3 ms·
Potentially. I'd worry more about coolant and power (to run the coolant pumps if the plant has to shut down) than about direct hits on a containment structure,
by throwanem 5y ago
Potentially. I'd worry more about coolant and power (to run the coolant pumps if the plant has to shut down) than about direct hits on a containment structure, but it's not like that won't eventually also cause problems if they keep doing it.
This is, so far as I know, the first time anyone has carried out a military attack on an operating nuclear plant. Nobody knows yet how that really plays out. But it looks like we all get to find out.
- lupire 5y agoWe know what happened in Japan when an earthquake attacked a nuclear plant.
- Gare 5y agoTechnically, it was tsunami that caused trouble.
- adastra22 5y agoIt’s not comparable because the type of damage is totally different.
- hinkley 5y agoThe type of damage at Fukushima was anticipated to be survivable as well, was it not? And yet here we are.
- throwanem 5y agoFukushima was explicitly a beyond-design-basis accident. (The design basis was insufficient, granted.) On the other hand, I don't know whether the VVER design contemplates shelling, either.
- _dain_ 5y ago>This is, so far as I know, the first time anyone has carried out a military attack on a nuclear plant The Israelis bombed an Iraqi plant in the 80s I think.
- nickff 5y agoYou're talking about Operation Opera, which was an attack on the unfinished Osirak reactor in Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera
- throwanem 5y agoStill a fair callout. Edited my original comment to clarify.
- michaelmrose 5y agoThe bombed an unfinished plant that they believed would have been critical in paving the way for a belligerent dictator to obtain nuclear weapons courtesy of short sighted idiots in Europe. Both the Iranians and the Israelis actually bombed the site one different operations in different years. Thereafter Saddam is now known to have said. "Once Iraq walks out victorious [over Iran], there will not be any Israel" It was both justified and didn't represent the risk that attacking this reactor represents.
- kart23 5y agoI'd classify stuxnet as a military attack.
- throwanem 5y agoSo would I. But that was targeted at fuel production, not power generation, and also to my admittedly imperfect knowledge involved no artillery fire.