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The wars in Ukraine and irán have also highlighted what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic.

The wars in Ukraine and irán have also highlighted what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic. The idea that such will never happen is as silly as the idea that there will never be an accident or a tsunami. But passive safety won't stop a missile.

senko 6mo ago
> what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic The same holds for hydro. Even worse, there would be no time for evacuation. Yet nobody is considering banning dams.
- foobarian 6mo ago
  Dams are just too good a source to ban them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station 60 GW planned capacity!
  - pksebben 6mo ago
    Both are good sources of energy. If you're going to make the argument that "nuclear is unsafe so we shouldn't do it" though, it's relevant to keep in mind that since we've had nuclear power, dam failures have outpaced nuclear by many times in terms of deaths / TwH (1). Edit to add: Before anyone jumps on for this it's important to note that without the Banquiao disaster the rates are about the same. Still means "nuclear is unsafe" is kind of a red herring. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- Dumblydorr 6mo ago
  Not in the same ballpark. Chernobyl nearly poisoned the entire continent’s water supply. Nuclear waste is far far worse than excess water.
  - lesuorac 6mo ago
    How would Chernobly poison all of Europe's (or you mean Asia's?) drinking water while all of our nuclear testing hasn't?
    - dh2022 6mo ago
      He probably meant Chernobyl accident was close to polluting Dnieper river downstream. Not quite the source of water for all of Europe.
  - leonidasrup 6mo ago
    Most of Europe drinks water from underground aquifers, which could not be affected by Chernobyl. Even breathing with air with radionuclides from Chernobyl in far distance from Chernobyl power plant didn't cause much radiation dose to the population. It was eating contaminated food and drinking contaminated milk that cause most radiation dose for population. The precise mechanism was: radioactive particles fall to ground, or are washed to ground by rain, which concentrates them on vegetation with a lot of surface especially leafy vegetables, grass. Leafy vegetables are eaten directly by humans. Grass is eaten by cows, which again concentrates the radionuclides in milk. Humans drink milk, eat cheese concentrated from milk. Not all radionuclides produced in nuclear fission have the same health impact on population in case of a nuclear disaster. To have a significant health hazard a radionuclide needs to have 3 properties: volatility, half-life, bioaccumulativity. Volatility - some radioactive elements (heavy metals) are not moved far away by air, some radioactive elements like radioactive noble gases dilute very fast. Stuff with a short half-life will transform into stable elements before migrating far. Stuff with with very long half-life will not produce much radiation during human lifetime. Bioaccumulativity, radioactive stuff needs to stay in body to do damage. If it's eaten and then pooped out next day it usually doesn't cause much damage. Most dangerous for general public in case of nuclear disasters are: Iodine-131 (half-life 8 days): Iodine is stored in thyroid gland and stays in for long time in body. Especially children need a lot of iodine per kilogram of body weight. In regions where there is not enough of iodine in food (lacking seafood, table salt without added iodine), human body will try to get every bit of iodine from environment and hold it in body as long as possible. Cesium-137 (half-time 30.04 years) : Alkali metal that forms salts. Has tendency to accumulate in soft tissues. Strontium-90 (half-time 28.91 years) : Chemically similar to calcium. Has tendency to be incorporated into bones, teeth and stay in body for very long time. https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q10097/ https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q10097/ Big part of radiation dose to the population could be prevented if the Soviet state didn't tried to cover up