I'm with Browha on this one.

I'm no expert on the plants, but my son was in the Navy and he was a Nuke (certified technician for the nuclear reactors.) He says they're well designed and pretty bomb-proof.

I do know that regular power plants aren't usually that fragile, either (at least the new ones.)

People,

modern nuclear plants are designed to withstand an impact of a
commerical jet. Just do some research... I came across some materials
on that many years ago. I'm not saying all of them are safe,
but the old ones are indeed closed or being closed. Chernobyl was an
old design and it didn't have (obviously) a hard shell around it.

On top of that, in all likelihood an impact would be a grazing one, as
reactors are in fact rather compact objects and pretty hard to hit
head on. Combined with the fudge factor always present in the design
to be on the safe side, I doubt the reinforced concrete shell can be breached.

I've been around a few reactors and I saw the active core of one with my own eyes (through 8m of water), so I kinda sorta know what I'm talking about. It was a pretty glow, by the way.


[Edited on 26-5-2004 by Aelita]

Thank you
It's just ye-olde-government playing up the hype...
consider the fact that they recently warned everyone to be suspicious of anyone wearing a backpack (basically), or wearing long-sleeve clothing in the summer...
(I cant remember where I got the list, I'm confident it's on the BBC though)

Okay, this thread is in need of some serious debunking. I am a nuclear engineer, I have worked at a nuclear power plant, and I can assure you that they are safe.

First off, it'd take a lot of work to turn the fuel used in a nuc plant into a bomb. You need enough fissile mass concentrated into a small enough space, which is impossible with the fuel (fissile isotopes only account for about 5% of the fuel, while in a bomb it's 95%-~98%). Forget the idea of kinetic disassembly (I love that term) ever happening at a nuc power plant.

There are essentially three protective barriers between the fuel and the outside: a thin cladding around each pin, a carbon steel reactor vessel that's about 30 cm thick, and the reinforced concrete containment/shield building, which is several feet thick. The shield buildings were designed with one design basis being the crash of a 707 into the building. Shorty after 9/11, the US NRC did a reevaluation that confirmed that a shield building could withstand the impact of a 747.

That said, the worst that could happen if an airplane managed to crash through the shield building would be something akin to a dirty bomb, not a nuclear explosion. The press really likes to hype dirty bombs up, but it's doubtful radioactive material would be spread very far. Since nearly every nuc plant is out in the middle of nowhere, no major cities are threatened.

Oh, and forget about the idea of terrorists taking over a nuc plant like you seen in the movies. First off, they couldn't do anything remotely dangerous to the general public, and there's no way they'd ever get in. There are lots of highly trained security officers patrolling the site with AR-15s and multiple barriers to entry (the entire site is surrounded by a 12-foot razor wire fence and multi-ton concrete blocks or stones). The local law enforcement and national guard are always on call, and those terrorists would be dead quick'r than you can say "Jiha..."

Still, if you live close to a nuc plant and are scared, then move. If you don't live anywhere near one, then don't worry. Plain and simple.

Thanks PurdueNuc

I'm happy to see someone with credible knowedge (or atleast claiming credible knowledge) tell us we are safe and to reinforce what i believed to be true.

Any proof of this? I have never heard of it, and I was under the impression it was relatively impossible