Nuclear Plants Can Never Be Safe Everywhere

Below is my comment on the article of "Are These Towers Safe? " by TIME issued on June 20, 2005

It is quite surprising to know that only 80 guards per reactor on average are working to prevent convinced terrorists from intruding the nuclear plants all across the United States where the government and the citizens seem to be at the highest alert to the terrorist attack after 9/11 as compared with other countries.

The reinforcement and the increase of guards, however, cannot solve the problem because the vulnerability of nuclear plants lies not in the weakness of anti-terrorist hardware but in its uncontrollably huge and complicated system of containing dangerous radioactivity.

In this sense, the U.S. Federal government should not leave the grave task only to the regulators as NRC and DOE but should cooperate closely with all the government agencies like Pentagon, the local government, the power companies operating nuclear plants and local residents to lessen the danger of nuclear catastrophe caused by terrorists.