the Chernobyl and would prevent people from eating local food and milk, because most of the damage is done by eating iodine-131 in the first weeks after accident. Timely administration of potassium iodide tables would also help. Chernobyl liquidators were affected with much broader range of radionuclides (radioactive stuff that did not migrate far) and with much high concentrations (radioactive stuff was not diluted much). Direct deaths: 2 killed by debris (including 1 missing) and 28 killed by acute radiation sickness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster There many estimates about impact of Chernobyl disaster. I think the most comprehensive study is from Chernobyl Forum. "On the death toll of the accident, the report states that 28 emergency workers died from acute radiation syndrome and 15 patients died from thyroid cancer. It roughly estimates that cancers deaths caused by the Chernobyl accident might eventually reach a total of up to 4,000 among the 600,000 cleanup workers or "liquidators" who received the greatest exposures." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Forum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Forum
- leonidasrup 6mo ago
  "In August 1975, the Banqiao Dam and 61 others throughout Henan, China, collapsed following the landfall of Typhoon Nina. The dam collapse created the third-deadliest flood in history which affected 12,000 km2 (3 million acres) with a total population of 10.15 million, including around 30 cities and counties, with estimates of the death toll ranging from 26,000 to 240,000." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure "After the disaster, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government remained silent to the public, while no media were allowed to make reports." "The official documents of this disaster were considered a state secret until 2005 when they were declassified."
- leonidasrup 6mo ago
  Hydro dams have been attacked and destroyed during II. world war in Germany. The result was 1600 civilians killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise
downrightmike 6mo ago
That's why we have MADD
tokai 6mo ago
But still after +4 years of war, with extensive targeting of Ukrainian civilians, the nuclear power plants stand while the plants using gas etc. are bombed daily. They are simply too dangerous of a target. Russia enjoys using Zaporizhzhia power plant for some brinkmanship once in a while, but they are well aware of the risk and everything has turned out fine so far. If Ukraine didn't have nuclear energy they would be blacked out now.
- JohnCClarke 6mo ago
  Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant hasn't been bombed because (1) the Russians control it right now (it's behind their lines) so why would they, and (2) the Ukranians live downwind so why would they? Russia has bombed the switchyards and trandformers of other NPPs though.
UltraSane 6mo ago
Saying humanity should never use nuclear energy just because someone might shoot a missile at it is incredibly stupid when CO2 emissions are causing climate change.
- stop50 6mo ago
  If climate change prevention is the target, then its also an no for nuclear. Nuclear reactors need tons of cement, the fuel needs an complicated and energy intensive process with a lot of waste.
  - vanviegen 6mo ago
    Okay, but how do those emissions compare to burning fuel to gain the same amount of energy?
  - OneDonOne 6mo ago
    By that logic solar power should also be banned, due to the amount of coal required per panel (0) both for reduction and Czochralski process. And remember, solar panel factories don't run on solar power. (0) https://co2coalition.org/2024/05/21/coals-importance-for-solar-panel-manufacturing/ https://co2coalition.org/2024/05/21/coals-importance-for-sol...
    - markus92 6mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_Coalition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_Coalition
      - OneDonOne 6mo ago
        How does that change the fact that solar panels cannot be manufactured without high quality coal? (0) And doesn't that undermine the "cement for nuclear power" argument? (0) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we...
  - 6mo ago
