How is this more concerning than the raw amount of weapons that a lying around everywhere? Giving them access to cheap power or a potential local weapon doesn't seem like that pressing of an issue.
The concern for me is that a nuclear power plant and its associated spent fuel storage pools are a facility that requires an unwavering commitment to maintenance and upkeep by highly specialized personnel—not just for as long as you want power out of it, but for decades beyond.
Coal isn't like this. If you stop needing power, you stop feeding it coal, and the machinery can sit there idle, doing no further harm.
I'm not a coal-booster, but I absolutely see the concern about regime change and commitment to the safety of a nuclear installation. Between Trump and Brexit, how confident are we that even first world nations are capable of taking on the long term responsibility for such a project?
"Between Trump and Brexit, how confident are we that even first world nations are capable of taking on the long term responsibility for such a project?"
This post did nothing to advance the conversation. There's nothing thought invoking, no statistics, and no argument. Please provide substance to your posts in the future.
It also required quite a lot of fissile material and wasn't all that powerful. Dropped on lower Manhattan, it wouldn't even reach midtown Manhattan. See for yourself at http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/. I was actually quite surprised to realize that a "city" in 1940s was something much smaller than what we call a city today.
The point I'm aiming at is that nuclear weapons are (still) something expensive, hard to make, and useful only for nation states with large military budgets. Going for dirty bombs would be a better strategy for terrorists.
The second point I'm aiming at is that nuclear is not as scary as Hollywood seems to have made us believe.
I'd venture to guess that most people would regard the quarter of a million people dead and billions in property damage from an airburst over Manhattan (what that site indicates would happen with a Little Boy-style device) as quite significant. Losing the NYSE might just possibly have a small effect on the overall economy, as well.
> The point I'm aiming at is that nuclear weapons are (still) something expensive, hard to make, and useful only for nation states with large military budgets.
The fissile material is quite expensive, and requires a state-level actor's resources or cooperation to create or obtain. You're not going to take fuel directly out of a reactor and use it in a proper bomb. If that's the point you were trying to make, okay.
On the other hand, a simple bomb is not difficult to make given the necessary, weapons-grade material. I cannot even imagine why you think a terrorist organization would not find such a device useful.
You don't necessarily need to convert the nuclear fuel to weapons, you just need to blow the whole thing up, which ISIS is more than capable of doing, and then see how the winds carry the radio-active clouds 3,000 km away. For example see this map: http://i.imgur.com/zlRGSs3.jpg , more especially Austria.
Coal isn't like this. If you stop needing power, you stop feeding it coal, and the machinery can sit there idle, doing no further harm.
I'm not a coal-booster, but I absolutely see the concern about regime change and commitment to the safety of a nuclear installation. Between Trump and Brexit, how confident are we that even first world nations are capable of taking on the long term responsibility for such a project?