[cedws]

Something I haven’t seen discussed in the nuclear debate is that NPPs become a high risk target in times of war.

Look at what’s happened in Ukraine regarding the Zaporizhzhia power plant. The IAEA has been crapping itself the entire time while both Ukraine and Russia have haphazardly been shooting and bombing around it. If Russia were forced out of their position, they could adopt a scorched earth policy and destroy it, potentially irradiating the area.

Whether Russia would actually do that doesn't even matter - just being a possibility allows them to take the area hostage much more easily.

I am well aware that it would not detonate like a nuclear bomb or like Chernobyl. It doesn’t have to, it could still contaminate a huge area and harm a lot of people.

[gizmo]

Russia has five thousand nuclear warheads. If they want to turn Ukraine into a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland they can do so today.

A nuclear plant getting bombed would result in some nuclear contamination but not _that_ much, and accidental bombing of a nuclear power plant won't result in a mushroom cloud. Taking a nuclear plant out of commission with bombs is easy, re-creating Chernobyl is very hard even if you bomb it intentionally.

Nuclear plants are not weapons of war and they serve no military purpose. The press has written repeatedly -- completely without basis in reality -- about Russia going to turn Ukrainian nuclear power plants into bombs. Nuclear feels scary to people, and that's why those narratives gain traction.

[cedws]

>Russia has five thousand nuclear warheads

Nuclear weapons are barely relevant to the conversation other than that they also use fissile material.

>accidental bombing of a nuclear power plant won't result in a mushroom cloud

Yes... as I stated.

>Nuclear plants are not weapons of war and they serve no military purpose

That's incorrect. Once again, the Zaporizhzhia NPP has played quite a large role in the war in that region. Whether Russia intends to do anything is irrelevant, the threat implicitly limits Ukraine's military response. The plant itself can, and has been used as a military outpost, shielded from intense bombing.

Not only all this, but the loss of the power plant to Russia meant Ukraine lost 20% of it's total electricity generation at all once[0]. From an energy security POV this is a disaster. This would not be possible with distributed wind turbines or solar arrays.

[0]: https://www.gem.wiki/Zaporizhzhia_nuclear_power_plant#Backgr...

[gizmo]

A nuclear power plant has strategic importance like an airport or a bridge.

Ukraine's military response is limited because the power plant is extremely valuable (monetarily as well as energy it produces) and they don't want to break it. But that's not what you argued.

I get the impression your argument changed from radiation risk to risk of electricity shortage. But if that is your concern you presumably would be fine with a country having many small nuclear reactors instead of a handful of large ones. But I suspect you'll change your argument again to make the case that small nuclear reactors are somehow bad, too.

[littlecranky67]

Fully agreed. When the Ukraine war broke out, in Germany we had discussions how we could no longer rely on cheap russian gas and there we politicians actively demanding NPP to be reactivated. At the same time our government decided to spent 100 bilion € for the military and defense. This is surreal, when experts explain how "safe" NPPS are, the safety assumptions never asume a war going on around that NPP. If you factor this in all NPP would immetiately fall into the very unsafe category and all other energy sources would gain precedence.

[XorNot]

Making your plans around existential crises happening to your nation is foolish.

There isn't going to just be "a war" in Germany - there never was. A war in germany is a war with NATO, which is a nuclear war, and thus "what if the nuclear powerplant is hit" is rather mundane compared to "our cities and citizens have been incinerated".

[qwertox]

> A war in germany is a war with NATO, which is a nuclear war

Nuclear war is only one option of many, and the last one among all of them. It's a skewed perspective to think that NATO involvement would end up in a nuclear war.

Also, a nuclear war does not automatically mean the end of humankind, as some like to portray it. Most will still be alive, even lead a healthy, unaffected life. The negative effects of a broken internet and broken supply chains would be the bigger problems.

[ekianjo]

> m. It's a skewed perspective to think that NATO involvement would end up in a nuclear war.

of course it would end up in a nuclear war. NATO is encircling Russia and if Russia feels cornered you should expect them to use anything available to them.

[Gud]

Russia is encircling themselves with NATO by bullying everyone around them.

[the_third_wave]

This is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation;

1 - Nato was formed as a defence block against the "second Russian Empire" i.e. the Soviet Union and is still around to counter the budding "third Russian Empire".

2 - even since being conquered by the Mongol Empire Russia has been paranoid about the possibility of some conquering entity crossing its long border to rush into its vast territory. They want mountain ranges, sea or some other barrier between them and that potential enemy. If none of the sort can be had they want a buffer zone - they call it neutral states but in reality they mean vassal states, e.g. Belarus - between them and "the others". Those vassal states were gathered into a "counter-NATO" in the form of the Warsaw Pact.

