North wrote:

On 6 May 2005 17:25:31 GMT, Dave Hinz said:


On Sat, 7 May 2005 00:46:28 +1000, DBM wrote:

"...TMI or any other USA'n reactor can NOT fail in the same way as
Chernoby..."

While I would like to be reassured by your statement, Mr Murphy would
probably shrug his shoulders and say 'So? They'll just find some
OTHER way to FUBAR...'

Do you have any science better than Murphy's Law with which to back up
your thoughts?


No matter how 'safe' you make something, there's aways the chance of a
'what if' or '**** happens'. For example, what if some terrorist
somehow snuck into the core of a reactor wearing a backpack nuke ?
You see, rather unlikely, but '**** happens'

It's pretty hard to sneak into the core of
something that's running at about 2000 psi
and 2000 degrees. Maybe you meant "building"
or "containment" or "parking lot".

I've been up close to 5 nuclear reactors in
my life. Not in the core, mind you, but I've
stood over the pressure vessel at WPPS 2 and
been as close to N reactor as any un-suited
up civilian could be. While they were running.
N reactor has been decommisioned, but WPP 2
is still up and running.

I've also worked on security systems that
guard SNM and I've had an AEC "Q" clearance
so I kinda know what I'm talking about.

I'm not going to speak of the security that I've
seen at nuclear plants except to say that it's
very intense. And they've certainly considered
the scenario of a terrorist with a backpack bomb.