There are actually some big differences, from what I understand, between european and american nuke plants. In general, europeans agreed on a particular design and all of their plants are modelled on that, whereas in america each plant is built independantly (more or less on both those statements).

Also, in the US, the plan for the waste is to mix it with a special cement, seal it in special containers, bury those containers in a mountain, and then fill the caves with more special cement. In europe, the french at least, mix the waste with glass and bury it.

Nuclear powerplants are designed to survive the impact of a jet airliner hitting them at full speed.

As said earlier in this thread; the construction of the plant means that the core will be shielded from such impacts.

I wouldn't be surprised if many plants were equipped with radar systems.

As everyone has said, an airliner hitting a plant wouldn't do much but shut the plant down for a few months while everything gets repaired. So basically, you'd be going through a lot of buck for a little bang.

If terrorists were to attempt to fly anything into a nuclear plant (or any plant in this case) their best bet would be to take some sort of light jet like a Cessna or Lear and fly it into the power transformers. Destroying the majority of those would cause citywide blackouts. Do it at 20-30 power stations and you get regionwide blackouts. Do it at enough and you could systematically black out the entire nation.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it, that if governments have recognized nuclear plants as high-priority targets for air-attack, if they have installed defence machnisims; such as SAMs, and search or even target tracking radar. But I have seen no evidence of this, so probably not. And they would not have reason to hide such things.

But perhaps they still have a few MANPAD SAMs lurking around in those neat little containers, ready to be broken out at a moments notice?

I agree with you entirely. Nuclear plants are bad - have been and always will be until fusion becomes available - in the fact that they are releasing Strontium 90, which I was aware of, are high priority targets, not just for air attacks, and have horrible yet still unaddressed waste problems.

Oh, I meant trust the Russians [Soviets, for any Russians out there] to have the first serious accident. Yes, there are heaps of mistakes, most small, so you never hear about them, some large, so you never hear about them, and some average, so you may hear about them, which is one fo the reasons why I have never advocated nuclear power as a viable energy source. But it's the waste that gets to me. What the hell are our future generations going to do with it?

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And what we are discussing is an air attack directed agaisnt the nuclear core by a normally laden commercial aircraft. Which has just about zero chance of causing any immediately dangerous radiation leakage, by the way.

It's when you start adding other variables into the scenario, such as passenger aircraft loaded with bombs, or anything else you can throw in there to raise the chances of a vessel breach, that a chance of something like Chernobyl happening actually becomes a possibility.






[edit on 19/1/2006 by watch_the_rocks]

Im a structural engineer, No plane on this planet could penetrate the circular concrete barriers. PERIOD.

The plane would disintegrate around the concrete.

Train

Not to mention you would have to hit a very small target going at 500 mph

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
But it's the waste that gets to me. What the hell are our future generations going to do with it?

Yes, I've always felt that there should actually be a law that you cannot engage in any activity where the problems of the waste generated by that activity cannot be neutralized within a maximum of one generation. But then, I have a lot of dreams......

Ya know, I'd really like to know what inventions and ideas greenpeace has brought to the table to help our civilization, oh wait, they havent.

I wonder where greenpeace plans on getting energy in the future?

Train