philipallstar 6mo ago
A missile hitting a coal power plant will also be pretty bad, and there's not a giant shield around it.
- dctoedt 6mo ago
  > A missile hitting a coal power plant will also be pretty bad, and there's not a giant shield around it. Probably not even the same order of magnitude. A blown-up nuclear reactor would be WAY worse in short- and long-term effects (and cleanup costs) than a blown-up coal power plant producing comparable MW. (See: Fukushima and Chernobyl.)
  - leonidasrup 6mo ago
    I think it's an error that International Atomic Energy Agency classified both Fukushima nuclear accident and Chernobyl nuclear accident on International Nuclear Event Scale Level 7 (major accident). In both the amount of released radionuclides and health effects of the accidents, Chernobyl accident was much, much bigger than Fukushima.
  - AnthonyMouse 6mo ago
    Coal is shockingly nasty. Combustion concentrates heavy radioactive elements that are present in the coal. Coal and nuclear plants can't be built too close together or the exhaust from the coal plant will set off the radiation alarm at the nuclear plant. It also does the same thing to heavy metals in the coal like arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury. More than 90% of coal is carbon and therefore becomes CO2, but because of the huge difference in energy density, the coal plant has to burn millions of times more coal than nuclear reactors consume uranium, and thereby generates tens of thousands of times more toxic and radioactive coal ash than the nuclear plant generates nuclear waste. Then they put the stuff into "wet surface impoundments" which is industry for dumping the toxic sludge into a lake. Those things frequently poison entire towns without any kind of terrorist attack.
    - dctoedt 6mo ago
      Agreed — but we’re talking about a catastrophic missile strike, not longterm operations.
nitwit005 6mo ago
They were designed with that in mind though. They were built to withstand an plane crash or attack. You may have seen the famous test of ramming a F4 Phantom into a reinforced concrete walls without much effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4CX-9lkRMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4CX-9lkRMQ It's certainly possible to blow them up, but they very unlikely to melt down like Chernobyl did anymore due to all the effort put into preventing that. Easier to just launch radioactive materials at your enemy if that's the result you want.
- leonidasrup 6mo ago
  The containment building of new nuclear power plant has to withstand impact of large, commercial aircraft used for long distance flights, with aviation fuel loading typically used in such flights. § 50.150 Aircraft impact assessment. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/part050-0150 https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/p... Containment buildings for nuclear reactors are the strongest non-military buildings ever build. You need something much stronger than a small airplane, or simple drone, missile to breach it. Even a 155mm artillery granite or a anti-tank missile is not enough. You would probably need specialize bunker buster munition, or nuclear explosion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment_building The Russian army will not directly attack nuclear power plants in Ukraine. They could not gain much from release of radioactive material as the radioactive material would also migrate to Russia. The Russian army is attacking the infrastructure connecting power plants to the grid, to deny the electricity production. (And is attacking must power infrastructure in Ukraine). https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hits-several-key-ukraine-energy-facilities-kills-three-people-2025-11-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hits-several-key...
  - contubernio 6mo ago
    These safety mechanisms have not been tested. Error rather than intentional targetting has to be considered. Imagine a cruise missile (e.g. tomahawk) or a bunker buster bomb rather than an anti-tank missile. The premise that such plants will not be targetted may apply to Russia (I doubt it) but may not apply to Israel or the USA.

