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From New Scientist:
Plutonium being transported across France could be attacked by terrorists and turned into dirty bombs in a matter of minutes, a US nuclear security expert is warning.
Cargoes of plutonium oxide are taken by road at least once a month from nuclear plants at La Hague in the north to Marcoule in the south to make fuel for French reactors. But according to Ronald Timm, a consultant from Lemont, Illinois, US, and for 5 years a senior nuclear security advisor to the US Clinton administration, the shipments are very poorly guarded.
“The protection afforded these everyday shipments is virtually non-existent,” he claims. In a study commissioned by the anti-nuclear group, Greenpeace, he concludes that they are at “extreme risk” of terrorist attack.
Each shipment has less than a dozen guards and they could all be killed in a surprise attack by as few as three armed terrorists, he argues. Then it would only take “seconds” to break open the transport casks with power tools or explosives, he claims, and to start releasing plutonium into the environment.
Another possibility is that the plutonium could be stolen with the intention of making it into nuclear bombs. The risk to the health and safety of the public in France is “of grave concern”, Timm says…"
newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7148
Plutonium being transported across France could be attacked by terrorists and turned into dirty bombs in a matter of minutes, a US nuclear security expert is warning.
Cargoes of plutonium oxide are taken by road at least once a month from nuclear plants at La Hague in the north to Marcoule in the south to make fuel for French reactors. But according to Ronald Timm, a consultant from Lemont, Illinois, US, and for 5 years a senior nuclear security advisor to the US Clinton administration, the shipments are very poorly guarded.
“The protection afforded these everyday shipments is virtually non-existent,” he claims. In a study commissioned by the anti-nuclear group, Greenpeace, he concludes that they are at “extreme risk” of terrorist attack.
Each shipment has less than a dozen guards and they could all be killed in a surprise attack by as few as three armed terrorists, he argues. Then it would only take “seconds” to break open the transport casks with power tools or explosives, he claims, and to start releasing plutonium into the environment.
Another possibility is that the plutonium could be stolen with the intention of making it into nuclear bombs. The risk to the health and safety of the public in France is “of grave concern”, Timm says…"
newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7148