Dr. Richard E. Webb

Author of the Treatise:
The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants
(Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 1976)
Meadow House
Sea Lane, Kilve
Somerset TA5 1EG
England, UK

Tel. 44-278-74546

Preface (Please read this carefully.)

My name is Richard Webb.  I am an American, and a nuclear reactor physicist-engineer (doctorate), and also a student of political science and United States constitutional law.  Since 1969 I have been engaged full time in scientific research to investigate the accident hazards of nuclear power plants.  Also, I have thoroughly researched U.S. constitutional law in regard to the question:  Who should make the policy judgments for society about the safety of nuclear power plants, and about the acceptability of the risks of catastrophic reactor accidents?  In 1976 I published the book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants (University of Massachusetts Press), which gave my first major analysis of the nuclear accident hazards.  The book also gives a constitutional law analysis with respect to the crucial question, who should decide the nuclear issue?

With this Paper I now seek prospective Publishers for an urgent and much overdue follow-up Book on the extreme and imminent dangers of catastrophic accidents at nuclear power plants. I also seek Financial Support for the task of writing the proposed Book, and for a follow-up program of major scientific undertakings to work more effectively to resolve the difficult nuclear safety issue and thereby promote the Public Safety in regard to the nuclear accident hazards.

I have determined that the nuclear accident hazards of nuclear power plants are extremely great - far worse than what the public imagines. I find that there is virtually an infinite number of different accident possibilities with potentials for reactor eruptions and explosions, and release of practically all of the deadly radioactive material of the reactor into the Earth's atmosphere as smoke and vapors with extremely severe consequences. I conclude that we must assume that the probability of such an accident occurring fairly soon is high!

The potential catastrophic consequences of such a reactor eruption accident are essentially unlimited. Practically most of Europe could be ruined by radioactive fallout (made unfit for living) from a cascade of reactor eruptions at one multi-reactor nuclear power plant, where one reactor explosion destroys the adjacent reactors, causing them to erupt, and so on to the next reactors in a chain reaction of reactor eruptions - an accident that would be a thousand times worse than Chernobyl. The potentials for catastrophe are even much worse, due to the possibility of fiery eruptions of spent fuel storages next to the reactors. Such an accident in America, say in Alabama, could ruin practically the eastern United States. Furthermore, the intense radiation and whole-scale social/economic disruption resulting from such a catastrophic accident could conceivably cause accidents at other nuclear power plants in the neighborhood (and even in distant regions), and consequently still more reactor eruptions - a possible chain reaction of reactor accidents spreading across Europe or America

The matter, therefore, is extremely, extremely, serious and urgent. With hundreds of nuclear reactors now in operation in America, Europe, Japan and elsewhere, we need urgently to promote a full review and investigation of the nuclear accident hazards in the various nuclear countries, to establish the facts, and arrive at a truly scientific consensus of the accident possibilities and their potential consequences, to prepare for the difficult political deliberations and decisions in the various nuclear countries about the continued operation of nuclear power plants in the World.

The proposals described below are calculated to effectively promote the needed review of the nuclear accident hazards. The enormous problem we have facing us requires extraordinary efforts and financial support to solve it. The object of the proposed work is to bring about a world-wide solution to our great nuclear hazards problem as soon as possible, and prevent any more radioactive catastrophes. We cannot risk another catastrophic reactor accident. A report on the Chernobyl accident which was published in May in the German magazine Der Spiegel says that a Soviet expert has determined that ONE THIRD of the Children in two regions of the Soviet Union affected by the accident now are falling ill with LEUKAEMIA, with 95% of the patients dying.⁽¹⁾ We really must attend to the nuclear safety issue and resolve it. The proposed work would also promote further radiation counter-measures in eastern Europe from the already terrible effects of the Chernobyl accident, as I have tried to do in a report on my analysis of the Chernobyl accident, which I issued in August 1986.

The program of Undertakings which I propose for financial support are as follows:
 

- write and publish a Book on the nuclear hazards as soon as possible;

- continue my scientific research, finish a number of essential scientific projects that I have undertaken, and publish a number of special Treatises on crucial scientific questions of the nuclear hazards;

- organize an international Scientific Commission to review the nuclear accident hazards, including a review of my analyses of the accident hazards, as well as the official analyses issued by the nuclear industry and the nuclear licensing authorities, and the publication of a report of the Commission's review;

- organize a series of international Scientific Conferences to debate and resolve the crucial scientific issues of the extent of the nuclear accident hazards; and

- form a scientific Institute to make all of the crucially important research, and to push for a sound resolution of the nuclear safety issue in the world. I would propose to direct the Institute.

The immediate need is for financial support for the task of writing the proposed Book, and, of course, for securing a good Publisher, who would promote the Book well and make it widely accessible. (The Book should be published in English, and in the French, German, and Spanish languages). The aim of the proposed Book is to give a powerful synopsis of my analysis of the nuclear accident hazards, including the practical facts which will enable the lay person to assess the hazards and the credibility of my analysis, and to stimulate vigorous actions within each of the various nuclear nations to undertake the needed review and scientific studies of the nuclear hazards in their respective countries.

The proposed Book will also treat the problem of how to solve our great nuclear hazards problem and predicament. It will contain a critical analysis of the existing systems of nuclear licensing and nuclear policy making in the major nuclear countries. Of course, the nuclear authorities (and industry) take great care in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the reactors, to try to prevent accidents; and their efforts basically explain why there has not yet been a catastrophe in the western reactors; though the fact that the Three Mile Island accident did not end in a catastrophic reactor eruption was mostly due to sheer luck (and also due in part to my involvement in the accident with technical advice, as discussed in this paper). Nevertheless, I find that the existing system of nuclear authorities are untrustworthy and unsuitable for making the needed reviews and investigations of the nuclear accident hazards, having engrained pro-nuclear biases and vested interests, and a record of faulty hazards analyses, suppression of investigations, and cover-ups of the nuclear dangers, which the proposed book will demonstrate, and, more fundamentally, having undemocratic foundations, as I will propose to demonstrate in the Book.

My 1976 book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, raised the question of who should decide the issue of the safety of nuclear power plants, and asserted that the whole nuclear power program in the United States is unconstitutional - the People of the United States have never granted to the U.S. Government any constitutional authority to govern the internal affairs of the States, such as a general authority to promote industry, or science and technology. (The book presents a detailed legal analysis to prove this assertion - Chapter 13, "Who Should Decide?" - which was based on constitutional law research that is as equally rigorous as my nuclear hazards research.) The proposed Book will return to this point more forcefully, and expand on it to show that the basis of nuclear power development in Europe and Japan (and elsewhere in the World) is rooted in undemocratic, unconstitutional programs of nuclear development in America, which is part of a total breakdown in constitutional government in America. (I am presently finishing a book manuscript titled Unconstitutional Government. It will be available shortly.) It is vitally important that the Public have these perspectives on constitutional law when assessing their nuclear predicament. The Book will formulate ideas on how to resolve the nuclear safety issue on the basis of democratic principles, such as those principles underlying the United States Constitution, and will draw on my recent studies in constitutional law (systems of govern-ment) of Great Britain and West Germany, which were made in connection with my involvements in nuclear debates in these countries.

The remainder of this paper is to elaborate on the Proposals and the above contentions. It gives a brief on my background and qualifications, and on my scientific findings, and then gives an historical survey of my research and efforts over the last twenty years, to demonstrate the credibility of my analyses, and to show the necessity of the proposed Book and the follow-up Undertakings. This paper also discusses in some depth the problem of how to resolve the nuclear issue wisely, and how the Book will treat this problem; and it also suggests the Benefits that would accrue to you for your Financial Support for the proposed Work. This paper concludes with a description of my current situation of no support and how the work could proceed.

I hope that you will give these proposals your careful study and consideration.
 

Richard Webb has a doctorate degree (Ph.D.) from Ohio State University (1972) in nuclear reactor physics and engineering, specializing in reactor accident hazards analysis and research. He was formerly on the staff of Vice Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, Division of Naval Reactors, United States Atomic Energy Commission in the years 1963-1967.⁽²⁾ Webb's responsibility (junior level) under Rickover was for the nuclear reactor part of the Shippingport nuclear power plant - a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) - which was the first civilian nuclear power plant in the United States and the forerunner prototype of the PWRs now in heavy use in American, Western Europe, Japan, and elsewhere.⁽³⁾ (The PWR is the leading type reactor in use in the World.) He is also a graduate of the Reactor Engineering School of the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in the United States (a prime Naval Reactors laboratory operated by Westinghouse), and underwent engineering training at two prototype naval reactors.

Later, he worked briefly (six months) at the Big Rock Point nuclear power station in Michigan, which operated a prototype Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) - the other main reactor type now in use in the United States, Europe, especially Sweden and West Germany, Japan and elsewhere. At Big Rock Point Webb was to assume the position of the station's Reactor Engineer, but then soon resigned, in order to pursue his growing questions of the nuclear accident hazards. Whereupon, he began his doctoral studies in reactor physics and engineering at Ohio State University (1968). His doctoral research (1970-72) investigated nuclear explosion accident possibilities in the Fast Breeder Reactor - the advanced reactor type which is being developed in America, Europe, and Japan as the primary nuclear power source for the future.

Dr. Webb has since 1969 thoroughly researched the accident hazards of practically all of the major types of nuclear power plants right up to the present (twenty years of full time research). In 1976 the University of Massachusetts Press published his first major analysis of the reactor accident hazards, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants (still in print). The book also includes an analysis of the Constitution of the United States with respect to the crucial question "Who Should Decide?" - that is, who should decide the nuclear safety issue for society?⁽⁴⁾ In his legal research Webb has found that the civilian nuclear power program of the U.S. Government is unconstitutional and that this explains the root cause of the nuclear hazards problem, and at the same time suggests how the issue can be resolved wisely.

Webb's 1976 book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, is still valid today and served as a basic analyses - a scoping analysis - of the reactor accident hazards. The book had posed the basic questions that needed to be answered by scientific research and disclosures of information. In the fourteen years since that book a great amount of new, essential information has been developed in the course of his research, including a rigorous evaluation of the potential accident consequences, and of the potentials for reactor eruptions, as well as uncovering and identifying more specific accident possibilities. The accident hazards have now been more definitely established and determined in more detail, and found to be far worse than what was indicated by Webb's earlier scoping analysis - hence, the necessity of the proposed Book.