senko 6mo ago

> what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic The same holds for hydro. Even worse, there would be no time for evacuation. Yet nobody is considering banning dams.

foobarian 6mo ago
Dams are just too good a source to ban them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station 60 GW planned capacity!
- pksebben 6mo ago
  Both are good sources of energy. If you're going to make the argument that "nuclear is unsafe so we shouldn't do it" though, it's relevant to keep in mind that since we've had nuclear power, dam failures have outpaced nuclear by many times in terms of deaths / TwH (1). Edit to add: Before anyone jumps on for this it's important to note that without the Banquiao disaster the rates are about the same. Still means "nuclear is unsafe" is kind of a red herring. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
Dumblydorr 6mo ago
Not in the same ballpark. Chernobyl nearly poisoned the entire continent’s water supply. Nuclear waste is far far worse than excess water.
- lesuorac 6mo ago
  How would Chernobly poison all of Europe's (or you mean Asia's?) drinking water while all of our nuclear testing hasn't?
  - dh2022 6mo ago
    He probably meant Chernobyl accident was close to polluting Dnieper river downstream. Not quite the source of water for all of Europe.
- leonidasrup 6mo ago
  Most of Europe drinks water from underground aquifers, which could not be affected by Chernobyl. Even breathing with air with radionuclides from Chernobyl in far distance from Chernobyl power plant didn't cause much radiation dose to the population. It was eating contaminated food and drinking contaminated milk that cause most radiation dose for population. The precise mechanism was: radioactive particles fall to ground, or are washed to ground by rain, which concentrates them on vegetation with a lot of surface especially leafy vegetables, grass. Leafy vegetables are eaten directly by humans. Grass is eaten by cows, which again concentrates the radionuclides in milk. Humans drink milk, eat cheese concentrated from milk. Not all radionuclides produced in nuclear fission have the same health impact on population in case of a nuclear disaster. To have a significant health hazard a radionuclide needs to have 3 properties: volatility, half-life, bioaccumulativity. Volatility - some radioactive elements (heavy metals) are not moved far away by air, some radioactive elements like radioactive noble gases dilute very fast. Stuff with a short half-life will transform into stable elements before migrating far. Stuff with with very long half-life will not produce much radiation during human lifetime. Bioaccumulativity, radioactive stuff needs to stay in body to do damage. If it's eaten and then pooped out next day it usually doesn't cause much damage. Most dangerous for general public in case of nuclear disasters are: Iodine-131 (half-life 8 days): Iodine is stored in thyroid gland and stays in for long time in body. Especially children need a lot of iodine per kilogram of body weight. In regions where there is not enough of iodine in food (lacking seafood, table salt without added iodine), human body will try to get every bit of iodine from environment and hold it in body as long as possible. Cesium-137 (half-time 30.04 years) : Alkali metal that forms salts. Has tendency to accumulate in soft tissues. Strontium-90 (half-time 28.91 years) : Chemically similar to calcium. Has tendency to be incorporated into bones, teeth and stay in body for very long time. https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q10097/ https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q10097/ Big part of radiation dose to the population could be prevented if the Soviet state didn't tried to cover up the Chernobyl and would prevent people from eating local food and milk, because most of the damage is done by eating iodine-131 in the first weeks after accident. Timely administration of potassium iodide tables would also help. Chernobyl liquidators were affected with much broader range of radionuclides (radioactive stuff that did not migrate far) and with much high concentrations (radioactive stuff was not diluted much). Direct deaths: 2 killed by debris (including 1 missing) and 28 killed by acute radiation sickness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster There many estimates about impact of Chernobyl disaster. I think the most comprehensive study is from Chernobyl Forum. "On the death toll of the accident, the report states that 28 emergency workers died from acute radiation syndrome and 15 patients died from thyroid cancer. It roughly estimates that cancers deaths caused by the Chernobyl accident might eventually reach a total of up to 4,000 among the 600,000 cleanup workers or "liquidators" who received the greatest exposures." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Forum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Forum
leonidasrup 6mo ago
"In August 1975, the Banqiao Dam and 61 others throughout Henan, China, collapsed following the landfall of Typhoon Nina. The dam collapse created the third-deadliest flood in history which affected 12,000 km2 (3 million acres) with a total population of 10.15 million, including around 30 cities and counties, with estimates of the death toll ranging from 26,000 to 240,000." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure "After the disaster, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government remained silent to the public, while no media were allowed to make reports." "The official documents of this disaster were considered a state secret until 2005 when they were declassified."
leonidasrup 6mo ago
Hydro dams have been attacked and destroyed during II. world war in Germany. The result was 1600 civilians killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise

downrightmike 6mo ago

That's why we have MADD

tokai 6mo ago

But still after +4 years of war, with extensive targeting of Ukrainian civilians, the nuclear power plants stand while the plants using gas etc. are bombed daily. They are simply too dangerous of a target. Russia enjoys using Zaporizhzhia power plant for some brinkmanship once in a while, but they are well aware of the risk and everything has turned out fine so far. If Ukraine didn't have nuclear energy they would be blacked out now.

JohnCClarke 6mo ago
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant hasn't been bombed because (1) the Russians control it right now (it's behind their lines) so why would they, and (2) the Ukranians live downwind so why would they? Russia has bombed the switchyards and trandformers of other NPPs though.

