If you want to get spooky about it and do some really questionable research, I think you'll discover that post-2001 nuclear closures have been heavily influenced by their vulnerability to attack. Frank Barnaby published a book in 2004 called How To Build A Nuclear Bomb that, contrary to the title, is mostly about improvised and non-state-actor-level WMD attacks and strategies. His nightmare scenario was a 747 out of Heathrow hijacked upon takeoff and diverted to impact at Calder Hall. He observed that with vessel thicknesses designed in the '50s, Calder Hall was completely vulnerable to the impact of a large commercial airliner (and, despite being designed in the '50s, completely invulnerable to anything less than that). By 2004, of course, Calder Hall was already being decommissioned. I did further research because that's what you do when you're a writer. STNP, by contrast, was designed to withstand the impact of a large commercial jetliner. More than that, the NRC requires US reactors to pass an Aircraft Impact Assessment if they are to keep operating. Vessel breach on a nuclear reactor is a big deal - as it turns out, a much bigger deal than most amateurs can guess. Odds are good that anybody with the knowledge to carry out a targeted frontal assault on a nuclear reactor will recognize that the amount of ordnance and planning necessary can be more efficiently applied elsewhere. Beyond that, containment has been the fundamental design parameter for pretty much all modern reactors, of which I would consider Turkey Point an exemplar. Three Mile Island was a wicked bad meltdown. Radiation from Three Mile Island didn't broach 1mrem over background. Fukushima? Certainly not great... but radiation exposure there was largely a local problem. Now - shall we talk about real fallout? The data likely isn't there because the critical release you care about requires the kind of violence where you've likely got other problems. You can't just crack a reactor like an egg and if you've got the kind of juice to crack a reactor like an egg, you can do more impactful things like, well. You know. 9/11.
Regarding the case study itself, I gathered a private for the national guard wouldn't have had the resources to pull off the stint, but the evidence towards outside help in cracking the egg apparently was worth note. Had a facepalm moment understanding the difference in info I was looking for from NRC and the case in your last example. Running back to Turkey Point's wiki page, I found the sources I needed,. Guess that rules out: "this is a problem that hasn't been addressed". Thanks for the insight, as always. Perhaps specifying the question further like affected wetlands, property damage/insurance coverages, etc. Hm.Vessel breach on a nuclear reactor is a big deal - as it turns out, a much bigger deal than most amateurs can guess. Odds are good that anybody with the knowledge to carry out a targeted frontal assault on a nuclear reactor will recognize that the amount of ordnance and planning necessary can be more efficiently applied elsewhere.
Beyond that, containment has been the fundamental design parameter for pretty much all modern reactors, of which I would consider Turkey Point an exemplar. [...] The data likely isn't there because the critical release you care about requires the kind of violence where you've likely got other problems. You can't just crack a reactor like an egg and if you've got the kind of juice to crack a reactor like an egg, you can do more impactful things like, well. You know. 9/11.
It would be worth laying out the sheer violence necessary. The DTIC will happily help you out. You're looking for damage category B (perforation), thickness of slab over a meter. It appears that a 22kg shaped charge will perforate a 1.2m reinforced concrete wall. We're on beyond ammonia weapons here, by the way, although Tim McVeigh kinda sorta shaped the OKC bomb. He also had 6200lbs of "energetic materials" or 5,000lb of TNT (2.5kT for those keeping track at home). Turkey Point, bless their hearts, has a cutaway of their setup: So. to perf the reactor vessel in a properly showy fashion you have to broach: - 3-4 feet of reinforced concrete. Clearly, our 22kg shaped charge will do that. - 2 inches of steel. not tough at all in splendid isolation, more challenging when surrounded by concrete. - an air gap. Excellent for dissipating kinetic energy. - 3-7 feet of concrete shielding. between 25 and...? worth of explosive, after the concrete, the steel and the air gap. - Another air gap. - 8-9 inches of steel. So... it's certainly possible to do this level of damage. You might be able to do it with a ryder truck full of explosives. But you're effectively trying to break open a bank vault in a concrete bunker in a bank vault in a concrete bunker. Set aside for a moment the fact that you're the master of the universe if you can sneak this level of malfeasance next to a reactor. Mad props. A bigger concern, I think, is that any anticipated fallout pattern is going to be highly sensitive to the style of breach. I think (not sure, but think) you're in bunker-buster territory and most of your dissipation is going to be from the primary breach event. At which point it isn't even really a "reactor" question anymore, it's an "impressive amounts of KE" question.
Best I can situate the proposal at this rate is pulling a trick from entry-level physics and asking my audience to imagine for a moment that this breach occurred in a vacuum for the sake of the map itself. Though, this would be silly to dismiss given the info provided. Looks like St. Lucie's got the same, if not similar, set up. I think (not sure, but think) you're in bunker-buster territory and most of your dissipation is going to be from the primary breach event. At which point it isn't even really a "reactor" question anymore, it's an "impressive amounts of KE" question.
We got smarter people on here when it comes to nuclear power. A major issue that nuclear proponents don't like to talk about is what to do with the byproducts. They're radioactive for a long time and we've been playing Hot Potato with high level waste since the Manhattan Project. People who Want To Believe will generally mention thorium reactors about here but the most enthusiastic endorsement I've ever gotten out of any of the nuclear scientists I know has been "...yeah, maybe but there hasn't been a lot of compelling evidence to research it, really." Bill McKibben dismisses nuclear power because without subsidy it's more expensive than coal or wind. "Subsidy", to my mind, is a great way to negate "externality" . I don't think the issue is that simple. My father is decidedly pro nuclear power. But then, he once made a terrified trucker take 4 showers before he realized his geiger counter gave a false positive if he twisted the shield towards the sun. I'm of the opinion that most of the public discomfort with nuclear power comes from fear and distrust and that "dirty bombs" are a psychological weapon that works once at which point everyone figures out that the whole world is kinda radioactive and we deal with it just fine. But I'm also not entirely convinced that the very permanent and expensive drawbacks to nuclear power are negated by their efficiency and environmental friendliness. In other words, I don't know what to think but I sure do think a lot.