from http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990916/ts/yk_nuclear_3.html

Thursday September 16 4:34 PM ET

Activists Push Y2K Nuclear Pause

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Environmentalists and arms control activists call it a modest proposal -- a kind of Year 2000 insurance policy for the world.

Power down the 433 nuclear reactors worldwide. De-alert the 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles that the United States and Russia keep on hair-trigger status.

In a word, observe a year-end, 48-hour atomic ``holiday'' to avoid the remote possibility of nuclear disaster during the technology-challenging year 2000 rollover.

``It could be a matter of life and death,'' said Yumi Kikuchi, coordinator of a growing international grassroots campaign for a ``World Atomic Safety Holiday, or Y2K WASH.

Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Kikuchi and fellow activists ticked off reasons for a ``managed phase-down'' of reactors to standby, to be completed by Dec. 30.

``Rather than risk potentially catastrophic malfunctions with nuclear weapons and at nuclear facilities because of the Y2K problem, just give them the weekend off,'' said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a watchdog group in Washington.

``It's a no-brainer,'' added John Steinbach, co-author of Deadly Nuclear Radiation Hazards USA. ``It's like insurance.''

The movement for a year-end pause in atomic business as usual began in Japan, where 52 highly automated nuclear reactors dot a landscape the size of California.

Kikuchi, a 37-year-old concert flutist and mother of two, said petition drives were getting under way in Japan and the 30-odd other countries with nuclear power infrastructure.

Backers of the move argue that the United States should lead the way not because it is particularly vulnerable to Y2K-related disruptions of its 103 reactors, but because it would set a precedent for countries that are.

``Ukraine, Russia, Japan, China, India -- these are all countries that may face severe Y2K difficulties,'' said Mariotte, who faults the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Y2K readiness standards for plant operators here.

Kikuchi and a fellow Tokyo-based activist, Gen Morita, were given a chance to deliver their message Thursday afternoon to staff members of the special Senate Committee on the Y2K glitch.

``It's an initial meeting. We'll hear what they have to say,'' said Don Meyer, a spokesman for the bipartisan panel headed by Utah Republican Robert Bennett and Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd.

Meyer said the committee was concerned about nuclear safety during the century change, when the Y2K coding glitch could cause ill-prepared computers to crash.

But he said the panel was wary of any group using Y2K fears to push an unrelated agenda such as anti-nuclear power or nuclear disarmament, which fall outside its mandate.

The nuclear holiday campaigners say reactors are at risk because they typically depend on offsite power to run their safety systems. The State Department said Tuesday that Russia and Ukraine were among countries whose power grids could be knocked out by the Y2K glitch.

In one of 196 updated consular information sheets designed to alert U.S. travelers of risks, the State Department said Ukraine, home of the world's worst nuclear reactor accident in 1986 at Chernobyl, seems ``unprepared to deal with the Y2K problem.''

The British Foreign Office, in its Y2K advisories Tuesday, advised against all ``nonessential travel'' to Ukraine over the new year and early January ``until the situation becomes clearer.''

Next week, Kikuchi and fellow activists are taking their campaign to Berlin, where the G-8 industrialized powers will meet to discuss Y2K contingency planning.

She is prepared with an answer to any suggestion that Ukraine, Russia or any other country is too dependent on nuclear power to switch it off during the rollover.

``Which is better?,'' she says, ``to have radioactivity all over the place -- or to be freezing for a day. You have a choice.''

The United States and Russia agreed Monday to jointly staff a temporary military post in Colorado to watch for any Y2K-related false-missile alarms. But no move was announced toward taking missiles off hair-trigger alert.

The shared Center for Strategic Stability and Y2K ``will reduce the chance that a turn-of-the-millennium computer error will create an end-of-the-year security incident,'' Defense Secretary William Cohen said.

Earlier Stories

Y2K Nuclear Holiday Campaign Gathers Steam (September 16)

-- argh (argh@nowhere.com), September 16, 1999

Answers

This was speculated about last year...just when would the different green organizations start to push the safety issues and what kind of pressure could they bring to bare. Should be interesting...things are heating up quickly now.

Mike

=================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), September 16, 1999.

It's a good idea, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Got KI?

-- Clyde (clydeblalock@hotmail.com), September 16, 1999.

See my previous rant...

-- Mr. Mike (mikeabn@aol.com), September 16, 1999.

This country needs lock and loaded policy at all times. Our country is not appreciated except when we appear weak or concede to others. I'm sure some middle east countries would love if we put our guard down. It is a catch 22 situation we cannot afford to jack around with. A nice opportunity to get nailed permanently if we agree to disarming.

-- Feller (feller@wanna.help), September 16, 1999.

Not going to happen. Need the nuke plants to keep the electricity flowing. Nuke power is 20% in US. Much higher in some countries (UN sub-divisions?)

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), September 17, 1999.

Catch 22. You need the power from the nukes to keep the grid up to keep the power to the nukes to keep the core from meltdown.

Hope it all works.

Got KI?

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), September 17, 1999.

Simply not so, my dear Miss Linda, simply not true.

Each US nuke can shutdown safely and quickly, and not need outside power of any kind. Cooldown (if required) to room temperature can be completed in 2-3 days. This is a simple scare tactic used by anti-nuclear forces to increase the fear many in the public have, leveraging the media's biases and fears of nuclear power.

This isn't to say that Russian or Chinese designed plants don't have problems, but those plants also are not remediated, not inspected, not well-designed with adequate safeguards, and have a "blind eye" towards operations in their country's administration. So why shutdown the most likely power sources in the US and Canada and Japan to be operable based on fears justified on unsafe plants in other countries?

In the US, and even higher percent of power in the Europe, 20% of the energy comes from nuclear plants. These are the best inspected, the most closely certified and verified, and the ones with the best design and vender histories: no other power plants come remotely close to the level of y2k-compliance and verification. Yet you think that power plants NOT certified and inspected are going to operate? That power plants whose operators are NOT regularly trained and which ar ebuilt WITHOUT backup and redundant systems are going to magically remain operable, while nuclear power plants are going to fail?

A nuclear plant is no more complicated and no more different than a fossil plant in terms of circuits, designs, controllers, or systems susceptible to y2k-induced failures. It's simply easier to find, fix, and eliminate troubles in nuclear plants than in older and rebuilt fossil plants since the operators and maintenance personnel are subject to higher standards, are more highly trained (and endlessly re-trained) and the plants themselves are more rigorously designed, and that design history is more closely controlled.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 17, 1999.