Dealing with Nuclear Disaster

Numbereleven Web Site ^ | July 20th, 2002 | James Bredin

[shamus11]

The terrorist attack on NY City should have alerted us to the fact that if these terrorists had chosen a nuclear reactor as their target, they could have caused the same reaction as a nuclear bomb.

Government officials and nuclear lobbyists want us to shut our eyes to this reality.

[shamus11]

Dealing with Nuclear Disaster

By

James Bredin

It’s obvious to anyone with a brain in their head,
We’re talking cancer and an awful lot of dead,
Nuclear power plants are sitting nuclear bombs,
Waiting for terrorists not known for their qualms.

Sorry to disturb your peaceful placid dreams,
Planted by nuclear lobbyists of government regimes,
What happened in New York on September eleven,
Should teach us that we’re not that far from heaven.

Or hell in a nuclear nightmare stuck on the highway,
Wth two million others fleeing the radiation flyway,
After the hijacked jet plane crashed the power plant,
Despite the nuclear nerds who said terrorists can’t.

Meltdown can play havoc with nuclear reactors,
Despite the calculations and factors of detractors,
As if Chernobyl and Three Mile Island didn’t occur,
Can’t learn from history – that would be absurd.

Their technology they say is superb and superior,
Only they know what goes on in a reactor interior,
Their nuclear cult of university higher education,
We should be proud of their scientific creation.

We’re helpless nothings watching from the side,
With no place to hide, may end up being fried,
Get up from this trench; the bullets don’t hurt,
Believe in the leadership but don’t stay too alert.

But sir I was thinking ‘bout that big mushroom cloud,
The one you said couldn’t happen; you vowed,
Remember when you spoke about public security,
You mentioned the environment, Kyoto, and air purity.

I’m sorry I wasn’t paying too much attention,
The trivia of the day caught my comprehension,
Remember they said that everything was dependable,
And now it appears we’re all quite expendable.

Nuclear

[Willie Green]

"It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use and authority of reason as to administer medication to the dead."

-- Thomas Jefferson

[Vidalia]

How Cute! It's Another Antagonistic Loonatic!

[Willie Green]

Mr. Bredin is merely a poetic technophobe.
He'd probably be happiest sitting on some Himalayan mountaintop,
contemplating the cosmic signficance of wooly-bear caterpillars.

[Capitalist Eric]

Nuclear power plants are sitting nuclear bombs

This initial statement demonstrates your utter ignorance with regard to nuclear power plants. Unlike you, I have been trained on a variety of nuclear reactor designs, qualified and operated them. Unlike you, I have a clear understanding of the construction, physics involved, containment issues, radiation issues, contamination and neutron-embrittlement issues associated with nuclear power.

Unlike you, I know how stupid your attempt at poetry truly is...

[SevenDaysInMay]

Just why a few tanks, armored Humvees, and a serious AAA unit are not at every Nuke plant escapes me.

A creative mob with a homemade shaped charge in a Cessna, a bobtail, tanker, or boat or all four at once could ruin hundreds of square miles. Our political leadership is mired in socialist agenda electioneering while our domestic "civil" defense remains feckless because our resources are mismanaged and unbudgeted.

Democrats and Republicans, a pox on both your houses. Oops. None of us are prepared for a pox.

[Capitalist Eric]

My mistake- I thought you wrote this idiotic poem. My apologies...

[Capitalist Eric]

A creative mob with a homemade shaped charge in a Cessna, a bobtail, tanker, or boat or all four at once could ruin hundreds of square miles.

Umm...

NOT!

A common misconception born from lack of technical knowledge about the subject being discussed...

Sorry, but you're simply wrong.

[Chad Bagwell]

If plastic explosives won't blow up a reator will an anti-tank gun? Or worse, how bout a suitcase nuke? How bout multiple suitcase nukes? We know Russia "lost" a few.

[SevenDaysInMay]

Sorry, but more than a bit of engineering at university tells me otherwise. Probabilistic risk assesment indicates to me that many nuke power stations and a quite a few storage sites are ripe for long-term social choas from breach of radiative material storage integrity.

Destruction of energy producing rods to 'China syndrome' is not the only plume source, but 4 or 5 feet of concrete can be pierced. (The Japanese wall test with the F-4 was somewhat unrealistic for this era of state sponsored terrorism.) The panic over the steam fart of Three Mile Island is only a hint of what is to come.

Any belief that attackers of a nuke facility would not be well trained and numerous is foolishness.