3 - after the dissolution of the "second Russian Empire" and with that of the Warsaw Pact the former vassal states, fed up with being subservient to their oppressive neighbour bully took their chances and ran with it by joining NATO.

4 - Meanwhile Russia depopulated, was taken over by a new (old) gang of kleptocrats under first Yeltsin, then Putin while "the West" was busily "spreading democracy" by bombing and invading countries which were deemed to be essential for their economies by virtue of them being rich in natural resources. Some people and companies got richer, many people died and democracy was far to be found. This provided the Russian kleptocrats with a credible excuse for creating a new version of the old "us versus them" narrative: NATO is just like the Mongol Empire out on conquering our land to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. The recent flurry of "gender" and "alfabet soup" propaganda pushed by the current US regime just adds fuel to this fire and has given Putin a plausible (if false) cover of being the one who "defends traditional Christian values", going so far as to offer "asylum" to those who want to "flee corrupted Western values" [1].

5 - This gives the kleptocrats in "the East" the excuse they needed to make a push for creating the "third Russian Empire" to keep out the "new Mongol Empire" while their counterparts in "the West" have all the excuse they need to expand NATO to keep the "Russian bear" at bay.

6 - rinse and repeat

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-russia-safe-haven-for-...

[littlecranky67]

Just look at the explosion of the north stream pipelines. Whether this were government actors, terrorists, or a rogue military interest group independent of government decisions is unknown. But the very same can happen with nuclear plants. Yes they are protected against terrorist attacks (to some extend), but once you factor in military grade capability, the security assumptions crumble. No need for a full-blown nuclear war to happen at all, NPPs are a risk to national safety.

[gizmo]

That argument is exclusively used for nuclear. Hydroelectric is far more vulnerable to bombing, but we don't pearl clutch about that risk. And yes, a capable military can -- if they so choose -- turn a nuclear plant into a dirty bomb with sufficient explosives. But why go through that trouble when you can just drop a dirty bomb directly on top of a city center? That's a far more effective way of spreading nuclear radiation. However, capable militaries don't use dirty bombs because they make no strategic sense.

[littlecranky67]

You asume intent. A NPP is a threat if it is in an active warzone, even if no party intents to damage it. It is just in the chaotic nature of war.

[cedws]

Europe is already engaged in a hybrid war. The next escalation isn't necessarily nuclear. It would most likely look like mutual sabotage to infrastructure, including energy and water supplies. Nuclear weapons are weapons of last resort, neither side will be eager to launch, and especially not before intense conventional warfare.

>Making your plans around existential crises happening to your nation is foolish

Foolish is not being prepared for the worst.

[entropyneur]

In Ukraine alone, there have been two major instances of military destruction of hydroelectric dams (Dnieper Hydroelectric Station during WWII and Kakhovka Dam during the current war) with the number of casualties far greater than that of all nuclear power incidents in history combined. Somehow, nobody's using that as an argument against hydro power.

If anything, Germany's reliance on Russian gas did a lot more to put the country in danger of war.

[berkeleynerd]

I wonder if it would make sense to house these reactors in underground facilities to the extent possible to harden them against at least accidental threats?

[the_third_wave]

This was already done in Sweden [1] and is something the Swedish defence forces have suggested for the coming nuclear expansion in the country.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85gesta_Nuclear_Plant

[ekianjo]

how do you cool them if they are underground?

[ttepasse]

That was a weird thought I had when the Japanese had problems actively cooling the destroyed Fukushima reactors: :Could one build reactors underground, so that in the case of need you can cool them by gravity alone without futzing around with diesel generators and high volume pumps?

(I'm sure there are 500 reasons why that’s a bad idea)

[cedws]

Much easier to target one NPP than thousands of windmills and solar panels distributed throughout the country too.

[rasz]

Weird thing to say considering russians didnt bomb any NPPs yet, but did actually brick Viasat disabling "remote monitoring access to over 5,800 wind turbines"

.. in Germany of all places

https://cyberconflicts.cyberpeaceinstitute.org/law-and-polic...

[Bluestein]

> NPPs become a high risk target in times of war.

In certain geographic areas, it could be said that nuclear energy presupposes stable peace.-

[izacus]

This sounds like typical security fearmongering using a lot of scarewords and little base. Why exactly is this a concern that is somehow different than for other big infra projects? ThE zaporozhnia powerplant is still standing despite the war.

[ekianjo]

> d it. If Russia were forced out of their position, they could adopt a scorched earth policy and destroy it, potentially irradiating the area.

thats not how nuclear power plants work. bombing them dont magically turn them into nuclear bombs or something.

[cedws]

That is literally what I stated in the following sentence.