In his nuclear hazards research, Webb has evaluated the explosion potentials of the pressurized water reactors (PWRs), boiling water reactors (BWRs), and fast breeder reactors, by means of extensive theoretical analyses and computer calculations, and analysis of key experiments, and has made discoveries of many different mechanisms for reactor eruptions. He has discovered atomic bomb size explosion potentials in the fast breeder reactor, and also potentials for catastrophic fiery eruptions of the on-site spent fuel storage basins next to reactors, which is a grave danger especially in the United States, where extremely large amounts of highly radioactive spent fuel rods are accumulating in the spent fuel storage basins. More recently, Dr. Webb has discovered nuclear explosion hazards of the British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR), which is the main reactor type in use in Britain. He has also critically analyzed and evaluated the important reactor safety/hazards analyses which have been issued by the nuclear energy establishments in America, West Germany, and Britain.

In addition, he has thoroughly evaluated the potential harmful consequences of reactor and spent fuel storage eruptions, by calculating the potential size land areas of ruinous radioactive fallout contamination, including derivations of contamination limits for protecting the public health, and by calculating the potential radiation doses to humans living on contaminated land following an accident, and the possible number of cancer deaths that could result from the radiation doses, among other measures of the potential consequences of reactor accidents. Finally, he has examined in detail the PWR and BWR reactor systems, the official reactor safety analyses, and the experiences of reactor accidents and mishaps, to assess the degree and reliability of the safeguards provided in nuclear power plants and the likelihood or probability of accidents. He has thoroughly analyzed the Three Mile Island accident (1979), the Chernobyl accident, and a number of lesser known but still serious reactor accidents and dangerous mishaps.
 

Overall Summary of the Nuclear Accident Hazards

All types of nuclear power reactors have potentials for extremely severe explosions and eruptions, by various mechanisms: (a) reactor explosions by runway atomic fission chain reactions, called "nuclear excursions," where the reactor power level surges to hundreds of times full reactor power in a few tenths of a second in PWRs or BWRs, and worse for fast breeder reactors; (b) fuel meltdown and steam explosions upon mixing of molten fuel and water (like volcanoes); (c) reactor vessel ruptures; and (d) over-pressurization of the reactor containment and explosion. Each type eruption has the potential for expelling practically all of the radioactive material of the reactor into the Earth's atmosphere, and also for causing a loss of cooling of the spent fuel storage next to the reactor and eruption of the spent fuel rods by zirconium fire and hydrogen explosions.

It is plausible that most of the deadly radioactive substances in the reactor core could be released into the Earth's atmosphere as smoke and vapors, due to the enormous explosion potentials and extremely high temperatures of fuel melting and vaporization in a severe accident. The potential for a near full release of the radioactivity into the atmosphere cannot be excluded, nor shown to be unlikely in an accident by any theoretical analysis of small laboratory experiments.

There are virtually an infinite number of ways accidents can occur that could result in such catastrophes. Such accidents are credible, and are likely to occur, as the Three Mile Island accident, the Chernobyl accident, and other mishaps have shown.

The potential consequences of a single reactor eruption (PWR or BWR), due to the release of radioactive vapors and smoke into the atmosphere, include abandonment of an area about the size of West Germany (about 200,000 square kilometers), due to Gamma Radiation alone from the nuclear fallout (Gamma-rays are like extremely powerful X-rays), and abandonment of the same size area due to Plutonium dust fallout alone. (Plutonium is a nuclear fuel material which is produced in a reactor by atomic reactions. It does not exist naturally on the Earth. It is also an extremely toxic radioactive substance - a dust hazard for causing lung cancer.)

In the case of a nuclear explosions in a plutonium-fuelled fast breeder reactor the potential size of the plutonium fallout disaster area is more than three fold greater, due to the greater Plutonium inventory in the reactor core than in a PWR or BWR.

Moreover, a single reactor eruption could potentially ruin agriculture over an area more than 500,000 square kilometers (twice the size of West Germany), due especially to long-lived Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 radioactivity contamination of the soil. In America, at least, potentially up to ten to twenty times more Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and Plutonium radioactivity could be released into the atmosphere in an eruption of a spent fuel storage!

Worse still is the likely possibility of a reactor explosion triggering a chain reaction of eruptions of adjacent reactors in a multi-reactor plant (for example, six PWRs at the Gravelines station in France, and four AGRs at the Heysham plant in England), which would be a ruinous radiation catastrophe for practically most of Europe (a thousand times worse than Chernobyl, not counting spent fuel eruptions), and would presumably cause a breakdown in social order across Europe. There are many such multi-reactor nuclear plants in Europe, for instance, in France, Britain and the Soviet Union. In America, a reactor eruption at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama (three BWRs and their spent fuel storages) could potentially cause the abandonment of most of eastern United States, by Webb's calculations.

Worst of all is the possibility of a catastrophe of multi-reactor eruptions causing still more accidents at other nuclear plants, and so on to cause still more reactor accidents and eruptions - an ultimate chain reaction of reactor eruptions across Europe or in America - a RADIOACTIVE CATACLYSM.
 

Three Mile Island Accident

Dr. Webb's 1976 book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, warned of the near infinite possibilities for reactor accidents in the PWRs and BWRs which are more serious than the "design-basis accidents" that are assumed for designing the reactor safety systems, and he argued that these "worse possible" accidents are credible - that we ought not to rely on the official view that such accidents are "incredible," or "remote in probability." Two years after the book was published the Three Mile Island accident happened, which was beyond the design-basis of the reactor systems - meaning that it was an accident for which the reactor safety systems were not designed to control.

Years later, examinations of the destroyed Three Mile Island reactor have revealed that half of the reactor had melted in the accident! Forty tons of molten fuel were held in a self-made crucible (a frozen crust for a shell) embedded in the reactor core debris within the reactor vessel, which was filled with circulating water. At some unknown point in time half of the molten fuel broke out of its self-made container and flowed down to the bottom of the reactor vessel amongst water and steel debris. It was sheer luck that a catastrophic "steam explosion" did not occur during the whole period when the fuel material was molten. For laboratory experiments (small-scale fuel meltdown simulations) have since demonstrated that powerful steam explosions can occur upon molten material contacting water, and that the process is unpredictable - sometimes happening, sometimes not, given the same conditions, as the experiments demonstrated. So the fact that a catastrophic steam explosion did not occur at Three Mile Island was a lucky outcome. That WE WERE JUST LUCKY needs to be emphasized.

Dr. Webb was involved in the Three Mile Island accident, giving technical advice on the procedure for cooling down the reactor. The advice was followed, which probably prevented a catastrophe. During the early days of the accident the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was planning to switch off a powerful reactor coolant water circulation pump and try to cool down the reactor core by natural convection coolant flow through the reactor core of destroyed fuel rods. (They had their reasons for this plan, which I found were just unscientific.) Dr. Webb warned that the core was destroyed and unpredictable, and therefore advised that the coolant pump should be left running, since that mode of cooling seemed to be working (no catastrophic reactor explosion had occurred with the pump running). The pump was left running after the Pennsylvania Governor intervened, following advice from two state officials based on my information. As we now have discovered years later, the core had melted at some point. Therefore, leaving the coolant pump running could very well have prevented a catastrophe, for it maintained the cooling of the core material to prevent a more energetic thermal interaction of molten fuel and water that could have more likely triggered a catastrophic steam explosion.

Dr. Webb has a set of twenty six tape cassette audio recordings of all of his telephone discussions with key Pennsylvania Government authorities and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials, interspersed with radio and television reports during the accident, which prove his involvement in the accident. A two-cassette recording of the key discussions, plus radio and television reports, has been made together with a transcript. He also has fully investigated the Three Mile Island accident and written a full critical analysis of the accident - a voluminous treatise (manuscript), and has published a condensed analysis in the book Nuclear Lessons (Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, 1980), "An Analysis of the Three Mile Island accident."
 

A Long Train of Treatises (1970-90)

In the course of his research since his 1976 book, Dr. Webb has issued and distributed a long train of treatises and reports from time to time (see the attachments), trying always to promote a serious review and investigation of the nuclear accident hazards in America, and later in Europe and Japan. These include, besides his Three Mile Island analysis, a voluminous treatise on the explosion potentials of the PWR and BWR and the potentials for radioactivity release in the atmosphere in core meltdowns and explosions, and a voluminous treatise on the "potential harmful consequences of catastrophic accidents at nuclear power plants."
 

Nuclear Explosion Potentials of the Fast Breeder Reactor

In the period of 1977-1984 he issued ten voluminous treatises on the nuclear explosion potentials of the SNR-300 fast breeder reactor, which has been built in West Germany. In 1981-82 he was a member of an official, West German Government-sponsored Study of the accident risks of the SNR-300 fast breeder reactor. (His original series of treatises was the primary cause for the commissioning of the official Study.) Three of his treatises on the SNR-300 reactor were written for the Study, and were published in the official report of the Study along with his 1980 treatise, The Potential Harmful Consequences of Catastrophic Accident in Nuclear Power Plants.

The Atomic Licensing Authority for North Rhein Westfalia, the state in West Germany where the SNR-300 reactor is located, has since decided not to grant an operating license for that reactor - a decision which is undoubtedly due in part to Webb's analyses of the nuclear explosion potentials of the reactor. The Chernobyl accident has undoubtedly caused the Licensing Authority to take Webb's analyses of the SNR-300 nuclear explosion potentials more seriously, since the Chernobyl eruption was due to the type of reactor phenomenon which Webb's analyses focus on, namely, "super prompt critical power excursions," otherwise called "nuclear runaway," which in fast breeder reactors can result in nuclear explosions.

Likewise, Webb's book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, and his SNR-300 treatises, plus a 1973 treatise he issued on the explosion hazards of the fast breeder reactor,⁽⁵⁾ were undoubtedly the cause of the cancellation of the American-planned prototype demonstration fast breeder reactor (the Clinch River Breeder Reactor planned for Tennessee).
 

Webb's 1984 Reports

In 1984 Dr. Webb wrote a draft manuscript for a second book, Catastrophic Nuclear Accident Hazards and Unconstitutional Government. This manuscript contains a critical evaluation of the U.S. Government's analysis of reactor meltdown accident possibilities which was made after the Three Mile island accident. (The government analysis concluded in effect that core meltdown accidents would not be catastrophic.) The book manuscript also treats the unconstitutionality of the U.S. laws promoting and regulating nuclear energy - the Atomic Energy Act and related laws. The manuscript contains an expanded proof of the unconstitutionality of these laws, by closer examination of the purposes and meaning of certain key clauses of the United States Constitution as intended by the makers of the Constitution.

In August 1984 he issued a parallel report, which more specifically applies to Europe, titled Catastrophic Nuclear Accident Hazards - A Warning for Europe. This report treated mainly the PWR type reactor and the fast breeder reactors operating and being built in Europe, and emphasized the compounding accident hazards of multi-reactor plants - in France typically four to six PWRs side by side in one plant.
 

1985-1986 Research: A Loss of Cooling Mishap at the Davis-Besse PWR in Ohio, June 1985, and Atomic Bomb Size Explosion Potentials of Fast Neutron, Plutonium Breeder Reactors, as SNR-300, &c.