[Movemout]

"He'd probably be happiest sitting on some Himalayan mountaintop, contemplating the cosmic signficance of wooly-bear caterpillars. "

No he would be contemplating the lint in his belly button with a thumb in his mouth and the other in his butt and playing switch.

[MD_Willington_1976]

Maybe they should worry about the LPG (liquified petroleum gas) ships and storage facilities as well that are in that area, that much LPG could cause one hell of an inferno...

[kancel]

How come this poem makes me feel like loading up a game of SimCity?

[Ipberg]

James Bredin's inane little poems belong on Free Dominion (the pale imitation of Free Republics for Canadians), with the other useless chatter.

[aruanan]

The terrorist attack on NY City should have alerted us to the fact that if these terrorists had chosen a nuclear reactor as their target, they could have caused the same reaction as a nuclear bomb.

Public reaction? Maybe. Nuclear reaction? Definitely not. Chernobyl had very little effect on the health of the inhabitants of the region (the public relations disaster caused far more health problems than the radiation did--with the exception of some technicians who died, the surrounding population received far less radiation than is common background radiation in other parts of the world where there are no health consequences at all). And Three Mile Island was to Chernobyl what a gecko lizard is to a Tyrannosaur.

It’s obvious to anyone with a brain in their head,
We’re talking cancer and an awful lot of dead,
Nuclear power plants are sitting nuclear bombs,
Waiting for terrorists not known for their qualms.

Likewise, this is just moronic. Anyone with a brain in his head--and the least little understanding of nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs--would recognize it as such. As penance for posting such crap, you must read Before It's Too Late, a Scientist's Case FOR Nuclear Energy by Bernard Cohen, this summary of the UNSCEAR report on Chernobyl titled Chernobyl According To UNSCEAR by Zbigniew Jaworowski, Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw , Weapon of Terror - NOT, and Nuclear terrorism: facts and fantasies by Fred Singer in the April 5, 2002 Washington Times.

[aruanan]

If plastic explosives won't blow up a reator will an anti-tank gun? Or worse, how bout a suitcase nuke? How bout multiple suitcase nukes? We know Russia "lost" a few.

Ha ha ha. If someone had a suitcase nuke, there'd be better targets than nuclear "reators" to use it on.

[Nebullis]

We’re talking cancer and an awful lot of dead...

"Fallout" from Chernobyl, the worst nuclear plant disaster in history:

Plant workers killed from acute radiation exposure (burns): 28.

Deaths due to thyroid cancer, the only cancer directly attributable to the accident: 10-20.

Now, get this: consequences and sequella related to fearmongering: thousands of terminated pregnancies, great increases in early mortality due to depression, trauma, and alcoholism.

Are you trying to spread unfounded fears?

[nmh]

Have an alternative to nuclear power? If so, what is it? Make your mark and promote it. Otherwise understand that anything has risk when lunatics attack you.

[Capitalist Eric]

With regard to an ant-tank gun, it is possible to do significant damage to a power plant... With a tactical thermonuclear ("suitcase") nuke? Definitely.

However, I would doubt, from a strategic standpoint (in a terrorist's eyes) that nuking a nuke power plant would be the best bang for the proverbial buck. If one had access to a live nuke warhead, one wouldn't necessarily want to attack such a relatively mundane target. A far more juicy way to approach the problem would be to vaporize the center of a major metropolitan area- Wall Street, Washington D.C., Chicago, L.A., etc. Why bother spreading radioactive fallout in an out-of-the-way location (where power plants are located) when you could have a much bigger impact- especially in the media- by wreaking havoc on a major city???

From a strategy standpoint, I doubt anyone would seriously consider using a suitcase nuke against a nuclear power plant.

[Capitalist Eric]

Sorry, but more than a bit of engineering at university tells me otherwise.

You can talk to anybody you like. Unlike University plebes, I've been in the field, running plants, maintaining them... Hell, I've even been involved on the refueling itself.

Probabilistic risk assesment indicates to me that many nuke power stations and a quite a few storage sites are ripe for long-term social choas from breach of radiative material storage integrity.

For what material? What concentration? What Curie content and what type of radiation? What is your data? What was your statistical model, and what assumptions were used? What were the null hypotheses, and what were your confidence intervals?

Destruction of energy producing rods to 'China syndrome' is not the only plume source, but 4 or 5 feet of concrete can be pierced. (The Japanese wall test with the F-4 was somewhat unrealistic for this era of state sponsored terrorism.) The panic over the steam fart of Three Mile Island is only a hint of what is to come.

A nonsensical statement on the face of it...

Any belief that attackers of a nuke facility would not be well trained and numerous is foolishness.

Any belief in your own credibility is self-delusion.