The news media has been reporting that our Nuclear Power plants are on high alert, but their reports suggest worry. Then this morning, it was reported that Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania received a threat. So, I thought that since this is an area I am most familiar with I would post some helpful information:
Containment Design: American Nuke Plants have three containment shields. The Outer or Seconddary Containment building, the Inner or Primary Containment, and the Vessel.
The Secondary Containment is a normal steel structure, and will shield accidents from within, but if enough force is used from the outside, they could give way.
The Primary Containment, however, is a very strong structure. A 1/4 thick wall design was tested with a fully fuel loaded jet crashing into it at over 500 mph. The wal was only scratched, while the plane disintegrated. The full design of the Primary Containment will withstand the load of a fully loaded 747 crashing into it.
Vessel Design The Vessel sits inside the the Primary Containment. It holds the nuclear fuel. It is about 30 ft in diameter, with 6 ft thick high stree walls of almost solid steel. Were a plane to magically make it through the Primary Containment, and hit the Vessel, it would not break through it. The Control Rods would instantly stop the nuclear reaction, and the Vessel would flood with water, making it safe.
Exploding Jet Fuel: But, "if" a plane made it through the Secondary and Primary Containments it would be so slowed down, that it would not be able to harm the Vessel. The burning jet fuel from the plane would seriously damage everything, but the design of the vessel would withstand this, as nuclear reactions run at super-heated conditions, and therefore the Vessel is designed to withstand these temperatures for sustained periods of months at a time. The four redundant systems in place would extinguish the jet fuel. And if those systems all failed, the on site emergency personnel and local fire departments are prepared and treained to bring the fire under control. By law, local fire departments within proximity of a nuclear plant much have the extra training and equipment to support the plant. The nuclear plant pays for this extra service.
Military Ground Action: Some have feared that a Nuke plant could be attacked from the ground, such as with commandos taking control. Ever since our entanglements with Iran in the late 1970s, every American Nuclear plant has had a highly trained Para-Military force on hand. While working at the plant, we were trained how to support them - mostly getting out of their way - while they held practice manuevers.
The Control Room: The heart of the plant is designed to close off the Control Room so that terrorists cannot take the nerve center. And it is equipped to house the plant personnel so that they can remain there for sustained periods.
Artillary Attacks: Assuming that terrorists can find a way to get artillary into the USA or obtain it somehow while here, they would have to be able to penetrate the security monitoring of each nuclear plant to get close enough to start an attack. The National Guard and Army would be called in if that security zone is breeched. However, if they succeeded, the Primary Containment and Vessel would be safe and withstand expected attacks.
Security at Entrances: American Plants have since the days of our entanglements with Iran been highly secure in both the background checks and the methods to screen out pronblems. The screening checks
far exceed anthing ever done at US Airports. To enter you have to go through several checks, and routine Pat Downs. God help you if you have anything that could pose a threat.
What IF Terrorists managed to take control? So what? What are they going to do? Before they could take control the plant would be in "Safe-Shut Down" mode and unable to restart without the knowledge and security controls in hand to do that. If the Terrorists managed to restart the Reactor and run it - what is the goal? To produce power? If they were attempting to run it until it failed, the safety systems would shut it down and they could not restart it. IF they could by-pass the safety systems - which is not really possible - then they could run it to met-down. So what? The Reactor cannot explode. And the Containment cannot be breeched, so it would met-down and stop.
What if Terrorists took bombs inside Containment? What if Terrorists took control of the facility and opened Containment, and then loaded it with bombs? So what? They could not get bombs into the Vessel, and any internal bombing of the Primary Containment would not harm the Vessel.
What IF they got into the Vessel? This requires special training and skills. And if they are not properly prepared then they would die from raidiation. Their willingness to die is not an issue, but their death would terminate their activity to harm the plant. But if they could open the Vessel and load it with bombs, then these bombs would have to be set off in a way that would cause the radioactive material to spew into the open air. And that will not happen given the Primary Containment design. The Vessel would absorb most of the expolsion. If they used a very large bomb, they could cause some serious problems and maybe send radioactive gasses into the air. If the bomb is big enough it could send material out to the public. But, for this to happen, many unlikely scenarios would have to take place.
Effectiveness: But, bombing the inside of a Nuclear Vessel would be a waste of time and energy since such bombs would be better used and more effective at a shopping center where lots of people are there and would die.
What about Spent Fuel? What if the Terrorists left the Plant alone, and took control long enough to get to the Spent Fuel Rods? I hope they try it. You don't go into a Nuclear Plant and take Spent Fuel Rods like they were cash from the drawer. They are long, extremelt heavy tube bundels about 30 ot 35 feet long. They are daqngerously radioactive. And once you get a fuel bundel out of the Spent Fuel Pool, then what to do with it becomes another problem. Continued handeling, loading onto a truck all are special activities that require the right equipment and training. The kind of training that a terrorists will not have, at least not in any American style plant.
Finally:I have strong confidence that American Nuclear Plants are safe from terrorism. There could be vulnerabilities I suppose, but I would not reveal these if they existed. Terrorists seem to do things quick and dirty to take control. Yes, the Terrorists on 9-11 went through training to fly a plane, they used all other normal proceedures to board the plane, and the used simply weapons (box cutters) to take control. That is not likely to happen ever again.
However, there are no simple ways to take control of a US Nuclear Plant even if the terrorist has some training in operating a nuclear plant. The trained terrorist in control of a plant cannot do much with it as its nature is not like a plane that can be manuevered to harm others, a nuclear plant has many fixed system and remote controls for emergencies, and terrorists attmepts to control can be too easily thwarted. And if they succeed to control, there is not much they can do but attempt to run the plant into unsafe modes forcing its automatic shut-down, or attempt to harm it in some other way. The logistics to do this makes an American nuclear plant an unlikely target.
Psychological Attacks on Nuke Plant: I would not be surprised that a few terrorists will attempt to attack a Nuclear Plant from the exterior and cause some exterior damage. The American Media is so sensationalistic that it will cause many people to be afraid. And it is this psychological effect that I most fear.
Amazing