Gusterson in BAS: "How the next US nuclear accident could happen"

Although oddly titled and framed (since when are terrorist attacks -- the main thrust of Gustersen's article -- "accidents"?), Hugh Gusterson's article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists does make good points about security, or lack thereof, at U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites.

His warning is also very relevant to vulnerabilities at U.S. commercial nuclear power plants. However, although Gundersen mentions "the potential for safety failures at US nuclear plants," and Chernobyl by name, he does not directly refer to any U.S. nuclear power plants in his article.

He does, however, focus his criticism on security failures at U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites, namely Oak Ridge's Y-12, and safety failures at Los Alamos.

Regarding the latter, his warning about profit-driven speed-up of radioactive waste barrel loading is quite apt. Such cutting of corners likely contributed to the radioactive barrel burst underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. That $500 million to $1 billion mistake (DOE and L.A. Times estimates, respectively, for the cost of "recovery" at WIPP) exposed two-dozen workers to ultra-hazardous, internal alpha particle contamination, and caused an atmospheric release of plutonium and other trans-uranics that fell out over the local landscape.