"...high threat area for terrison..."

Back when I used to follow this kind of stuff, every year various law enforcement "SWAT" teams form across the country had a competition. As far as I can recall, those guys who guard reactors and other "glow in the dark" stuff won. Every year. Year after year. So I like to assume (always dangerous) that they can do a pretty good job of defending a reactor...

Although a nuke plant seems like a juicy target for terrorists, the chances of anyone getting inside and actually being able to make a nuclear power plant do something spectacular like melt down is incredibly, incredibly remote. Accidents and human error are far more likely to lead to something bad happening, than a terrorist attack, and even that risk is very, very small.

The greatest impact of a terrorist attack on a nuke plant, like a dirty bomb, is going to be psychological. Just look at the fear that people still have of the Three Mile Island incident. There was no explosion, no "China Syndrome", no escape of radioactive materials except a tiny bit of radioactive steam. I read that the residents surrounding TMI got more radiation from Chernobyl from the radioactive dust particles that travelled on the winds around the world, than they did from TMI, just down the road. It's unfortunate that the truth of TMI isn't well known. Everyone just remembers all the hysteria and conjecture while it was happening, but no one knew what the heck was actually going on inside the reactor until much later, and by then, the public wasn't interested anymore.

An old, decommissioned nuke plant might have low grade radioactive materials that might be a target, but nothing that dangerous to you. I mean, perhaps they could steal a truckload of barrels of radioactive cooling water or something like that, but the getaway truck would have to drive by your house and overturn on your front lawn for it to pose any risk to you. I'm being facetious, of course, but the risk is super tiny. I'm sure that the most radioactive components, like spent fuel rods, have been removed. There's nothing there that is going to melt down and explode or something like that.

There will not be a nuclear explosion. Even fresh fuel rods do not have enough fissile material to sustain a nuclear chain reaction and detonate.

I was only using a hypothetical, and it is within the realm of possibility that one could be near a nuclear explosion, without it being caused by fuel rods.

In today's ridiculously sensitive environment EVERYTHING is a "terrorist target."

Dams, bridges, elementary schools, muni water supplies, city intersections, gast stations, the Sheriff's daughter..... everything is a terrorist target depending on who you ask.

It would be real difficult to hurt a reactor plant to make it release fission products. It would take a lot of knowlege and significant time. IT WILL NOT DETONATE WITH NUCLEAR YIELD. IT CANNOT BE MADE TO DO SO.

The biggest damage would be scoring a PR victory when the deed made the news. The media, being unable to distinguish between a sparkler and a thermonuclear device, would immediately demand the President surrender the country to the terrorists to prevent incinerating the planet.

No, you can't get a "nuclear explosion" (as in a nuclear bomb) out of a reactor. Wrong fuel, wrong geometry, etc. The physics doesn't work.

What you can get are steam explosions caused by "power excursions". This is what happened to Chernobyl and why we have containment structures. The reactor starts producing enormous amounts of heat and in a few seconds flashes all of the cooling water to steam, along with any other volatiles nearby. The result is like a steam boiler explosion, only with potentially a lot more energy and radioactive volatiles mixed in...

Much goes into preventing this sort of thing, and other problems. Terrorist attacks aren't likely to accomplish anything since the first thing the operator does in the control room is hit the SCRAM button to shut things down. A more likely failure is enough people making enough stupid mistakes the designers never thought to explicitly disallow in the design.

The biggest problem is likely to be panic in the public. If the containment structure isn't breached you're more likely to die on the highway in a traffic accident trying to get out of town than from anything from the reactor. Even reports of "radioactive steam" release aren't something to panic over.

Now, if there's a steam explosion that blows the containment structure off and chunks of graphite are found in the lake that is the local water supply, then it's time to panic, just like any other time a city loses its water supply.

KI4U sells Potassium Iodide and radiation meters/detectors of various kinds.

PS. Three Mile Island was a serious accident in that the reactor core/fuel partially melted. But containment worked and nobody was injured or killed.