Dr. Webb continued his research in 1984-85 on such topics as reactor vessel ruptures, reactor containment ruptures, discovery of atomic bomb size explosion potentials in fast breeder reactors (nine months of intensive mathematical theory development and calculations), and a loss-of-cooling mishap at the Davis-Besse PWR reactor in Ohio in June 1985. He discovered by calculations that the Davis-Besse reactor came very close to a severe over-pressure transient and a reactor explosion - a fact hidden from the public in the official investigations. He has issued a treatise on the mishap. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied his request for a hearing to investigate his analysis.
 

Reactor Containment Rupture Experiment

In his investigations in 1985 Webb uncovered a fact, which was being kept secret, about a result of a destructive scale-model experiment of a PWR reactor containment vessel - an experiment sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and carried out by the Sandia nuclear laboratories in New Mexico. The test vessel exploded completely apart upon over-pressurization, throwing half of the dome 1300 feet to the side, and scattering other parts similarly; whereas the pre-test predictions were for a small leak to develop which would vent the pressure without any major rupture. Such a small hole leak is assumed in the official analyses of the reactor accident hazards for the case of containment over-pressure in reactor core meltdown accidents. The experiment thus shows that such an assumption is not sound.

Webb's 1984 Warning for Europe report specifically warns that the reactor containment could explode completely apart, even giving a calculation which matched the height to which the dome was thrown in the Sandia containment experiment. The experiment was conducted in November 1984, several months after Webb issued his report (August 1984). Webb learned of the experiment in May 1985 in the course of his investigations, by telephoning officials of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and questioning them. His prior research and calculations enabled him to know what questions to ask, which led to his uncovering the results of the experiment. The experiment was made to confirm theoretical (mathematical) models of reactor containment behavior in over-pressurization accidents, mainly, core meltdown accidents. However, the experiment showed that the mathematical models are wrong, which is still another confirmation of Webb's warnings in his prior writings that official theoretical safety calculations ought not be relied on, since they lack experimental verifications.

In 1986 he was in the process of revising and extending his manuscript for a second book to include his analysis of the Sandia experiment, and other research results, and also in the midst of other constitutional law research, when the Chernobyl accident happened.
 

Chernobyl Accident

Dr. Webb intensely investigated the Chernobyl accident (incurring enormous transatlantic telephone expenses), including a study of the Soviet's RBMK type reactor used at Chernobyl, and issued a report of his analysis of the accident on August 1, 1986, about a month before the Soviet's had issued their report. Webb's Chernobyl Report was widely distributed in Europe, including Government ministers, legislators, newspaper and television reporters, scientists, institutes, environmental organizations, and others. The report has had a profound impact in Europe, as it asserts that the reactors in Western Europe and America are much more dangerous in most respects than the Chernobyl type reactor. See the attached article in the German newspaper, Deutsche Allgemeines Sonnstag-Blatt, titled "Are German Reactors Really Safer?" The article is an interview of Webb (October 1986).

In his Chernobyl report Dr. Webb estimated the magnitude of the radioactivity release into the atmosphere from the Chernobyl eruption at three percent (3% of the radioactivity in the reactor core) - a figure which was subsequently confirmed by the Soviet report on the accident. Thus, the accident was fortunately relatively small compared to the accident potentials of the western reactors that are warned about in his 1984 Warning for Europe report.⁽⁶⁾ Nevertheless, Webb's Chernobyl report concluded that the accident is a "catastrophe" for Europe: that 8,000 to 24,000 square kilometers would likely have to be abandoned: that as much as 700,000 cancer deaths resulting from the accident cannot be excluded: that the medical consequences of the accident were probably far worse than what the authorities have reported: and that strong counter-measures need to be taken to reduce the radiation levels to which the people of Europe, especially in eastern Europe, were (and still are) being exposed. These assessments in his Chernobyl report, however, were largely dismissed by Governments and other established institutions, at least there was no public recognition of these assessments.

Tragically, reports have now recently emerged in the press which confirm Webb's assessments and warnings given in his Chernobyl report - most notably, the cover story in Der Spiegel, end of April 1990, "The Truth about Chernobyl," and a similar story in The Sunday Times in Britain, which appeared at the same time with the same title. The Der Spiegel magazine report states that 10,000 square kilometers of land in the Soviet Union are extremely highly contaminated, which compares with my estimate of 8,000 sq. kilometers given in my Chernobyl Report, and that the diseases resulting from the accident are far worse than the official projections that were given out earlier, with hospitals in the contaminated areas full of diseased children at ten times the normal incidence of disease, according to the Sunday Times. A more recent Der Spiegel article reports that a Professor of Radiology in Kiev has determined that in two regions affected by the accident about one third of the children are falling ill with leukaemia, and that 95% of these "patients" (mostly between five and ten years of age) die. The Der Spiegel article says that the Professor believes that the peak of this "leukaemia wave" is still to come.⁽⁷⁾

The Chernobyl eruption was due to a "nuclear runaway" - a power surge - which is a kind of reactor accident that Dr. Webb's 1976 book, and his later treatises and reports, have warned as the most serious type of accident. Indeed, the very mechanism that caused the nuclear runaway in the Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor - a "positive void coefficient of reactivity" - is specifically warned about in his 1976 book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, in regard to the Canadian type reactor, CANDU, which is similar to the Chernobyl type reactor from a nuclear design standpoint. Furthermore, before the Soviet's revealed that the Chernobyl accident was due to a "positive void coefficient," Dr. Webb had issued his report asserting that the eruption at Chernobyl could have been caused by a "positive void coefficient of reactivity" effect, which, he said, is a property of the Chernobyl reactors. His report also pointed out that a small Canadian reactor had suffered a fuel melt accident due to this very effect, which posed a serious radiation clean up problem.⁽⁸⁾

In September 1986 Webb came to Europe to promote a review of the nuclear hazards with his Chernobyl report. He then undertook a further investigation of the Chernobyl accident and its consequences, including a thorough study of the Soviet's report on the accident, which was released in September 1986, and other analyses of the accident which have been issued by various nuclear laboratories, Governments, and research groups in Europe. His aim was to publish his Chernobyl report with an addendum on the Soviet's report on the accident and other topics. He then extended the scope of his research to cover the British gas-cooled reactors (Magnox and the Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors, or AGRS), which until then he had not studied for their accident hazards. He selected the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors (AGRs) for a detailed analysis and calculations.

In 1987-88, in thirteen months of research he discovered nuclear explosion potentialities in the AGRs - a fact which has been kept secret by the British nuclear authorities. (See the attached news story of his discovery in the British magazine New Scientist, October 22, 1988 issue.) Dr. Webb has issued a treatise of his analysis and calculations, The Nuclear Explosion Accident Hazards of the British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs), dated June 20, 1988. A leading reactor physicist for the AGRs at the Berkeley Nuclear Laboratory, Dr. John Young, has made a written evaluation of Webb's AGR treatise; but the Central Electricity Generation Board (CEGB), which operates the Berkeley Laboratory, has refused to release Dr. Young's evaluation.

Dr. Young represented the United Kingdom at a 1987 post-Chernobyl conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency on the subject of nuclear runaway accidents in nuclear power reactors. It is my impression that Dr. Young is the chief reactor physicist for the AGRs.⁽⁹⁾ The fact that Dr. Young has made and submitted to his superiors a written evaluation of my treatise on the AGR Nuclear Explosion Hazards and that the British authorities have refused to release Dr. Young's evaluation to the public is recorded in the official Transcript of the Proceedings of the British Government's Hinkley Point 'C' Public Inquiry, Day 54, page 44. (The Inquiry was held to hear the public views on the plans of the Government to build a pressurized water reactor station at the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant in west England, where there already exists two AGR reactors and two Magnox gas-cooled reactors.) I have made repeated requests to the British Government for a copy of Dr. Young's evaluation, but the Government has ignored my requests. I believe that the public should take my nuclear hazards analyses seriously; for the fact that the British Government and the nuclear authorities in Britain refuse to disclose Dr. Young's evaluation should be interpreted as indicating that my findings of possible nuclear explosion potentials in the AGR reactors is correct.

My treatise includes among other things a detailed report of a series of discussions about my research findings of nuclear explosion hazards of the AGRs that I had by telephone with Dr. Young and his colleague S. Board. In these discussions Dr. Young confirmed the mechanisms that I discovered for nuclear explosion possibilities. (These discussions with Dr. Young and S. Board were arranged by Dr. John Wright, the director of Health and Safety for the British Government's nuclear company, Central Electricity Generation Board, or CEGB, which has now been renamed, Nuclear Electric.) So, it is important that Dr. Young's evaluation of my treatise be made public.

The following is the part of the verbatim Transcript of the Hinkley Point 'C' Public Inquiry, Day 54, page 44, which establishes the fact of the existence of Dr. Young's evaluation. On Day 54 of the Inquiry I cross-examined Mr. Brian George, CEGB's director of the Pressurized Water Reactor projects:

Webb: "I turn your attention now, because I have got one more minute [of my time allotted for my cross examination of Mr. George], or two more minutes, to S1986, which you should have there.  It is my report on the Nuclear Explosion Accident Hazards of the British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors.  Now that report is my discussion with Messrs. Board and Young of Berkeley Laboratory about my calculations predicting potentials for nuclear explosions in the AGR.  Does the CEGB have a document evaluating that report of mine in its files?"

George: "The document of yours has been evaluated within the Board, yes."

Webb: "Will you give me a copy of your evaluation report?  Do you have it in writing?  Does the CEGB have this document in writing?"

[Since a document is a thing of writing, I was obviously confused by his answer; for he did not really answer my question. I ask if CEGB has a document evaluating my report in its files, that is, does the CEGB have a written evaluation of my report in its files.  George did not answer this question; which was typical of the way the cross examination went, where non-answers were repeatedly given and consumed my limited time granted for conducting the cross-examination.]

George: "Which document in writing?"

Webb: "Do you have a document evaluating this report of mine?"

George: "The CEGB evaluates the scenario" -

Webb: "No, do you have an evaluation of my document there.  I have got 20 seconds." [Observe how George evaded answering the question.]

George: "We have, as a part of our normal activity, evaluated the type of accident."

Webb: "No, do you have an analysis of my report, an evaluation of my report?

[His evasive answers caused me much excitement, because my time was running out; and being in a hurry I neglected to be more precise in this last question: does he have a written evaluation of my report on the nuclear explosion hazards of the AGR.]

George: "We have not at this stage put together a complete evaluation of your report."

[With just five seconds left for cross examining Mr. George, I decided to be as precise as I could be:]

Webb: "Did Dr. Young submit to his superiors a letter evaluating my report?"

George: "In outline, yes."

