核电厂安全

的 2011年福岛核事故 was a wake-up call reminding the world of the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.

然而，自然并不是核设施面临的唯一潜在威胁. 它们也成为破坏和恐怖袭击的目标. A successful attack on a nuclear plant could have devastating consequences, 杀死, sickening or displacing large numbers of residents in the area surrounding the plant, 并造成广泛的长期环境破坏.

Protecting nuclear facilities against sabotage is part of the mission of the 核管理委员会 (NRC). NRC制定了所有核电站都必须遵守的安全规定, 涵盖安全访问区域等问题, 工厂安全系统必须准备好应对各种威胁, 保安人员的规模和能力, 以及安全系统测试的频率.

的 events of 9/11/2001 threw the issue of nuclear security into the spotlight. 甚至在9/11之前, UCS experts had pointed out serious flaws in NRC security regulations and their enforcement. 尽管核管理委员会在9/11之后做出了改变, 其中一些担忧仍未得到解决. U.S. 核电站仍然没有达到它们能够和应该达到的安全水平.

定义威胁

的 adequacy of a security system depends on what we think we are protecting against. If we have underestimated the threat, we may overestimate our readiness to meet it. 的 NRC has sometimes used unrealistically modest assumptions about potential attackers.

的 design basis threat (DBT) is the official definition of the security threats power plant management is required to protect against. (It is unclear who is responsible for protecting against threats that go beyond the DBT.) 9/11事件后, UCS criticized the DBT for nuclear plants on these grounds, among others:

它忽略了空中和水基攻击的可能性; It did not address the possibility of large attacking groups using multiple entry points, 或者涉及多个内部人员的攻击; 它集中在对反应堆堆芯的威胁上, 未能解决乏燃料储存设施的脆弱性问题. Some of these issues have been addressed in recent years, 但 serious shortcomings remain. 例如，UCS的 福岛事故后的安全和安保建议, 发布于2011年, noted that the NRC had finally revised its rules to address the threat of aircraft attacks for new reactor designs—但 at the same time had rejected proposed design changes to protect against water- and land-based attacks.

上乘的测试

To ensure that security systems will work in the event of an actual attack, the NRC periodically conducts force-on-force (FOF) inspections: exercises to simulate an attack and evaluate its likelihood of success. 的se tests cannot fully simulate actual attacks; for example, 工厂业主必须提前收到一些警告. Nevertheless, they are useful for assessing the effectiveness of plant security forces.

在20世纪90年代, the NRC’s testing program revealed serious security weaknesses at nearly half of the nuclear plants tested. 这个项目在9/11事件后进行了修订, 但, 平均, 超过5%的工厂没有通过FOF测试..

人们还担心使用的测试标准. In March 2012 UCS recommended that the NRC move forward with its plan to adopt a “margin-to-failure” assessment, which could distinguish barely adequate performance from strong performance, rather than a pass/fail system in which a plant passes the test unless the simulated attack is a complete success.

2012年7月，核管理委员会采用了新流程. 然而, 由于行业压力, 标准被打了折扣, so that poor FOF test results could be discounted if a plant was doing well in other security areas.

最后, 目前，FOF测试只对运行中的反应堆有要求, leaving questions about the adequacy of protection against attacks on reactors that have shut down, 但 still contain radioactive materials that could harm the public if damaged.

透明度和公众信任

9/11事件后, public access to information about nuclear power security policy was tightened considerably. 核管理委员会曾经在哪里, 在一定程度上, 就DBT等问题寻求公众意见, it subsequently made those decisions entirely behind closed doors with industry representatives.

While some tightening of access to information was understandable in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack, the NRC has a responsibility to seek and respond to public input on issues of nuclear security, 公众有明显的兴趣.

这是核管理委员会需要做的

的 UCS post-Fukushima recommendations for the NRC included several items specifically addressing security issues.

核管理委员会应:

• R规避其对恐怖分子能力的假设 to ensure nuclear plants are adequately protected against credible threats, 这些假设应该由美国政府来审查.S. 情报机构.
• 修改它对武力对武力安全演习的判断方式 通过加强对工厂“失败边际”的评估."
• 建立私人保安许可制度 that would require successful completion of a federally supervised training course and periodic recertification.
• 需要新的反应堆设计 更安全地抵御陆地和水上恐怖袭击.
• 要求反应堆所有者 提高现有干桶储存设施的安全性.