Pretty much EVERYONE on the coasts is 4 hours from a nuke plant

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist1.htm#PA

1. I think you misread my post. I didn't think I said that you could get a nuclear explosion from a reactor. My comment that it was possible to be near one, that was not caused by fuel rods. I know that it is possible to be near a nuclear explosion that does not involve fuel rods, Hiroshima was one. My comment was to assume you were near a nuclear explosion, and if so, what can or should one do.



2. Now, that's right on. If one was near a nuclear explosion (assuming a worse case scenario) the size of the Hiroshima bomb, panic is very likely to be the biggest problem. If you are a couple miles away, you might not even be able to measure radiation from such an event. That does not mean people outside of two or three miles will not be in a panic. But there is more danger in that panic than in sitting tight.

If you found measurable radiation a few miles away, then it might be because of fallout, particles of debris that are radioactive that are deposited a distance away from a nuclear explosion. Your home is very likely to be your best protection. It's a bigger thicker shield than anything you can put on. Also, RADs drop quickly after any nuclear explosion. So, if you shield yourself for the first few hours or maybe days, you may be at a lower your risks from exposure than if you grabbed your BOB and fled.

Your best bet is probably to shield yourself as much as you can, and if possible, retreat to a safe room with clean, filtered air. But you are going to need to have that room prepared ahead of time.

Actually, we might all have been wrong, and Dan the "least wrong" (I won't say "correct" Dan since you didn't mention any of this <grin>). Mountainboy, is there a nuclear power plant in Oak Ridge? For some reason, I can't find a definitive answer to that.

I don't know why it didn't register before, but we're all thinking of a commercial, nuclear power plant like Three Mile Island. So, we're all concentrating on "nucular plant" but forget the other part. The name "Oak Ridge" includes a lot of different stuff. There's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, there are WWII era uranium enrichment facillities (the "K-25 Building"), and the current Y-12 National Security Complex. I'm sure there are other facillities there. Y-12 is a nuclear weapons production facility.

So, Mountainboy, depending on what you're actually referring to, the risk is going to vary. I doubt any terrorist wants to attack Oak Ridge National Lab because they just do research and they don't have any fissionable materials there. Y-12 on the other hands, must be full of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

OBG was mentioning how the nuclear security teams always kick butt at competitions, which I found surprising. I usually only hear stories like this or this or this about their security. Besides, the Dept of Energy, or the private security firms that DOE hires, don't seem like the kinds of jobs that the really good high speed, low drag types would want to join. Where's the glamour? Actually, that DOE "red team" in the Time article sounds like a cool job.

As far as the likelihood of anything happening under any circumstances, I am not about to think I'm qualified to evaluate those risks. I'm not qualified to figure out what the likelihood of any nuclear incident. I couldn't get into those classes, since I did so lousy in physics.

However, I have thought some about what to do in case of an incident. How does one prepare for that possibility. Since I've seen the issue of a dirty bomb in NYC mentioned, it's something I've thought about mostly in that context, but also with looking at the remote possibility that someone could set off a small nuclear bomb. I also think that many of the thigns you would and could do to prepare for such an incident are the same things you would do to prepare in case of a chemical attack or spill, or in case of a nuclear attack or a pandemic. If radiation, poisonous chemicals or nasty viruses, bacteria or other organisms could be out and out in your area, knowing what to do and preparing for the possibilties is not a bad idea. How far you take your preparations may have some cost/benefit and risk likelihood analysis, but learning about about what you could do if it did happen right now, that may only cost you time.

And as James_Van_Artsdalen correctly recognized not panicing is key. However, knowing what to do goes a long way toward not panicing. I've seen panic. At first, you often see someone freeze and do nothing. Usually, they simply do not know the right thing to do. The brain freezes seeking information to make a good decision, but if the information is not there, that frozen brain is not usually going to do a decent analysis of the problems it faces. Once that , then you often see someone follow the crowd and stampeding off more potential danger than they would have been if they sat still.

Thinking about what to do "IF" helps avoid panic. Doing some homework helps too. Also, drills and other preparations help.