Nuclear plant target for stolen rocket launchers, police allege (5 in the hands of terrorist group)

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | January 6, 2007 | Les Kennedy and Craig Skehan

[Tarpon]

The whole idea around MPBR is to have small size easily managed power stations that when clustered make a large power plant. China is way out front with MPBR and plans to have their test 10 MW HTR-10 reactor in 2007 with full scale production following shortly -- assuming there are no show stoppers. China plans to use the AVR technology, which they have already licensed. China may end up with the largest nuclear reactor build out in history, while we sit and argue about what ??

If all goes as planned, china will have 30 200 MW reactors on line by 2020. If global warming is such a crisis, as alGore says it is, should we not be on the same time line -- I think so.

[blam]

Thanks. I never knew about this either.

[DocRock]

Just a few weeks later, the USS Cole was attacked. This plan to blow up the reactor near the spectators at the Olympics was a "dirty bomb" tactic and we should pay attention to the intentions of our enemy.

[PGalt]

Very, very interesting. Thanks for the ping. Sending out to backhoe & cindy for their ping/history lists.

[metesky]

I worked as a carpenter at Seabrook Station in the late 70s, early 80s. The "crypt" (where the nuke reaction actually takes place) is, IIRC, about 10ft thick, maybe thicker, poured concrete with rebar as thick as a man's torso.

I'm no explosives guy, but I'd bet my last dollar that a shoulder fired rocket wouldn't do the trick.

[metesky]

No concrete container? Sorry, Sax, cancel my last post.

[DugwayDuke]

When you consider the inherent inaccuracies of these rockets, there isn't a chance they could penetrate the shell.

[Ditto]

If all goes as planned, china will have 30 200 MW reactors on line by 2020. If global warming is such a crisis, as alGore says it is, should we not be on the same time line -- I think so.

That is a big if, my friend and to demonstrate that, just two weeks ago, China placed a firm order with Westinghouse for four AP-1000 plants. If the Chinese thought the PBR was a slam dunk, they wouldn't be committing billions to a US company for Light Water technology.

And is is false to say we aren't studying this. INEL, the DoE, MIT and Westinghouse all have research and development programs on the exact design the Chinese are using for their demo plant. The jury is still out. Maybe it will be great, but when scaling things up in size, things seldom "go as planned".