Webb: "Can we get a copy of that?"

George: "No."

Webb: "Mr. Inspector, my time is up. It is now 1 o'clock according to my watch. ..."
 

An Unstable Reactor Power Oscillation Mishap in America (1988)

In 1988 a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) in America suffered an unstable, divergent oscillation of the reactor power level - the LaSalle BWR near Chicago. The incident began with a loss of coolant flow through the reactor, due to a technician's error in testing the reactor safety instruments. With the loss of coolant flow, the reactor power promptly dropped to a low level, as was predicted in the official safety analysis for the reactor (a predicted inherent stability property of the reactor); but then, however, the reactor power broke into an unstable, divergent oscillation, and shot up beyond the designed full power level in a final swing before the reactor shut down (automatically). Fortunately, the reactor automatically shut itself down by the actuation of the control rods release safety mechanism, when the power level exceeded a safety limit, which was sensed by the safety instrumentation.

However, the unstable, divergent oscillations were not predicted.  (The question of what would have happened had the safety systems failed to actuate the reactor shutdown has not been answered.)  The incident thus underscores the warnings in Webb's book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, and in his other subsequent works, that the safety calculations of the nuclear industry and laboratories cannot be relied on, because of the lack of experimental verification of theory, and also because of certain (and many) defects of theory and analysis. There are many gravely serious hazards implications of the incident. For any strong disturbance of a BWR reactor by a simple accident, such as a spontaneous rupture of a reactor coolant circulation pipe, could conceivably cause a nuclear runaway (a power surge) and a catastrophic core meltdown, despite the installed emergency safety systems. We cannot trust the design-basis accident calculations. Dr. Webb has issued a report which analyzes the LaSalle instability incident and its manifold hazards implications, titled Boiling Water Reactors: Reactivity Accidents and Unstable Power Oscillations, September 1989. The Government of Schleswig-Holstein, a state in West Germany, has financially rewarded Dr. Webb for this report.
 

The British Government's Hinkley Point "C" Public Inquiry - A Debate on Webb's Hazards Analysis

Finally, in 1988-89 Dr. Webb participated in a formal "public inquiry" proceeding held by the British Government on the licensing application of the Central Electricity Generation Board (CEGB) to build a "PWR station" - one or more Westinghouse-type pressurized water reactors - at the existing Hinkley Point nuclear power station in west England, which already operates two AGRs and two Magnox gas-cooled reactors.  The Hinkley Point Public Inquiry proved to be a fairly effective forum for presenting and debating Dr. Webb's nuclear hazards analyses, covering the PWR, the AGR, and even to some extent the fast breeder reactor, specifically, the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR) at Dounreay, northern Scotland. (The Prototype Fast Reactor is similar to the SNR-300 reactor at Kalkar, North Rhein-Westfalia in West Germany.) Webb submitted "evidence" in the Inquiry, and cross-examined the chief of CEGB's PWR projects and other CEGB officials, the chief and deputy chief of the British Government's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, and the chief of the Britain's National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB). The NRPB submitted to the Inquiry an analysis on the potential consequences of a core meltdown accident in the planned Hinkley Point PWR. The record of the cross-examinations establishes many fundamentally important facts about the nuclear accident potentialities and likelihood. Examples are as follows:

- the AGR could undergo a nuclear runaway in thirty seconds following a loss of coolant flow;

- the PWR reactor has severe nuclear runaway potentialities which the industry has not evaluated;

- a steam explosion experiment at the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Winfrith laboratory have resulted in damage to the test vessel (the laboratory refused to disclose the full details); and

- the CEGB cannot exclude the possibility of an atomic bomb size explosion in the PWR.

Near the end of the Inquiry, after Webb presented his evidence, which included being cross-examined by the CEGB's lawyer, Lord Silsoe, and after Webb gave his closing statement and other submissions to the Inquiry, the Government announced a cancellation of its plan to build the PWR station at Hinkley Point, and also cancellation of three other PWRs that were planned as well. The reasons for this policy change were not explained to the Inquiry nor to the public in any official statement. However, the evidence which Dr. Webb presented in the Inquiry and the facts established by his cross-examinations of the officials were surely the primary cause for the Government's change of policy, he believes.

Also, Dr. Webb's research in connection with the Hinkley Point Inquiry has led to the establishment of more important facts about the nuclear accident hazards of reactors, e.g., that nuclear runaway accident hazards in PWRs are far worse than previously assessed. A synopsis of Webb's evidence in the Inquiry has been issued in the form of an essay, Hinkley Point Nuclear Accident Hazards, which is attached.

The British Government's National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) submitted to the Hinkley Inquiry their analysis of the potential consequences of a core meltdown accident in the planned Hinkley Point PWR reactor. The NRPB analysis predicts far less accident potentials than what is predicted in Webb's analyses of the potential consequences of catastrophic reactor accidents. However, by making a detailed comparison of the NRPB analysis with his analysis, Webb has found that the NRPB analysis is based on a set of arbitrary assumptions which hide the extreme magnitudes of the potential catastrophic reactor accidents.

For example, the NRPB's analysis assumes a small rupture of the reactor containment shell, hence a relatively small release of radioactivity into the Earth's atmosphere, whereas the full eruption potentials are for a complete destruction (exploding apart) of the reactor containment building, and consequently, a possible near full release of the radioactive material in the reactor core into the Earth's atmosphere as vapors and dust.

In addition, the NRPB analysis arbitrarily assumes extremely small size particles of the radioactive dust - very fine, light dust - that escape into the atmosphere, so that by their calculation a relatively small fraction of the escaped radioactivity would fall out on British soil from an accident at the Hinkley Point PWR - that is, by their assumptions most of the radioactive dust would stay suspended in the air over great distances, according to my calculations. Furthermore, the NRPB calculation was stopped when the suspended dust cloud crosses beyond the border of Britain. That is, the NRPB analysis of the potential consequences of a PWR meltdown accident at Hinkley Point does not evaluate the consequences of the nuclear fallout on continental Europe, where most of the radioactivity would fall out, by their obscure assumptions. Also, I find that the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the NRPB, and the nuclear industry (CEGB and others) plan by their nuclear risk assessments to allow the Public to take large doses of radiation after an accident, before evacuating them.

These and other such arbitrary assumptions explain the official worst-case calculation of only a 1,000 square kilometers of high contamination (requiring evacuation) as opposed to Webb's estimates of the order of 200,000 square kilometers, or greater, for a single reactor eruption. Moreover, the official analyses of the nuclear accident hazards give no consideration to the possibilities for multiple reactor eruptions at a nuclear plant site.

In his research for the Hinkley Point Inquiry Dr. Webb made an even closer examination of the PWR reactor system, and has researched the experience of reactor accidents and mishaps in the United States since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, plus a few mishaps in European reactors, which have come to light. (The data on mishaps in European reactors are officially kept secret, but a few incidents have been revealed, such as a serious beyond-design-basis accident in the Biblis PWR in West Germany.) He has found that the possibilities for severe reactor accidents are much greater and more likely than what is indicated in his previous works.

Upon his closer examination of the nuclear hazards and of the official reactor safety evaluations, occasioned by the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry, which was a kind of showdown-debate on his nuclear hazards analyses, Dr. Webb has reaffirmed his previous conclusion that the risks of catastrophic reactor accidents are just too great to accept by any reasonable standard. Furthermore, he concludes that the dangers of a catastrophic accident are imminent, and always have been. We simply cannot chance another reactor meltdown or runaway, for the possible consequences are much too great.
 

The Necessity for the Proposed Book

However, Dr. Webb finds that merely submitting treatises on the nuclear accident hazards to Governments and their licensing authorities, and distributing these treatises in a limited way (photocopies) is not sufficient to bring about a full review of the nuclear hazards by the Governments and ensure a sound resolution of the nuclear problem. The Nuclear Establishment of Governments, industry, universities, laboratories, and other institutions are just bent on accepting the risks of nuclear energy whatever the risks are, and on suppressing information and research on the nuclear accident hazards. Furthermore, the politicians and ministers are reluctant to rely on opinions of scientists outside of the government-funded, government controlled-system of expertise.

Therefore, it is obviously necessary and vital that the general Public be informed of my hazards analyses as soon as possible - without any further delay - with a book that will be accessible to them. The facts that have been uncovered and established in the course of my research and in the debates in official proceedings must now be laid before the Public. I believe that the book, and the analyses, facts, and calculations and documents which I have developed and acquired over my 20 years research are needed for human survival. My warnings should be heeded.
 

For More Details

A more detailed preview of the proposed Book is given in the following works:

- The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants - A paper for the Conferència Catalana per un Futur Sense Nuclears, Barcelona, Spain, 25 April 1990.

- Catastrophic Nuclear Accident Hazards - A Warning for Europe. August 1984.

- Supplemental Analysis of the Potentials for Nuclear Reactor Plant Eruptions, Light Water Reactors, May 1985.

- Addendum, April 12, 1986: "Atomic Bomb Size Explosion Potentials," which summarizes my analysis and discovery of atomic bomb size explosion potentials in the SNR-300 fast breeder reactor.

- The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident: A Summary Analysis of its Cause and Consequences, with a Comparative Analysis of the Accident Hazards of the Western Reactors, August 1, 1986.

- Hinkley Point Nuclear Accident Hazards (two parts).

Some Further Outlines of the Proposed Book

Some further outlines of the proposed Book are as follows:

1.  The Book will cover all of the various types of nuclear power plants, including the Pressurized Water Reactor, the Boiling Water Reactor, the Gas-Cooled Reactors, especially the Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR) used in Britain, the Fast Breeder Reactor, the Soviet's RBMK and PWRs, and the CANDU reactors of Canada. The PWRs are used heavily in the United States, France, and West Germany. The BWRs are also used heavily in the U.S., Sweden, Japan, and to some extent in West Germany, and also used in Spain, India, and elsewhere). There are prototype fast breeder reactors operating in Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, plus the SNR-300 fast breeder in West Germany, which is virtually built, and a large fast breeder test reactor is operating in the United States, namely, the FFTF. The Public does not generally know that Romania is building five CANDU reactors, which were started in 1981 under the Ceausecu regime. Recall that the CANDU type reactor has a "positive void coefficient of reactivity," like the Chernobyl reactor!

2. The book will describe basically the various accident possibilities for each reactor type, the mechanisms for eruption, and the experiments which establish these mechanisms. These mechanisms include:

- reactor power surges (nuclear excursions),

- nuclear explosions,

- steam explosions upon molten fuel interacting with water (like a volcano),

- reactor containment building explosions, and

- reactor system over-pressurization and bursting.

