The Potential for Coal Use in New England

means, patience, management, and technical skills they are likely to have." First, neither plutonium nor uranium, the materials from which bombs are made, is "highly radioactive." They are alpha emitters and as long as they are not breathed in or absorbed through a cut they can be safely handled for hours without any significant radiological hazard. Is it really so difficult to make a crude bomb? According to the most thorough public study on the subject, "Under conceivable circumstances, a few persons, possibly even one person working alone, who possessed about ten kilograms of plutonium oxide and a substantial amount of chemical high explosive could, within several weeks, design and build a-crude fission bomb. By a ’crude fission bomb’ we mean one that would have an excellent chance of exploding, and would probably explode with the power of at least 100 tons of chemical high explosive. Thi~ could be done using materials and equipment that could be purchased at a hardware store and from commercial suppliers of scientific equipment for student laboratories.’’3 Mr. Campbell also claims that nuclear plants are impervious to saboteurs. Suffice it to say that the bomb experts from the Massachusetts State Police told us, as members of the Massachusetts Commission on Nuclear Safety, that they could easily sabotage one with very little effort using high explosives. (This was in the spring of 1975 and the security situation at nuclear plants may have improved some over the past year.) Lastly, Mr. Campbell states that guarding radioactive wastes for hundreds and thousands of years is no more necessary than guarding dams and the like. Unfortunately, dams break, drowning people who were unfortunate enough to live on the flood plains below them. And the AEC has allowed radioactive wastes to be stored in leaky old tanks and to be buried in trenches where they proceed to leakout and enter food chains. Neither situation is satisfactory, nor does one justify the other. It is surprising that Mr. Campbell can state that the public hears little about the positive side of nuclear power. Every day we are barraged by advertising from the utilities, the reactor vendors, their trade organizations, and their government allies in ERDA. Why is it that the nuclear industry, with all its financial and political clout, cannot convince the press, the public, and the scientific community that it is right and that its critics are wrong? Perhaps it is because their case is weak. I can assure Mr. Campbell and other members of the nuclear industry that they need only put their house in order and solve the many problems, technical and otherwise, plaguing them. When this is done, their critics will go away.