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Good question. For sabotage, right now they are not easy targets because most plants are behind one of the strongest structures known to man (reinforced concret

Good question. For sabotage, right now they are not easy targets because most plants are behind one of the strongest structures known to man (reinforced concrete containment domes) and employ ~130 paramilitary guards. For wars it's another story, most militaries could bomb the hell out of a nuke and cause some grief. One rather crazy idea to deal with this is to build nukes on large ships, 10 miles offshore. Worst case, they retreat as designed into one of the most unaccessible places on the planet (the bottom of the ocean), where they stay cooled and avoid releasing radiation until things calm down and the planned recovery operation begins. Other pluses in this scenario include possible shipyard construction (could be cheap), ability to use power purchasing agreements to get nuclear power to countries that don't have nuclear regulatory infrastructure (the NRC could regulate plants worldwide), and enhanced safety since you're always coupled to a great heat sink and there are 0 people living within your evacuation zone. Anyway that's a bit far-fetched but I love the idea.

JamesBarney 10y ago
Wars don't seem like a big risk for nuclear plants. If war has escalated to the point nuclear plants are being bombed, it has escalated to the point that we're nuking each other.
- makmanalp 10y ago
  Isn't it a common thing to do in a war scenario to cut out the enemy's supplies? IIRC the brits did this a lot to the germans in WW2 with air bombing runs. If most power in the world switches to being nuclear eventually, doesn't that seem like a likely target? If you mean that people wouldn't escalate that far, that's a fickle thing to depend on! Saddam used nerve gas, even though there's treaties against that stuff. I guess it's a good thing that a lot of us live in a part of the world where the thought of war on the homeland is inconceivable, but I don't think it's that remote an idea. I'm from Turkey, which is a semi-developed country where conflict and bombings happen with some regularity, and nuclear power plants are being seriously discussed. So I hope that gives a bit more context to my concerns.
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    I'm not arguing things would not escalate that far. I'm arguing that things would not escalate so far that people are doing bombing runs on each others nuclear reactors without escalating to the point that nuclear weapons are used. At which point the damage from a cracked reactor seems minuscule in comparison.

JamesBarney 10y ago

Wars don't seem like a big risk for nuclear plants. If war has escalated to the point nuclear plants are being bombed, it has escalated to the point that we're nuking each other.

makmanalp 10y ago
Isn't it a common thing to do in a war scenario to cut out the enemy's supplies? IIRC the brits did this a lot to the germans in WW2 with air bombing runs. If most power in the world switches to being nuclear eventually, doesn't that seem like a likely target? If you mean that people wouldn't escalate that far, that's a fickle thing to depend on! Saddam used nerve gas, even though there's treaties against that stuff. I guess it's a good thing that a lot of us live in a part of the world where the thought of war on the homeland is inconceivable, but I don't think it's that remote an idea. I'm from Turkey, which is a semi-developed country where conflict and bombings happen with some regularity, and nuclear power plants are being seriously discussed. So I hope that gives a bit more context to my concerns.
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  I'm not arguing things would not escalate that far. I'm arguing that things would not escalate so far that people are doing bombing runs on each others nuclear reactors without escalating to the point that nuclear weapons are used. At which point the damage from a cracked reactor seems minuscule in comparison.