Another example is the recently discovered fact that half of the core of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor was molten (40 tons of fuel) and residing in the reactor as a molten pool embedded in core debris surrounded by water in the reactor vessel. In subsequent experiments at Sandia laboratories in New Mexico 24 kilograms of molten fuel simulant were dropped into a tank of water, and nothing happened but vigorous boiling. In a repeat experiment a "spectacular explosion" occurred which "destroyed the facility" - the mechanism being a steam explosion, due to molten material interacting with water (like a volcano). Thus, the experiment shows that steam explosions by molten material and water is an unpredictable "chance" phenomenon. Although no catastrophic steam explosion occurred in the Three Mile Island reactor, one could just as well have occurred, as the Sandia experiment showed.  The explosion potential of the TMI molten mass was enormous - the potential for destroying the reactor containment building and with it the potential for virtually a full release of the radioactive fission products in the reactor into the Earth's atmosphere, plus the destruction of the adjacent reactor (Unit 1) and its spent fuel storage basin on the site, causing their eruptions as well.  The public was, therefore, extremely lucky in the TMI accident.

During the accident the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission claimed that the reactor core was not molten and, therefore, not threatening any such catastrophic steam explosion; but their public assurances were based on mere optimistic speculations.

As mentioned earlier, during the Three Mile Island accident (six days into the accident) Webb advised the authorities to leave a reactor coolant circulation pump running, because the reactor core was destroyed. The advice was followed, and the pump was left running, which could very well have averted a catastrophic eruption.

About one month later, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was planning an experiment to switch off the pump. In a four hour debate with the chief NRC reactor safety managers, Webb argued against the experiment, contending that the state of the core was not known, that the core was unpredictable, that it could already be molten, or could melt down if the pump were stopped. The NRC argued to the contrary. They contended that the fuel material, which they conceded was crumbled in large part, was being adequately cooled throughout with water, and would continued to be cooled after the pump would be switched off. But in the course of the discussions the NRC conceded the main technical point that Webb made. They gave him the full technical safety analysis report for the experiment for his study, and agreed to consult him by telephone before carrying out the experiment. However, on the next day events forced the reactor operators to switch off the coolant pump. Fortunately, there was no reactor eruption.

However, the discovery years later that half of the core was molten has disproved the NRC's contentions made in Webb's meeting with the NRC, and shows how unreliable were the NRC's public assurances of safety that were made during the accident, and also confirms the validity of Webb's assessment that he pushed in his meeting with the NRC and earlier in the accident. Also, the scientists who were responsible for analyzing the TMI core to determine when the core might have melted in the accident has conceded to Webb that the core could have melted when the pump was switched off one month into the accident, as Webb had warned could occur. Again, we were just lucky that no catastrophe occurred.

3. The book will describe and evaluate the potential consequences of reactor accidents, showing maps of Europe and the United States of the immense sizes of the land areas that could be ruinously contaminated (e.g., several times the size of West Germany), and showing the potentials for multiple reactor eruptions at a nuclear power plant site, and even the possibilities for reactor eruptions at one site causing accidents and reactor eruptions at other distant nuclear sites, due to radioactive fallout hazards and general economic and social disruptions - a chain reaction of reactor eruptions throughout a country and continent. Shutting down a reactor does not render a reactor safe against possible explosions, because of the intense heat of the fission products in the reactor core that persists, which could cause a core meltdown and eruption. This fission product heat necessitates the operation of post-shutdown cooling systems that must not be damaged or rendered inoperable or left unattended, and which require electric power for their operation, which could be lost in the social disruption of a nuclear catastrophe in the country.

4. The book will analyze the basic defects of the official analyses of the nuclear accident hazards, and would address the key scientific issues, such as (1) the probability of accidents, (2) what levels of radiation dose should be the limit criterion for relocating the inhabitants of contaminated land (needed for evaluating the potential size of land areas which could be ruined by fallout), and (3) the issue of the probability of cancer death per unit dose of radiation exposure. Dr. Webb has made a mathematical analysis of cancer mortality statistics of radiation workers and the Japanese atomic bomb survivors, and found that published data indicate a cancer risk which could be fifty times the officially assumed value. He also finds that the scientific papers which are relied on by the nuclear establishment for their assessment of the cancer risk of radiation do not prove their claimed low value for this risk factor.

The book will show basically how the nuclear industry calculates its claimed "remote" probabilities of catastrophic accidents - like one in a billion years. The industry analyses assume arbitrarily low probability factors, and makes arbitrary assumptions of how these factors are combined. (The details of probability calculations of the nuclear industry are not made clear in their published reports.)

For example, the Book will examine the PWR reactor and its safety systems to show that two out of three available pressurized water tanks of the reactor's emergency coolant system have to successfully discharge their water contents into the reactor in a reactor coolant system rupture accident (loss of coolant), in order to prevent a catastrophic reactor core meltdown. Consequently, if the valves of any two of these tanks would be closed, instead of open, when a coolant system rupture accident occurs (just two values being in the wrong position), then the emergency coolant safety system would be rendered useless. A potentially catastrophic core meltdown accident would then result, or we must assume so. The TMI accident was caused by two valves being closed, and half of the core melted! Although the circumstances were different in that accident (a different set of valves), the lesson applies.

5. The book will draw on Webb's various works (see attachment for a list of treatises which he has issued), and would analyze the Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl accident and other mishaps for the most essential facts and lessons.

6. The book will also draw on the record of the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry in Britain. The CEGB had submitted a critical evaluation of Webb's Evidence, but the Inspector of the Inquiry refused Webb's request to submit a response (refutation) to the CEGB evaluation. It is important for the Public to see how the nuclear industry responded to Webb's analysis in the Hinkley Point Inquiry. So, CEGB's evaluation would be printed in the book, along with Webb's point-by-point refutation.⁽¹⁰⁾

7. The book will make use of photographs which Webb has acquired over the years, such as a close up of the six PWRs at the Gravelines station in France, and an unpredicted explosion of a large scale-model of one type of a PWR reactor containment shell (all steel shell) - a type use in about forty percent of the U.S. PWR containments, some of the BWRs, and in all of the West Germany PWRs (most of the West German reactors are PWRs). In addition, photocopies of documents that prove various key claims in my book will be included in the book.

8. Webb will investigate a recent claim that one half million persons in the Soviet Union have been conscripted and sent to the Chernobyl to work on the efforts to seal the destroyed reactor and reduce the radiation and radioactive contamination levels at the reactor plant and surroundings. It is well established at least that many men from Estonia and other Baltic States were conscripted by the Soviet Army to work at Chernobyl, and received the official limit of 25 rems radiation dose before being returned. This is a horrible dose of radiation to be given. I also recall that the Three Mile Island "clean-up" employed tens of thousands of persons. This shows up another aspect of the potential nuclear accident consequences. Not only do the authorities plan to expose the population of a country to high radiation doss in the event of a catastrophic accident before evacuating them, but they would conscript and send into the reactor accident area men (and women too?) from far away and expose them to radiation - the opposite of evacuation. In a petition which I submitted to the United States Congress in 1978 in which I urged a full review of the nuclear accident hazards, which the Congress ignored, I warned that conscription would be resorted to in the event of a serious accident; and that has now happened with Chernobyl.
 

The Question of How to Resolve the Nuclear Problem?

The planned Book will also treat the policy-making aspects of the nuclear hazards problem. Specifically, the book will take up the question: How can we resolve the nuclear safety issue? How can we establish the facts? Who can we believe? How can we decide what to do? How can we bring about a sound investigation? How can the societies of different nations make a sound decision about the safety of reactors in their countries and about the continued operation of nuclear power plants?

Ultimately, the People of society must make a judgment. The analysis of the nuclear accident hazards that is planned to be presented in the book will be vitally useful to the People in forming that judgment, by laying out and proving the essential practical facts that the public can understand. However, there will be the problem for the lay public of deciding on who to believe, when scientists may differ on an issue over facts and their significance, or on judgments of accident probabilities.

Treating the technical facts about the nuclear accident hazards alone is not sufficient to solve the nuclear hazards problem. One must also face up to the fact that any political, governmental decision about the safety (and necessity) of nuclear energy, about what are acceptable risks of catastrophic accidents, about the level of required safety, about the adequacy of the "safeguards" provided in the power plants, and the reliability of equipment, about the reliability of theoretical safety calculations which are not confirmed experimentally, about what are tolerable limits of radiation exposure in the event of an accident (e.g., evacuation criteria and food contamination limits), about the degree to which information ought to be disclosed,⁽¹¹⁾ about the validity of any safety/hazards evaluation, and so forth - the decisions on all such points - will ultimately depend on personal, subjective judgment. The nuclear policy of a society will depend on just who decides it. So, it is vital to carefully determine, who should decide the nuclear safety issue? Therefore, the political process for deciding the nuclear policy - the existing system of licensing and "experts" and parliamentary oversight - needs to be most carefully reviewed, to ensure a sound decision making process for society.

Researching this question of Who should decide? necessarily requires analysis of Constitutional Law. In this regard, the proposed Book will assert that the whole development of nuclear energy in America, and its promotion in Europe, was brought about by unconstitutional laws, operations, and money expenditures of the United States Government - usurpations of governmental powers relating to the internal, domestic affairs of the individual States - the People of America having never granted any authority to the United States Government by the federal Constitution, including its Amendments, to promote and regulate nuclear energy, nor any broader general authority to promote industry or technology.

In my parallel research of Constitutional Law, I have found that the United States Government - the federal Government - has violated the federal Constitution by assuming the powers unconstitutionally to promote nuclear energy by spending and borrowing money, and even creating money (emitting paper money, checking account money, the system of "national banks," and the Federal Reserve Bank) to finance nuclear development, by creating nuclear laboratories, by creating offices to assume the nuclear licensing authority, and creating armies of scientific "experts" to develop the technology (university stipends, research grants, contracts, laboratories, etc.), and by many other ways. I find that the records of the making of the United States Constitution make it absolutely clear: The People of America have never granted to the U.S. Government any general powers to promote industries, science, and technology by which the federal Government could claim any authority to promote civilian nuclear energy.

Thus, the whole development of the nuclear energy in the United States, which has also been the basis for the nuclear energy development in Europe⁽¹²⁾ and Japan, has been made by an undemocratic, unconstitutional system of government, of nuclear licensing authorities, banks) and scientific, technological, and industrial promotions and development organizations. I refer to my 1986 Vienna Lecture, Democratic and Constitutional Principles, Reviewed and Asserted, and to my book The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, Chapter 13, "Who Should Decide?" I have a more detailed constitutional analysis in manuscript form, which is also available. I believe that it is essential that the Public have these perspectives, when considering the nuclear problem and deciding on what to do. The book will offer these perspectives.

