Tonight, ABC News aired a segment on the security of nuclear reactors on university campuses, and reached the conclusion that these were at very high risk from terrorist attacks, including infiltration and truck bombs.
The only problem: They are exagerating to the point of hysteria. How do I know this? I worked in one of the reactors featured in the story.
As a student in the MIT physics department in the mid 90s, I spent a considerable amount of time in and around the Institute's research reactor:
The outer containment vessel of the MIT nuclear reactor, my old stomping grounds.
You can read the ABC story here. To summarize, the three main security lapses that they identified were that it was too easy to get access to the inside of the reactor building, the reactor structure was vulnerable to truck bombs, and they found a floor plan on the internet
Let me address the second point first. On the aired segment (but not in the web story), ABC quotes an expert as saying that if a truck bomb could wreck the front half of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, it could do real damage to a reactor. This is nonsense. An office building like in the Oklahoma City bombing has a structural skeleton and very thin walls; it's designed to support its own weight and resist the wind, and not much else.
The MIT reactor, like most other reactors in the US, has an outer containment shell that's several feet of solid concrete. Then there's a spacer layer, then a second thick shell. Even the doors through these shells are are couple of feet of steel. Walking into the reactor chamber is like being in a cheesy sci-fi movie; after clearing security, the massive outer door opens, you walk through a tunnel, another massive door swings open and there, in front of you, is THE REACTOR (which has its own shielding). This structure would laugh at an OKC-style truck bomb.
Access. First, let me note that my experience is from ~10 years ago; it's quite likely that procedures have changed, especially after 9/11. Access was possible, even for visitors. Visitors, however, were screened (which probably included an ID check) and were not allowed to bring bags inside the containment zone. Even regular users were limited in what could be brought in; we typically took in some notebooks and other things needed for our experiments. Cameras were (and presumably still are) everywhere. Visitors were always escorted, and because of the way the access tunnel was built, it's basically impossible to get into the reactor room without keys to the locks.
The floor plan found on the internet was a vague, and out-of-date, plan.
In summary, while I can't speak for the other universities that ABC visited, my knowledge of the setup and procedures at MIT indicates that ABC is guilty of seriously overhyping the threat from these research reactors.
Finally, let me quote from MIT's official response to the ABC story:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/reactor.html
In a program scheduled to air tonight, ABC News contends that nuclear reactor facilities operated by U.S. universities for educational and research purposes pose a security risk to their communities. For their research, ABC News sent journalism student interns on tours of 25 university research reactors last summer. The students did not identify themselves as working for ABC or state the intent of their visits.
MIT's research reactor lab, which has operated safely for 47 years, offers tours for educational purposes to individuals by appointment. Two of ABC's college interns requested a tour of the MIT lab in June, which was granted after MIT had learned through its comprehensive security checks that the interns were acting as undercover journalists for ABC News, but posed no security threat.
[...]
With respect to the truck, it did not actually enter the secure perimeter around the reactor. The perimeter distances have been confirmed by an independent study commissioned by MIT to assess the impact of possible terrorist actions against the MIT reactor following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The study ran through all the likely scenarios of attack and concluded that the core of the MIT research reactor would not be breached. The study determined that even in the unlikely event that the exterior building surrounding the reactor core was damaged, the core itself would not be harmed and there would be no release of radiation. It also determined that a large bomb going off in a truck parked within even a few feet of the reactor building would not breach the containment of the reactor's core.
MIT's reactor's core is quite small, about the size of a dormitory refrigerator, and is fully enclosed in a radiation-shielded structure consisting of several feet of concrete and other materials, which itself is housed within the containment building comprising different layers of concrete and steel, all of which would be nearly impossible to breach at one time.
-dms, MIT '96