DomAviator
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Joined: 4/22/2008
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen
That's not entirely true. If they know what they're doing they can go for either the primary coolant system or the core itself, they are presumably suicide attackers, both of which can certainly cause some serious havoc. Primary coolant is radioactive live steam when the plant is operating and for a while after shutdown. A nice big brick of plastique on the right pump or pipe and you'll certainly have a major radiological event.
While it isn't discussed a whole lot there has to be a way to physically get into the core for refueling and removal of spent rods. getting that door open might be beyond any sort of realistic assault force but once again a couple of kilos of C4 placed in/on the door and frame could perhaps break containment.
Realisticaly there are lots of easier ways to cause trouble but Al Qaeda has shown a propensity for the big flashy attack so you never know.
The primary cooling loop and heat exchangers in western plants are located inside the containment building. Even if there was a loss of coolant accident, the resulting spillage and steam would be contained inside the containment building.
As far as getting into the core, they would need weeks. My dad did a commercial diving job during a refueling cycle at a plant on Lake Ontario. (They contract divers to assist in the refueling process and to rerack spent fuel.) First they take the reactor subcritical, then after weeks of cooling they remove the head from the core which requires teams of divers, working in short intervals under the supervision of a health physicist, to undo hundreds of bolts so that the top can be lifted off and the core exposed using a crane... Its really a major construction job that goes on three shifts a day 7 days a week for months.
Its not valid to compare a modern reactor to something like SL-1 or a Soviet design. SL-1 for those who dont know was a rather ugly "accident" (actually it generally considered a murder / suicide) at a research reactor back in 1961. To make a long story short, a technician was pissed off that the other guy was fucking his girlfried, and he yanked out a control rod sending the reactor supercritical and causing a steam explosion. (In the interest of fairness, there are some other theories about yanking on a stuck rod, improperly stroking the rod in and out to smooth it etc but the generally accepted theory is the love triangle murder suicide - why else would someone stand on top of a nuclear fucking reactor and yank out a control rod? Anyway, SL-1 was back in the days of the nuclear cowboys, when it was all so experimental that people really didnt know what they were fucking with and didnt use containment etc.
As for Russian reactors. All I can say is the russians shouldnt have microwave ovens much less nuclear reactors! Chernobyl was one of a long line of soviet accidents, the entire north atlantic is littered with the remains of soviet subs that went down following reactor disasters -K-8 (twice), K-19 (twice), Icebreaker Lenin, K-27, K-140, K-123, K-219, the Kursk, Chernobyl just to name a few... Soviet designs are simply fucked up because they are built to become more reactive as they get hotter whereas US civilian plants lose reactivity as they heat up. US engineers are taught to design for anything - from a toaster oven to a nuclear powerplant to "fail safe" whereas the soviets just "make it work".
But if an Al Queada team wanted to invade a nuclear power plant, with a team of commercial divers, crane operators, reactor technicians, and to hold that plant for several weeks while they got into the core - they could do damage. Of course my bet is that the control room operators and/or automated systems would SCRAM the reactor as the gunbattle was raging outside and long before anyone entered containment. I would also bet that the DOE security police, who are a rather unpleasant bunch, as well as any necessary militrary forces (SEALs / Delta) would be brought in to retake the plant before the divers could even suit up and get the first bolt out.
Al Queda really isnt that flashy or hi tech... Basically their whole MO is "running into shit" - ie the USS Cole was a suicide bomber ramming the ship with a boat load of explosives, the embassy bombings were truck bombs run into them, 9-11 was flying jets into buildings... The most sophisticated technological resource they employed in any of their attacks were goons with boxcutters slicing up defenseless female flight attendants. Thats a far cry from them being able to fight their way into a nuclear plant, to seize control of that plant, and to defeat multiple redundant fail safes... Assuming they could - for what purpose? Chernobyl which could never happen in a US design, only killed 57 people total over the last 20 years. They could get more bang for their buck walking into a McDonalds with an AK-47 and to do so wouldnt require a team of suicidal engineers and a substantial ground force.
I myself have baccaleurate and masters degrees in engineering, was trained to handle, render safe, and destroy if neccessary the nuclear weapons deployable on my aircraft, and am pretty damned good with mastering highly complex systems. (Like all three stations in the cockpit of a 747). Ok, so Im definitely not some cave dwelling Beduin goat herder who doesnt know how to work a flush toilet like the cretens they recruit. However, despite my background, if you put me in a nuclear power plant, handed me the actual blueprints for it, and told me I could have unlimited personell and equipment resources to have once chance to fuck it up in any way I saw fit - it would take me weeks to figure out how to do it in a way that would defeat the fail safes and multiple redundancies. Im not even sure if I could! Chances are I would fuck up the sabotage attempt, it would automatically cut over to a backup sysyem so the net results of my efforts would be to spill a little water, and in three days it would be cleaned up, the valve replaced and they would be back online. I really doubt we would allow these neaderthals weeks fumbling around in there, with multiple restart cycles, till they got it right....
I am a lot more afraid of seeing an arab man getting on a Metro bus, or watching one handing out slurpees than I am of them getting into the South Texas Project. Germs are relatively easy to grow, and pretty easy to toss into the slurpee machine... One of many reasons I wont do business with them. If I want any type of food or drink I can buy it from an American, Hispanic, or Asian.
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RE: McCain wants 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 - 
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