesel fuel to run generators needed to supply outside energy.
“The NRC will not address threats to their power stations that they feel other agencies should take care,” said a task force member.
In one example, the NRC shrugged off concerns that an EMP attack would even penetrate a nuclear plant. “NRC does not anticipate significant penetration of EMP fields into a nuclear power station due to design of the structures,” it said.
But the task force scolded, “Since no actual testing has been conducted, such assumptions are imprudent. EMP tests conducted on actual equipment show that modeling can be wrong by orders of magnitude. Suggest actual physical testing. USAF nuclear command and control facilities and missile silos are often underground and even covered by tens of feet of concrete and metal rebar. This does not negate the need for EMP hardening. Such facilities are hardened to careful military specifications.”
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While thinking about the consequences of this important article — that I will elaborate below, I strongly encourage you to take time out, and click here for my August 13 2019 message and its references to the two important previous EDTF reports.
In that context, consider that Air Force Lt. General Seven Kwast is being retired after completing only half of his expected 3-year tour as the Commander of Air Force Education and Training Command (on the basis of past experience with that command).
No doubt General Kwast’s directed early retirement is because of his highly visible advocacy for the EDTF and its important role in recognizing and mapping how best to respond to the existential electromagnetic warfare threat, a high priority objective based on President Trump’s March 26, 2019 Executive Order on Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses.
Thus, the President has directed the White House National Security Council to oversee the development of a “whole of government” response to his growing threat — which appears to many, including yours truly, to be a competition in which we are playing “catch-up,” especially with respect to China.
So, the Air Force takes the initiative to end the career of an outspoken, effective leader of efforts to support the President’s Executive Order?
What??? General Kwast’s exemplary EDTF contributions have been right on target, especially in dealing with the existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat to all Americans.
And I’ve since heard that the EDTF has been dissolved??? Even after its most recent report indicated that a third report would be issued by the end of this year or early next year???
What??? Apparently, as someone said: “No good deed goes unpunished!”
I witnessed this support up close and personal at the most recent EDTF meeting at Air University on Maxwell AFB, Alabama. Click here for my May 7, 2019 report on some of the major discussions among some of the nation’s most knowledgeable experts on EMP and the institutional resistance to countering it, including aspects related to Bedard’s Washington Examiner article above — which are well founded.
Apparently, someone doesn’t want such bad news for the American people to be made public.
A related concern to some Air Force leaders, no doubt, has been General Kwast’s related “sin” of supporting President Trump’s Space Force initiative.
In particular, USAF resistance to President Trump’s initiative can be traced to the immediate negative reactions of former Secretary Heather Wilson and her directives to senior Air Force Generals. Click here and read Peter Gartretson’s August 8, 2019 Breaking Defense article discussed in my August 13, 2019 High Frontier message, “Speaking Truth to Power.”
Bottom line: General Kwast’s visionary career comes to an end in about a week, unless the White House overrules the current directives from the Office of the Secretary of Defense that orders his retirement on September 1, 2019.
This travesty sends an unmistakable devastating message to junior and middle grade USAF officers: “Just sit down and shut up!” … “Fly our airplanes and Space Sensors!” … “We’re not interested in understanding the growing threats to the nation or developing a USAF strategy to counter them.”
Back to the EDTF analyses of our nuclear power plants and the fact that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has admitted there are problems. As an example of how long it has taken to reach this point, click here to review my January 17 2015 article that spelled out a number of the concerns finally being acknowledged.
And the “powers that be” were warned of these concerns considerably earlier. Click here for an informative June 26, 2013 letter from the Directors of the Foundation for Resilient Societies sent to President Obama and his Cabinet Secretaries and others spelling out the concerns about the existential EMP threat including to our Nuclear power plants.
And remember the EMP Commission served for 17 years, until congress disestablished it a couple of years ago, long ago warning about the threat to our nuclear power plants — a threat that still hasn’t been addressed as reported by Paul Begrard’s Washington Examiner article highlighted above.
The Commission’s Chairman, Dr. William R. Graham, made this absolutely clear in his July 2017 Chairman’s Report. Click here for his important summary of the Commission’s most important conclusions and recommendations and click here for the complete set of the Commission’s reports. Note in particular, two of Dr. Graham’s important observations:
“I recommend that the President direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to launch a crash program to harden the active nuclear power reactors and all spent fuel storage facilities against nuclear EMP attack. Even if the reactors and storage facilities survive an initial EMP attack, they currently are not able to restart generating power if there is no electric power available on its grid, and they typically only have enough emergency power to cool reactors and spent fuel facilities for several days, after which they would “go Fukushima,” spreading radioactivity over adjacent areas.”
And . . .
“The NRC has regulatory power to compel the nuclear power industry to incorporate nuclear reactor design features to make nuclear power safe. (To date, however, the NRC has not incorporated EMP survival criteria into its regulations. By the NRC’s failure to use its authority to mandate protection from EMP of U.S. nuclear reactor control, safe shutdown, cooling, and other reactor systems and spent fuel storage systems, the NRC continues to place at risk the safety and survivability of the 99 U.S. commercial power reactors in operation and the safety of the people living in the vicinity of these reactors.)”
A minor correction I would make is that due to recent nuclear power plant closures, there are now reportedly only 97 operating U.S. commercial nuclear reactors. Whatever, consider the implication of nearly 100 “Fukushima” events.
Briefly consider the following figure. Given that a picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, click on its important link, from which you can get a current view of the winds over the United States that could carry radioactivity should our nuclear reactors experience a Fukushima-like catastrophe, as would occur in several threat scenarios we should consider as being plausible.
Note the majority of our nuclear reactors are in the “Eastern Interconnection” along the Eastern Seaboard — and remember that a single launch of a nuclear armed short-range or intermediate-range ballistic missile from a freighter off our East Coast could detonate that weapon above the Eastern Interconnection to shut down electric power indefinitely in the most populous region of the nation. We are also vulnerable from such an attack from the Gulf of Mexico.
And still we dawdle in defending against that all too real possibility, as repeatedly discussed in our High Frontier messages — and elsewhere.
Personally, I am an advocate of nuclear power, which provides about 20-percent of the nation’s electricity — and over half of the electricity for my home state (South Carolina). We need to assure that the reactors are viable in the face of the above mentioned all too real threat — now finally acknowledged by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Bottom Lines.
I welcome the recent Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s acknowledgment of the vulnerability of our nuclear power plants.
Our national leaders should get on with needed responses as advocated by the EDTF and most authoritatively by the EMP Commission.
The EDTF effort should be restored and, as was recommended by the second report issued a few weeks ago, complete the reported mission assigned by the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
And the President should overrule the Pentagon’s plan to end the career of General Steven Kwast, who is wrongly directed into an unwelcome retirement in the next week. His efforts are needed in the continuing bureaucratic battles to overcome the bureaucratic lethargy that keeps Americans vulnerable to the long known existential EMP threat.
It’s time to reverse the ”Déjà Vu all over again” — as Yogi Berra famously might have referred to the failures of the Federal Government to protect Americans against the existential EMP threat!
What can you do?
Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.
Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.
Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.
Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential man-made and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.
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