Hi ER,

Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed reply. My sources of the transport issue come from lots of papers, journals and books. I'm probably one of the few folks who actually owns bound volumes of Nuclear News dating back to the mid-sixties. (Chloroform in print;-) At a certain point, probably the late sixties or so, industry became tight-lipped about the problems and only published "upbeat" industry news that you would find on a press release. But you already know this since you were one of the mouthpieces. ;-)

My father worked with the now defunct AEC for awhile and toured several nuclear facilities including San Onofre. When I was old enough to learn about reactors he presented me with a copy of Principles of Nuclear Reactor Engineering by Samuel Glasstone. I still have the book and even though some things have evolved since it was printed, it is surprising how much has not. It's a really great book and still gets my highest endorsement for someone wanting to learn how nuclear power really works.

The rod transport I describe dates to 1981. The La Crosse nuclear plant in Wisconsin had run out of space for its rods in 1979. They transported the rods to Morris plant owned by GE to reprocess them. They were hauled in "failsafe" 25 ton metal casks and they were planning on hauling them to Morris in 4 trips. The first trip started off ok and they scrubbed the cask so that radiation was below DOT limits. When it arrived, it was 14 times the limit. They scrubbed it down again with detergents to bring it down again, but the second trip it had soared to 36 times the limit. They indefinitely put off hauling the final rod assembly at that point until an investigation could determine just what was happening to the casks en route. They never did figure it out. So they covered the cask with a huge, thick plastic tarp and had a vehicle follow the truck to take radiation readings. The tarp seemed to help and keep the radiation between the cask and the tarp. But still, somehow those casks either generate variable internal radiation by being transported or act as a magnet for natural radiation in the environment.

Either assumption does not bode well for safe transport of these things.

After that they approved expanding storage pools on a streamlined basis and adjusted regulations for pool storage capacity. Not coincidentally, I think, some folks woke up to the real control rod problem and reactors lost favor. Then with Silkwood coming out in 1983, that acted as a real public barrier on new plant development.

And as for France, I recall reading they still actually dumped nuclear waste in the oceans as recently as the 1980s - something we banned long ago. They may still be doing such, I would have to look into it. If so, it could explain why lots of fish are dying off. The French have a reprehensible record in regards to safety or environmental concern, hardly better than Russia and the its former incarnation as the USSR.

The book Forevermore is the ultimate anti-nuke propaganda book, but I read it anyway just to try and keep a balanced view and to the books credit they did discuss many very real problems, that few in the industry want to acknowledge.