Ken Clements wrote:
>
> Andrew Clough wrote:
>
> > When I was at a tour of Maine Yankee (a now closed nuclear plant in Maine)
> > the rep said that the dome was much more than strong enough to withstand a
> > plane crash.
>
> No one knows. There are many problems that make this a bad bet. Most
> reactors were designed long ago when aircraft were smaller. Most of the
> concern was for an accident, not a plot where the biggest possible bomb was
> flown directly into the weakest possible link. I have seen nothing about a
> plant's ability to resist the impact of a second hit, after the impact and
> fire of the first has had time to reduce the structural strength of the
> reinforcing bar, and powder the concrete.
>
I think that a credible case can be made from the attack by Israel on
the Iraqi Osirak reactor in the early 1980's. As I recall, at least a
dozen fully bomb laden F-16s bombed that reactor.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:59 MDT