Beyond Nuclear on CNN regarding earthquake's impact on dry storage casks at North Anna
On September 1st, CNN correspondent Brian Todd interviewed Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps after the revelation by Dominion Nuclear -- 8 days after the 5.8 magnitude quake that was epicentered just miles from its North Anna nuclear power plant -- that vertical dry casks had shifted up to 4 inches, and horizontal dry casks had suffered surface damage. As documented in CNN's transcript, Kevin said: "[We are] Very concerned because this material is ultra-hazardous inside. This is high-level radioactive waste. If you lose radiation shielding, you can deliver a fatal dose in a few minutes' time to a person at close range." Unfortunately, James Acton, Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, largely downplayed the risks of dry cask storage (however, the same group also invited the CEO of Areva Nuclear to keynote its nuclear weapons non-proliferation conference a few years ago, despite France's willingness to sell atomic technology even to the likes of Khaddafi in Libya). Beyond Nuclear, and nearly 200 additional environmental groups, has called for hardened on-site storage as a needed safety and security upgrade on risky pool and dry cask storage, vulnerable to accidents from natural disasters or operator errors, or even terrorist attacks.
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And on March 11, 2011 on CNN's "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer and Jeanne Merserve's "Breaking News Special" "Possible Leak Radioactive Leak in Japan featured Paul Gunter. The clip has just become publicly available.