The book will also discuss the implications of my constitutional law analysis. For the unconstitutionality of the U.S. Government's civilian nuclear power program has extremely profound implications for government in general in America. I assert that just about everything else the U.S. Government now does today is unconstitutional. Again, I refer to my essay Democratic and Constitutional Principles Reviewed and Asserted. The U.S. Government's unconstitutional schemes have transformed the way of life in America fundamentally, by effecting a heavily industrialized way of life that the People never said they wanted, having never granted the power to the federal Government to bring about this change in the way of life, and with it enormous, unprecedented risks of catastrophe - nuclear, chemical, and even now biological accidents (escape of pathogens made in the laboratories by the U.S. Government promoted "recombinant DNA or genetic research") - besides the slow despoliations of pollution.

The Public wants to believe that the official evaluations of the nuclear safety and hazards are made by a sound, scientific process of investigation and assessment. This, however, I have found in my twenty years of experience, study, and interactions with Governments and their licensing authorities and commissions, and their scientific laboratories, is not the case. (The nuclear scientists and nuclear officials have vested interests in the promotion of nuclear power just as any other person holding a job has a vested interest in promoting his industry, and, therefore, are susceptible to the same kind of human drives and biases to maintain their interests, if it means losing their positions - their incomes.) I find also that Government statements cannot be trusted; and that Governments give out false and misleading evaluations, keep information on nuclear mishaps, experimental results, and hazards analyses secret. They suppress investigations, disregard advices from their own scientists, and control absolutely the scientists - the scientists have no real freedom of investigation, nor freedom to discuss and publish their work. Everything is orchestrated to propagandize the People of society. It is a situation that must be corrected!

The present systems of powerful, large "centralized" national governments in the modern world, including the atomic licensing authorities of the various countries, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which, by the way, is supported by unconstitutional U.S. Government subsidies (25% of the IAEA expenditures), cannot be relied on for conducting the necessary reviews of the safety of nuclear power plants.⁽¹³⁾ The book will critically comment in detail on the nuclear licensing proceedings of the United States Government, West Germany and Britain, where I have knowledge and experience (we can assume that it is much worse in the Soviet Union). In my critiques, I shall name names and back up my claims with documented proof.

For instance, the atomic licensing authority of North Rhein Westfalia sought to make a planned investigation into the nuclear runaway accident possibilities of the SNR-300 fast breeder reactor at Kalkar, West Germany, including a review and evaluation of my treatises on the SNR-300 nuclear explosion potentials. However, the West Germany federal Government in Bonn has ordered the North Rhein Westfalia Government not to make the investigation. (The Bonn Government seems bent on putting the SNR-300 reactor into operation, and its order seems a prelude to another order to North Rhein-Westfalia to grant a license to operate the reactor.) I have obtained a copy of the Bonn Government's order (Weisung), which is kept secret, and which is really rough. (Incidentally, the British Government's Central Electricity Generation Board has part ownership of the SNR-300 reactor, as does France, The Netherlands, and possibly Belgium, as I recall.)

The Bonn Government has based its hard order (Weisung) on the opinion of the Government's Reactor Safety Commission - Reaktor Sicherheits Kommission (RSK). However, the Book will demonstrate that the RSK is not trustworthy. The chairman of the RSK, Professor Dr. A. Birkhofer, improperly conducted the official SNR-300 Accident Risk Study - a study which was called for by the 1981-82 West German Parliamentary Commission on Nuclear Energy Policy, and which was funded by the West German Government. The Study was commissioned to investigate and resolve the issue of the explosion accident hazards of the SNR-300 reactor - the issue which I had raised a few years before in a set of treatises I issued on the SNR-300 nuclear explosion potentials. At the time of the Study (1981-1982), Dr. Birkhofer was President of the West German firm Gesellschaft für Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) - "Company for Reactor Safety." The GRS (and Dr. Birkhofer) was given the responsibility to conduct the SNR-300 Risk Study. I was a member of this Study, appointed by Professor J. Benecke of the University of Munich, who was sub-contracted by Birkhofer/GRS to manage a critics sub-group of the Study. The West German Government and the Parliamentary Commission ordered that the Study include critics of the fast breeder reactor, and that the scientific issues raised by the critics be resolved within the Study by internal discussions and debates (conferences) between the GRS and the critics group.

Throughout the period of this Study Birkhofer/GRS kept secret from me a voluminous report which GRS had made, and issued at the time when the Risk Study was organized, which critically evaluates in detail the original series of three treatises I had issued in 1977-78 on the "nuclear explosion potentials" of the SNR-300 reactor. (These treatises, and my book The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, originally raised the issue in West Germany of the explosion accident hazards of that reactor. The treatises were presented to a West German court of law in 1977 in a legal case against the licensing of the reactor.) With their report of the Risk Study to the Parliament the GRS and Birkhofer made their conclusions - that the SNR-300 reactor is safe - partly on the basis of their critique of my original series of treatises; and they did so without revealing their critique (report) to me for my evaluation and debate, nor holding any conferences with me to resolve their disputes about my analyses and calculations, and associated hazards evaluations. I first learned about the existence of the GRS critique-report four years later in a meeting with the chief of the licensing authority for the SNR-300 reactor in Düsseldorf (North Rhein-Westfalia) after the Chernobyl accident. (I have since issued a point-by-point refutation of the GRS critique, as I found the critique wrong throughout.)

Since I was the scientist who had originally raised the issue of the nuclear explosion hazards of the SNR-300 reactor with my original series of treatises, since the purposes of the official SNR-300 Risk Study was to investigate the explosion hazards/risks of the SNR-300 reactor, toward resolving the issue, and since the Study was ordered to include critics of the SNR-300 reactor, which obviously was to include those scientists who claim that the reactor carries catastrophic explosion hazards, it follows that the GRS and its former President - now the chairman of the Reactor Safety Commission - improperly conducted the SNR-300 Risk Study, by not revealing to me - a member of the Risk Study - their critique report and their reasons for disregarding my hazards analyses of the explosion potentials of the SNR-300 reactor.

Furthermore, the GRS/Birkhofer misled the Parliament by giving the Parliament their critique of my treatises as a basis for their risk evaluations, while keeping it secret from me, and by reporting to the Parliament that the GRS held eight working meetings with the critics group in the Study, while omitting the fact that I did not participate in these meetings - I was not invited to participate in these meetings, and I was not even informed that they were taking place. Yet, I was the one who raised the issue of the explosion hazards for which the whole Study was all about. Such improper conduct of official studies of the reactor accident risks (there are many other cases) explains how the Governments secure public support for the nuclear power program. Another example is the fact that the evaluation of the potential accident consequences for the draft report of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's official "Reactor Safety Study" was made by an employee of the Westinghouse Corporation - the company that is the major most developer of nuclear power plants in the world.

The foregoing criticisms have to be measured. Obviously, the Nuclear Establishment, including such companies as GRS, work diligently to prevent accident, by careful design, fabrication, operation, and maintenance of the reactors, operator training, and safety analyses. They do take care to provide a fair degree of safety back-up equipment in the plants. Yet, these good efforts do not guarantee that a catastrophic accident will never occur; so the problem is one of judging the risks.

Unfortunately, there is a bad side to the Nuclear Establishment that needs to be exposed. The point of my criticisms in the Book will not be to condemn individuals but to show that the existing systems of Government need to be improved, to set up a sound system to manage the review of nuclear energy and make a sound decision as to what should be done. The Public must review the operations of their Governments in respect to nuclear energy. Perhaps it is not a good idea to name names where it would bring to an individual public condemnation. I shall consider this most carefully and ask for advice. My aim is to promote a spirit of cooperation and good will, not antagonism. But somehow the shortcomings of the systems of governments with respect to nuclear energy must be exposed and remedied.

In Britain, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate in an unsigned statement, which was submitted to the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry, has dismissed my report/treatise on the nuclear explosion hazards of the British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs), without entering into any scientific conferences with me, nor giving or citing any technical-scientific analysis to support its opinion. The leading reactor physicist for the AGRs in the CEGB, Dr. John Young of CEGB's Berkeley nuclear laboratory, has confirmed to me my discovery of mechanisms for a nuclear explosion in the AGR reactor. Moreover, as mentioned before, Dr. Young has made a written evaluation of my treatise on the AGR nuclear explosion hazards; but the CEGB has refused to disclose Dr. Young's evaluation, and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has apparently done nothing to cause Dr. Young's evaluation to be disclosed.

In the United States the Atomic Energy Commission suppressed a 1964 laboratory report on the nuclear runaway accident hazards of the large, modern-type Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) and Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs). At that time the U.S. Government and their nuclear industry were just then beginning to build these types of the reactors, which are now in heavy use in America (about 125 reactors so far) and in Europe and Japan). The 1964 report was made by the laboratory scientists at the Atomic Energy Commission's "National Reactor Testing Station" in Idaho. The report analyzed selected nuclear runaway potentialities of the PWRs and the BWRs (uncontrolled power surges or "power excursions"), and concluded that there are "catastrophic" explosion hazards for these reactors by the nuclear runaway mechanism, and that hardly anything is known about the specific nuclear runaway accident possibilities for these reactors. Chernobyl was caused by a nuclear runaway, where the power level shot up to 450 times full power in one second, according to the Soviet's analysis of the accident.

The 1964 laboratory report asserted that there needs to be undertaken a large program of research into the nuclear runaway type accident possibilities, including extensive development of methods of theoretical calculations, theoretical analyses and modelling, "large core neutron kinetics" experiments, and full-scale reactor destructive experiments. The laboratory further asserted that the recommended research program was urgent, because of the industry plans, promoted by the U.S. Government, to start building large PWRs and BWRs (one thousand such reactors were the target number of the U.S. Government). However, the U.S. Government (Atomic Energy Commission at the time) disregarded the laboratory's recommendations and suppressed the report. The report was kept secret for ten years until I uncovered its existence in my extensive and firm probes into the laboratories in my earlier research.⁽¹⁴⁾ Meanwhile, in those ten years a massive nuclear power construction program was undertaken.

Moreover, the U.S. Government allows no serious questioning of their scientists and industry engineers in their atomic licensing proceedings. Again, the unconstitutionality of the U.S. Government's nuclear program and regulatory activities is the fundamental wrong.

It is necessary to critically evaluate the behavior of the nuclear "licensing authorities" of the various nuclear countries by detail cases of gross impropriety and arbitrary assumptions and judgments, and secrecy; for otherwise the public will not appreciate the inadequacies of the existing systems of government to protect the public. For instance, I have shown a senior engineer at the Hinkley Point nuclear power station a portion of the official transcript of the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry which shows that the CEGB PWR projects chief, Brian George, has admitted in the Inquiry, under my cross-examination, that their reactor physicist, Dr. John Young, has made a written evaluation of my AGR Nuclear Explosions treatise, and that George has refused to give me and the Inquiry a copy of Dr. Young's evaluation. More than anything else that fact in the Inquiry Transcript caused the senior engineer to conclude that my hazards analyses are credible, remarking that his company was obviously hiding something, and that my analyses must be right, else the CEGB would release Dr. Young's evaluation. The Book will reprint the Transcript page that proves this fact. (Of course, the Book will not mention this senior engineer's remark. I only offer it here to make a point.)

