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From: mark@teltone.UUCP (Mark McWiggins)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Nuclear Nonsense
Message-ID: <687@teltone.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Aug-84 02:00:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: teltone.687
Posted: Fri Aug 24 02:00:49 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Aug-84 14:02:33 EDT
Organization: Teltone Corp., Kirkland, WA
Lines: 56

>> == ?
>  == Henry Spencer

>> Nuclear power plants are sitting ducks, and taking one out - done 'properly'
>> can make entire regions unihabitable.  For example, a Scientific American
>> article some time ago pointed out that a single atomic bomb dropped on the
>> right nuclear power plant during normal wind conditions could contaminate
>> the ENTIRE RUHR INDUSTRIAL REGION for decades.

> Later commentary on that article pointed out that a nuclear power plant
> isn't exactly a "sitting duck":  Western nuclear plants (as opposed to
> the Soviet ones) are probably the toughest structures ever built by man.
> They are built to shrug off direct hits by crashing airliners, after all.
> Hitting one of them with a missile would need silo-killing accuracy, and
> missiles with silo-killing accuracy will have more important targets in
> a war...

How reassuring.

> Splattering a nuclear plant would also be a rather stupid thing to do.
> Making a large and immensely valuable industrial area uninhabitable for
> years is the sort of mistake that generals get shot for.

As I understand it, the nuclear strategies of both superpowers involve
plans to do just this.  That's what the generals get PAID, not shot, for.

>> ....................................................  What's more, if you
>> get the coolant input pipes you can cause a melt down without too much
>> trouble.  Presto chango, no one can live nearby for years, if not centuries.

> The most likely result of a meltdown, actually, is a hell of a mess within
> the reactor building, and perhaps immediately underneath it, but not much
> of a problem outside.  Why do you think those nice thick containment walls
> are there?

"Most likely" according to some computer model or what?  Pardon my skepticism.

>> Actually, all centralized power plants have defense problems because of
>> the major disruptions caused when they are destroyed.

> No argument.  But this applies to many things in an industrial civilization,
> not just power plants.

>> Nuclear plants 
>> compound the problem since the radioactive fuel can be used as a weapon.

> Only if you've got a nuclear weapon, or something close, to liberate it
> with.

Oh, come ON!  Nuclear weapons aren't to liberate anything: they're to 
destroy.  It isn't even necessary to "liberate" it: the West is SELLING
it.  Why do you think the Israelis bombed that Iraqi reactor?
-- 
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