CONTROVERSY continues to dog nuclear waste storage facilities in the US. Despite earlier assurances by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear industry that the waste is not vulnerable to terrorism, a report by the National Academy of Sciences argues that terrorist attacks on these facilities could result in lethal radioactive fallout.
A committee of 15 leading scientists from universities, research institutes and consultancies studied nuclear waste stored in cooling ponds at 103 US reactors. In its report, released publicly on 6 April, the committee argues that the cooling ponds in which spent radioactive fuel is kept could be…