The book will suggest that the People of the various Nations who operate nuclear power plants must somehow intervene (peacefully and orderly) to review and amend their respective systems of government so as to set up in their respective countries that system which is capable of conducting the needed reviews and investigations of nuclear energy hazards, and the planning for changes in the modern way of life that would be necessary, if nuclear power were determined to be unsafe. The book in so doing will give my perspectives on constitutional law based on my many years of study and involvement in the nuclear issue and study of constitutional law and political science.

The book will, therefore, end with ideas on how to resolve the nuclear issue - on what it will take to resolve it. It would discuss the predicament the modern world is in about nuclear energy and the present highly industrial way of life. I refer to my recent Spain paper for some elaboration.

In preparing the book I shall develop and formulate concrete ideas on what should be done and how the public and individuals can work to solve the nuclear problem. Here, my Spain paper is inadequate - the section "What Should Be Done," pp.64-65. I will take most care in addressing this aspect and developing solutions, based on all of the knowledge and thinking that I can muster. Also, I plan to distribute the manuscript to various key persons for critical reviews and perfecting the book. The object of my book is to cause a movement that will most likely bring about the full review of nuclear energy throughout the world that is so necessary, and lead to a sound resolution of our nuclear problem. I should add that the Book will contain a commentary on the alternatives of nuclear energy, like that given in my 1984 Warning for Europe report.
 

Prospective Publishers Sought

I seek prospective Publishers for the proposed Book, and to write the book and have it published as soon as possible. The book should be published in English to start with, and also in German, French, and Spanish, as those languages are the main "market," and where the need for the book is greatest.

The purpose of the book is to give to the Public my best-effort analysis of the nuclear accident hazards and ideas of what can be done to promote the Public's safety and solve the nuclear hazards problem. The Book will give the Public the essential facts. My aim is to make a book which the Public can understand, and will want, need, and value, and will prove vitally useful to them.

If your Publishing Company is interested in publishing the book, please write or telephone me (R. Webb), and we can enter into exploratory discussion, then possibly negotiations for a contract. To aid in your consideration of this Proposal, a copy of any of my previous Writings would be sent to you, such as my 1984 Warning For Europe report, my Chernobyl report, and my Spain conference paper, The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants. See the list of my Writings given in the attached "Background," - the Section on "Writings and Publications." (I would need reimbursement of costs, though.)
 

Financial Support Sought

We all are exposed to extremely grave dangers of catastrophic nuclear accidents, the possible potential consequences of which have no limits, according to my analyses. The nuclear hazards issues raised in my manifold analyses must, therefore, be resolved without delay. We are truly in a most difficult predicament; but we can solve our problem if we take effective measures to promote a full review of the nuclear hazards by society. To promote these aims I have formulated a work plan, and I seek financial support for it. The Plan is as follows:

1. Write and publish the proposed Book.

2. Finish a number of essential research projects which I have undertaken. These include:

(a) A mathematical analysis of cancer mortality statistics of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors and radiation workers at nuclear laboratories, to evaluate the probability of cancer death due to radiation exposure and the associated statistical uncertainty. This work will include a critical evaluation of the scientific papers relied on by the nuclear industry and the government licensing authorities for their assumption of a low risk of cancer from radiation. The basic part of the treatise has been drafted and typed.⁽¹⁵⁾

(b) A full critical evaluation of the National Radiological Protection Board's analysis of the potential consequences of a core meltdown accident in a PWR (at Hinkley Point).

(c) Calculations of an important physics quantity for fast breeder reactors, called the "neutron streaming reactivity," which pertains to a possible mechanism for a catastrophic nuclear explosion. This research is fundamentally important to the issue of the safety of the fast breeder reactor.

(d) A full treatise on the accident hazards of the PWR reactor. The necessity of this work is discussed in my main Evidence in the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry.

(e) My refutation of a critique of my Warning for Europe report (the section on the nuclear explosions hazards of fast breeder reactors) which was submitted to the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority's Dounreay laboratory - Britain's fast breeder reactor installation.

(f) Final calculations of the nuclear explosion potentials of the Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors, and a full mathematical treatise containing the details of the theoretical models of the analysis and results.

(g) An analysis and report on the steam explosion experiments of the United Kingdom's Atomic Energy Authority's Winfrith laboratory. The addendum to my Hinkley Point Inquiry Evidence gives my initial analysis.

3. Review and evaluate the forthcoming report of the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry, which will certainly have a section which judges my Evidence. This work will also refute the Central Electricity Generation Board's critical evaluation of my Inquiry Evidence. The Inquiry Inspector would not allow me to submit to the Inquiry a refutation of the CEGB evaluation. This work will also include a full analysis of the Transcript of the Inquiry, to show the facts that were established by my cross-examinations of the Officials.

4. Print up and distribute the various treatise that I have issued so far and the ones to be written, such as:

- Analysis of the Three Mile Island Accident;

- Warning for Europe report (1984);

- Chernobyl report (1986);

- Nuclear Explosion Hazards of the British AGRs;

- Boiling Water Reactors: Reactivity Accidents and Unstable Power Oscillations; and

- Transcript of Telephone Calls and Radio/Television Reports showing Webb's Involvement in the Three Mile Island Accident.

- Analysis of the Potential Harmful Consequences of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants.

5. Write up a number of treatise on various research works that I have already made (completed), but have not yet been able to write up. These works include:

- Calculations of atomic bomb size explosion potentials of fast breeder reactors. This work is relevant also to the main reactor types presently in use today (the PWRs and BWRs); for the possibility of an atomic bomb size explosion in a BWR or PWR core meltdown accident has not been excluded. (This point was vigorously debated in the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry. I refer to my Evidence and Inquiry transcripts.)

- Nuclear explosion potentials in fast breeder reactors due to sodium coolant vapor explosions upon fuel melting; and

- Calculations of the potential explosion energy of a reactor vessel rupture in PWRs.

6. Organize a Scientific Commission to review and evaluate Webb's analyses of the nuclear accident hazards. The proposed Commission would make further analyses and calculations as the Commission might determine are necessary, and would issue a report of their evaluation. In addition, I would work to encourage Governments and Legislatures to create scientific commissions to investigate the nuclear accident hazards, and draw on the documentation of the Hinkley Point Inquiry.

7. Organize a series of International Conferences held in the United States, Britain, West Germany, and France, to debate the crucial scientific issues, and publish the proceedings (papers, reports of committees of the conference, and debate transcripts).

8. Try to form an Institute to carry on the needed research, to focus on the crucial scientific issue of the nuclear accident hazards, to issue treatises, and to push for resolving the crucial issues with the nuclear authorities of Governments and scientists of the nuclear laboratories and industry, and to advise legislators. The Institute would be stacked with scientific books and journals and computing equipment.

9. Write a treatise on United States Constitutional Law - a disquisition on the unconstitutionality of the U.S. Government operations in domestic and foreign affairs and their consequences, with a proposed remedy to promote the safety of the People and a happy/quality way of life. I believe that this work will treat the root cause of our nuclear hazards predicament. I refer to my essay, Democratic and Constitutional Principles, Reviewed and Asserted, to Chapter 13 of my book Accident Hazards, on the question "Who Should Decide?", and to a manuscript on constitutional law which gives further proof of my contentions regarding the United States Constitution, Unconstitutional Government A Sketch of an Analysis of the Constitution of the United States with respect to Domestic and Foreign Affairs.
 

Financial Support is Necessary

Of course, financial support is needed, in order to carry out the above works. Your financial support of my work would help to accomplish this work. It is essential that my various theoretical analyses be written down in treatise form - the full mathematical proofs (e.g., on the AGR nuclear explosion potentials and the atomic bomb size explosion potentials of fast breeder reactors), and that my various analyses be printed up and distributed. The Governments and established institutions show no interest in supporting this work, as they are bent on promoting nuclear power and accepting the risks of catastrophic accidents.

There is plenty of money given out by Governments for nuclear promotion type research and for controlled, biased safety studies - including such minor research as a $100,000 grant given to a nuclear engineering professor to investigate improvements in a particular instrument - but not a penny for support of my research.

In 1976 the U.S. government rejected a research proposal which I made, and which was officially endorsed by the Physics Department of the University of Massachusetts, to research nuclear runaway accident hazards of reactors. (I have issued a refutation of the Government's rejection letter.) Eleven years later, after the Chernobyl accident, which was caused by a nuclear runaway, the U.S. Government finally got around to sponsoring laboratory research into the nuclear runaway accident hazards of the PWRs and BWRs, including studies of the very accident possibilities that I had before specifically proposed to be analyzed by my 1976 University of Massachusetts research proposal. Still, I find that the plan of this belated, U.S. Government-sponsored research, and the analyses issued so far, are grossly inadequate. (I have made my initial critical evaluation in a report Boiler Water Reactors: Reactivity Accidents and Unstable Power Oscillations.) In addition, I have uncovered a report of this Government-sponsored research on the nuclear runaway accident hazards which was kept secret. In 1989 I obtained a copy through the legal process of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. I need to make a full critical evaluation of the laboratory report, including making my own independent calculations.

Only private support of individuals can make possible the work that I propose to carry out. Such support would be truly democratic in nature, as the money grants would be purely voluntary. The support of the nuclear work of the Government and the nuclear industry comes from taxes imposed, electricity rates imposed, and money created by banks (and with it inflation) - banks created by unconstitutional laws of the U.S. Government, as I will prove in my political disquisition.⁽¹⁶⁾

Without my research, and reports, and treatises, I believe that the Public would know almost nothing of crucial importance about the accident hazards of nuclear power plants; I am sure of this. (There has been some very important analyses made by various scientists and laboratories over the years, especially the earlier years. My work has been to evaluate these and other scientific works for their significance and pushing the results in the public arena, besides making needed analyses that have not been made by the nuclear establishment.) Dr. David R. Inglis, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, who was one of the forty physicists who developed the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, has written that Richard Webb is a "unique nuclear watchdog."

It is essential for the Safety of Humanity that my works be supported and accomplished. I can only refer to my treatises and reports to demonstrate this. The industry has its extremely well funded research groups to turn out voluminous reports, which impress the public and the politicians. The major environmental campaign organizations raise money by concentrating on media event activities (sometimes unlawful and disruptive) designed to raise money but who do not contribute much to really solving the problems with objective scientific research in regard to the nuclear hazards problem and rational, peaceful discourse. (They employ no nuclear reactor scientists.) There really is no doctorate reactor physicist and engineer outside of the Nuclear Establishment who is working independently to evaluate the nuclear accident hazards, other than myself. The proposed work would seek to change that - to encourage other experts to study my works and assert themselves and their scientific integrity.
 