UltraSane 6mo ago

Saying humanity should never use nuclear energy just because someone might shoot a missile at it is incredibly stupid when CO2 emissions are causing climate change.

stop50 6mo ago
If climate change prevention is the target, then its also an no for nuclear. Nuclear reactors need tons of cement, the fuel needs an complicated and energy intensive process with a lot of waste.
- vanviegen 6mo ago
  Okay, but how do those emissions compare to burning fuel to gain the same amount of energy?
- OneDonOne 6mo ago
  By that logic solar power should also be banned, due to the amount of coal required per panel (0) both for reduction and Czochralski process. And remember, solar panel factories don't run on solar power. (0) https://co2coalition.org/2024/05/21/coals-importance-for-solar-panel-manufacturing/ https://co2coalition.org/2024/05/21/coals-importance-for-sol...
  - markus92 6mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_Coalition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_Coalition
    - OneDonOne 6mo ago
      How does that change the fact that solar panels cannot be manufactured without high quality coal? (0) And doesn't that undermine the "cement for nuclear power" argument? (0) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we...
- 6mo ago

philipallstar 6mo ago

A missile hitting a coal power plant will also be pretty bad, and there's not a giant shield around it.

dctoedt 6mo ago
> A missile hitting a coal power plant will also be pretty bad, and there's not a giant shield around it. Probably not even the same order of magnitude. A blown-up nuclear reactor would be WAY worse in short- and long-term effects (and cleanup costs) than a blown-up coal power plant producing comparable MW. (See: Fukushima and Chernobyl.)
- leonidasrup 6mo ago
  I think it's an error that International Atomic Energy Agency classified both Fukushima nuclear accident and Chernobyl nuclear accident on International Nuclear Event Scale Level 7 (major accident). In both the amount of released radionuclides and health effects of the accidents, Chernobyl accident was much, much bigger than Fukushima.
- AnthonyMouse 6mo ago
  Coal is shockingly nasty. Combustion concentrates heavy radioactive elements that are present in the coal. Coal and nuclear plants can't be built too close together or the exhaust from the coal plant will set off the radiation alarm at the nuclear plant. It also does the same thing to heavy metals in the coal like arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury. More than 90% of coal is carbon and therefore becomes CO2, but because of the huge difference in energy density, the coal plant has to burn millions of times more coal than nuclear reactors consume uranium, and thereby generates tens of thousands of times more toxic and radioactive coal ash than the nuclear plant generates nuclear waste. Then they put the stuff into "wet surface impoundments" which is industry for dumping the toxic sludge into a lake. Those things frequently poison entire towns without any kind of terrorist attack.
  - dctoedt 6mo ago
    Agreed — but we’re talking about a catastrophic missile strike, not longterm operations.

nitwit005 6mo ago

They were designed with that in mind though. They were built to withstand an plane crash or attack. You may have seen the famous test of ramming a F4 Phantom into a reinforced concrete walls without much effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4CX-9lkRMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4CX-9lkRMQ It's certainly possible to blow them up, but they very unlikely to melt down like Chernobyl did anymore due to all the effort put into preventing that. Easier to just launch radioactive materials at your enemy if that's the result you want.

leonidasrup 6mo ago
The containment building of new nuclear power plant has to withstand impact of large, commercial aircraft used for long distance flights, with aviation fuel loading typically used in such flights. § 50.150 Aircraft impact assessment. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/part050-0150 https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/p... Containment buildings for nuclear reactors are the strongest non-military buildings ever build. You need something much stronger than a small airplane, or simple drone, missile to breach it. Even a 155mm artillery granite or a anti-tank missile is not enough. You would probably need specialize bunker buster munition, or nuclear explosion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment_building The Russian army will not directly attack nuclear power plants in Ukraine. They could not gain much from release of radioactive material as the radioactive material would also migrate to Russia. The Russian army is attacking the infrastructure connecting power plants to the grid, to deny the electricity production. (And is attacking must power infrastructure in Ukraine). https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hits-several-key-ukraine-energy-facilities-kills-three-people-2025-11-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hits-several-key...
- contubernio 6mo ago
  These safety mechanisms have not been tested. Error rather than intentional targetting has to be considered. Imagine a cruise missile (e.g. tomahawk) or a bunker buster bomb rather than an anti-tank missile. The premise that such plants will not be targetted may apply to Russia (I doubt it) but may not apply to Israel or the USA.