Nuclear reactors are very much hardened against such attacks, and of course, those were both very different situations. No need to spread FUD about the safest form of electricity in the entire world in terms of deaths per TWh. [1] It's also roughly zero carbon.
You know the worst nuclear accident, Chernobyl, killed 4000 people in the full course of time - and we've learned a ton since then. Fukushima killed 1 person.
On the other hand the worst hydro accident, Banqiao Dam, killed 200,000 people instantly. [2] Such an outlier it's frequently excluded from all analyses on hydro safety. No such luck for the Soviets though.
Chernobyl shortened the life of a few thousand people, maybe - the estimate keeps dropping - over a 35 year time period. A few dozen were killed quickly. The rest are estimates of deaths based on increased cancer occurrences.
The reason for making the distinction here, is that while some certainly can be reasonably said to have been killed by Chernobyl, and the 4k number may well be reasonable, that number is an estimate based on possible effects on cancer rates over 35 years that have kept being adjusted down as the early high predicted cancer deaths didn't happen. E.g. there was a spike in childhood leukemia, but the death rate was extremely low. Not all of those projected deaths have even happened yet, and then represent often tiny reduction in the total life expectancy for people exposed 35 years ago and counting.
Notably, given the discussion here, coal does exactly the same thing - it keeps persistently, slowly affecting the life expectancy of everyone, only new particulates released keep being released year after year. And incidentally also includes uranium dust. Yet it's a lot easier to ignore those deaths because there's no single specific event for people to link them to.
Yep, agreed - and in particular, my understanding from the USCEAR report [1] is the majority of the cancers expected were thyroid cancer. That's the one, if you have to get cancer, you hope to get since it's over 99% curable. I went with 4000 (per UNSCEAR) because it's an up-hill battle to get folks to even hear you out if you suggest even that.
It's worth emphasizing the point that coal plants produce large quantities of radioactive waste dispersed over a wide area. Nuclear reactors simply do not do this. Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste [2].
Who do you imagine would like to attack Germany with bunker piercing missiles but don't have their own radioactive material?
Even just a dirty bomb would have far greater damage potential than slightly increasing cancer rates for the next several decades by replicating something like Chernobyl.
Modern reactors simply can’t fail catastrophically. The concrete hull can easily withstand two airplanes falling on them, and if one were to cut totally throw the inner loop circulating water, the reaction would just stop instantly (because the highly pressurized water would escape, and it is the moderator)