Benefits Accruing to You for Your Financial Support

1. In return for your financial support you will secure my efforts to promote a sound resolution of the nuclear problem, to ensure our safety and that of our children. You will make it possible for my work to be carried on and more effectively and successfully.

You can be assured of honest research and free scientific investigation - studies which will not be controlled by Governments, by the nuclear industry, nor by so-called "anti-nuclear" or environmental campaign organizations. I can promise you full objectivity in my analyses and calculations, without pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear biases - only pro-safety aims, and that I will promote lawful, democratic activities, to resolve the nuclear energy problem with efforts of publication, debate, conferences, and rational, peaceful discourses.

With your money support I would not deliver to you something which is usually acquired by spending hard earned money, such as a house, a material thing of practical use, a machine, a piece of furniture, a boat to sail in and enjoy a lake, food on the table, clothes to wear, schooling for the children; but I can materially work for preventing a radiation catastrophe, even a cataclysm, in our Lands - to prevent our soil from being contaminated with radioactive fission products and plutonium dust, and emitting high levels of radiation - to protect our children from being stricken with Leukaemia through radiation exposure, and us from cancer and other injuries to health. I am reminded of the drawing made by a child in the Soviet Union which depicts the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, showing the radiation emanating from the destroyed reactor, killed animals and trees, abandoned villages, crying "Rescue Me," and the drawing of another child showing a child suffering from Leukaemia and looking directly in the eyes of the viewer, holding a leaf that has been mutated by genetic damage from the Chernobyl radiation. While we all, including industry, governments, environmental organizations, and citizens struggle to clean up and repair our Environment caused by the despoliations of pollution, we must also take care to prevent a radioactive catastrophe! Without your support, my work cannot be done.

2. With your support you can call on me with any questions you may have. You could suggest ideas for me to consider and research, and could bring to my attention information that you think is important. I seek not just money support but collaboration as well, including advice.

3. I would send you a quarterly report of the progress of my work. I would keep you regularly apprised. In the quarterly report I would give a full accounting of all money received (totals) as well as the expenditures, and report the number of sponsors/subscribers and show the distribution according to ranges of the money awards.

4. You would be entitled to receiving copies of any of my works, and copies of my tape recordings of the TMI accident, though I would retain the copyrights, of course.

I know that there is support in the world for my work; I just must now devote some of my efforts to find it and cultivate it. (After all, I have managed to find support for twenty years.) For instance, the Hewlett-Packard company - a large international computer firm - has given me free a large, powerful computer for my scientific calculations and other equipment and software. (I used for ten years my own earlier model Hewlett-Packard computer, HP-85, which has served me well in making calculations of reactor accident potentials; but the new machine given to me is ten times faster and ten times more memory.) I would also endeavor to obtain assistance for my work, and find competent scientists who would collaborate with me in the research.
 

Webb's Current Situation

Presently, I have no support, and exhausted my limited savings to participate in the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry. I have no money, no home,{*} no transport - just my knowledge, my books, manuscripts, documents, notes, and computers, etc. I have chosen over the years to devote my energies to research and report writing, and my various involvements in official proceedings (most recently the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry), as long as I could obtain bare minimum support for this work. Now, I must build up a solid financial support for this work, if I am to continue. Without substantial financial support, I fear that all of my twenty years of research will come to no use. I must concentrate now in disseminating the work and engaging the scientific community and the Governments to review of the nuclear accident hazards, as I have begun to do in my involvement in the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry.

I need the following immediately:

- support to write the book;

- a reward for my past work, so that I can get a home and base from which to carry on the work. I am presently homeless and without money;

- office and library space for laying out my materials and equipment;

- more equipment, such as telefax, phone, photocopier, and computer equipment;

- assistance, such as typists and producer of documents, secretary, research assistant;

- additional documents and books;

- transport (automobile);

- supplies, postage, etc.

Pledging Support

If you would like to support this work, please write to me with a pledge of your support, or you could contact me by telephone to discuss the matter. I would even consider visiting you for more personal discussions.
 

Postscript

I have been asked, why do I not just find a position in a nuclear laboratory or the Government, and work from within the system to promote the safety of reactors or a review of the safety? The answer is that I am of the conviction that the whole nuclear program in the United States is unconstitutional. The unconstitutionality of the U.S. Government's laws and programs for promoting and regulating nuclear energy can be proven beyond any question, by comparing the U.S. Government's assumptions about the meaning of certain clauses in the U.S. Constitution in assuming more and more power, with the recorded interpretations of the true, intended meaning of the various clauses in the Constitution given by those who made the Constitution - explanations given in the federal Constitutional Convention and in the various State Conventions that ratified the Constitution, and also given in the public expositions of the Constitution published during the ratification debate, and, of course, by a careful examination of the text of the Constitution, which can be shown to be consistent with those explanations. I refer to the constitutional law analysis given in my book The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, chapter 12, "Who Should Decide?" I have another manuscript which is available as well for more details of my proof.

The makers of the Constitution had reasons for the limitations of the federal Government power. These reasons had to do with wanting to avoid a system of government that is remote from the people and governs over an extensive territory; for the accepted principle was that a democracy could flourish only if the territory of a government was not too large, that the government is close to the people, so that the People could effectively control government, and pursue and obtain their safety and happiness - a quality way of life.  Now we are not bound to the 1787 provisions of the Constitution; for we can change the Constitution if we want.

The principle that is at the heart of my drive to work for a review of the nuclear hazards is that of Honesty. When the U.S. Government wanted to promote nuclear energy, then they should have submitted a Constitutional Amendment proposition to the States for consideration and ratification.  That is the way specified in the Constitution for acquiring additional authority; and the Constitution is the "supreme Law of the Land."  The officers of the Federal Government hold their positions because of the Constitution.  Therefore, for them to have assumed the authority unconstitutionally to judge that the People need, want, and shall have nuclear energy, and all of the other things that the federal Government has brought about through unconstitutional assumptions of power, such as super highway constructions, jet ports, banks, aids to industry, chemical farming, recombinant DNA research and the hazards of creating pathogens that could escape containment, foreign aid, and so on ad infinitum,⁽¹⁷⁾ is really an arrogance of power.  It is an abuse of power.  It is dishonest, like all of their cover-ups of the nuclear accident hazards. I could not join in a system of government and laboratories that is based on violations of the Constitution, which is to say, a system that the People never authorized.

I should stipulate at the outset the following: I would retain the right to decide what is included in the book and its title. I would be open for all editorial suggestions, but I would decide on the content and titles and sub-titles of the book, including drawing, photos, tables, etc. The publisher would retain the right to publish or not, but I would decide on what is published.  In other words, this proposal is not a proposal to enter into a contract to deliver a manuscript to a publisher for the publisher to own, and edit and publish as the publisher sees fit.  Rather, I seek a co-equal arrangement for the decisions on the book.  This is the way I had worked with the University of Massachusetts Press and it worked out well.

Dr. Richard E. Webb
von Kühlmann Straße 9
8132 Tutzing
West Germany

Tel: (49) 08158-2774
 

Bank:
Kreissparkasse Starnberg
8132 Tutzing, West Germany
Bank Number: 700 540 80
Account Number: 547 570

I went to Europe in September 1986 following the Chernobyl accident, in order to better investigate the accident and to promote a review of the nuclear accident hazards in Europe. My Chernobyl research, my research of the accident hazards of the British type reactors, and my participation in the British Government's Public Inquiry on the matter of building American (Westinghouse) type Pressurized Water Reactors, which was a forum for a debate on my nuclear hazards analysis, explain why I am presently in Europe instead of living in America.  With this proposal and my Spain paper, "The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents in Nuclear Power Plants," which accompanies this Proposal, plus my forthcoming work, Unconstitutional Government in America, which will be a short treatise on U.S. Constitutional Law with respect to domestic and foreign affairs, including the nuclear energy matter in particular, and the matter of presidential war-making, comprise my current efforts to gain support in America, as a well as in Europe. I plan eventually to return to America to push the nuclear and constitutional issues that I am raising.

Postscript, 3 September 1999: Webb's present address is Raiffeisenstraße 1, 86868 Middelneufnach, Bayern (Bavaria), Germany.

He has lived in Bavaria from 1990 to 1997.  From December 1, 1997 to August 15, 1999, he resided in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for the purpose of prosecuting certain matters concerning the Three Miles Island and constitutional law (see the Internet, www.technidigm.org/c5001/tmi.htm).  He has since returned to Bavaria, where he is presently finishing research on a mathematical analysis of the official Bavaria statistics on still births and infant deaths, to assessment the possible effects of the Chernobyl nuclear fallout in Bavaria on child birth. See his up-dated Background.

1. Postscript, 3 September 1999: After this paper was written and sent to various persons in England, Germany, and the United States, I was informed by Professor Edmund Lengfelder of the Institute for Radiation Biology, University of Munich, that that report in the Der Spiegel was not correct.  I note here Professor Lengfelder's comment, without passing any judgment on the statement in Der Spiegel, except to mention that Professor Lengfelder, in answer to a question put to him in early 1996 by Hans Kolo of the Bavaria Parliament, and medical Dr. Ingrid Metz of Munich, said that he never analyzed the official Bavaria Government statistic on still births and infant deaths to determine whether or not the Chernobyl nuclear fallout in Bavaria had any harmful effects on child birth in Bavaria.  Yet, in answer according to Dr. Metz, Professor Lengfelder stated in a public meeting, chaired by Hans Kolo, that it is difficult to determine what the health effects of the Chernobyl fallout in the former Soviet Union, because there exists no reliable data for the former Soviet Union with which to make an assessment.  However, as Dr. Metz has observed, there is the reliable data on still births and infant deaths for Bavaria, the land that provides the financial support for the Institute for Radiation Biology at the University of Munich.   [Return to text...]

2. Rickover is regarded as the "father" of nuclear power in America. Besides the development of naval reactors, Rickover's Division of Naval Reactors organization was given the responsibility to develop the first civilian nuclear power plant in America, drawing on the naval reactors technology.   [Return to text...]

3. Webb's association with the Shippingport PWR project was in 1963-1967, after the reactor was built and operating. In this period a new reactor core was installed and operated.   [Return to text...]

4. Dr. Webb has also published a lead article in the Ohio State Law Journal, "Treaty-Making and the President's Obligation to Seek the Advice and Consent of the Senate with Special Reference to the Vietnam Peace Negotiations," Vol 31, No.3 (1970). He also taught an academic course in Constitutional Law at the University of Massachusetts (1976).   [Return to text...]