Belgium evacuates two nuclear power stations amid fears ISIS will attempt to follow the Brussels att

[bananas]

Source: Daily Mail

The Belgian government has ordered an electricity operator to evacuate two of its nuclear power stations, just hours after devastating terror attacks in the country's capital, which have killed 34 people.

French company ENGIE, which runs the Tihange nuclear plant around 50 miles southeast of Brussels, and the Doel plant, near Antwerp, confirmed all non-essential staff had left the sites.

There are fears ISIS will attempt to follow today's attacks with a dirty bomb, but it is unclear if the government has specific intelligence of an attack targeted against the facilities.

Security has been heightened at all the country's nuclear sites and a spokesperson at Belgium's Federal Agency for Nuclear Control said: 'There is an increased military presence at the sites since the events of this morning.'

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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3504935/Belgium-evacuates-two-nuclear-power-stations-amid-fears-ISIS-attempt-follow-Brussels-attack-dirty-bomb.html

[jtuck004]

1. Did anyone remember to grab the plutonium? 'Cause that is what they are after, not the people. n/t

[FBaggins]

11. And how do you imagine that they're going to get the plutonium?

It isn't as though there are bars of plutonium sitting in a closet somewhere. It makes up a couple percent of the spent fuel (fairly evenly spread throughout the molecules of the spent fuel rods).

Do you imagine that there are some terrorists who can:

Break into the plant
Control it long enough to take control of the spent fuel pool
Operate the mechanism to move spent fuel assemblies
Select one that's old enough that it won't kill them
Remove and then carry the just-shy-of-a-ton assembly out the door and get away with it
Break into an entirely different facility that has the ability to reprocess the fuel and remove the plutonium (which isn't exactly a ten-minute process)

???

[villager]

2. Nuclear power is such a great idea. nt

[AtheistCrusader]

4. Most industrial power and chemical concerns would be a danger in this scenario.

Nuclear has higher stakes, but the air quality from the Cosmo Oil Refinery fire had impacts on lives as well.



Any industrial concern should have heightened security after something like that. Imagine if they got into an oil train yard, or an ammonia or nitrates plant.

[villager]

5. I certainly agree those are additional concerns.

As the columnist Michael Ventura once noted, the various inventions of the West are all being turned against it, now...

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Agreed.

I certainly hope the reactors are adequately secured, and the threat is either non-existent or overstated.

[NickB79]

7. Just think about how West, Texas was flattened by the fertilizer plant explosion. NT

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Or Lac-Mégantic in Quebec.

Oil train explosion erased almost a quarter of the town.

[bananas]

3. Belgian Nuclear Plants Evacuated

http://www.nytimes.com/live/brussels-airport-explosions-live-coverage/belgium-nuclear-plant-leave/

9:57 am ETTue Mar 22 2016 09:57:32 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)

Belgian Nuclear Plants Evacuated

Belgian authorities said on Tuesday that two nuclear plants in the country have been evacuated.

Non-essential workers at the Doel and Tihange power stations were sent home, but the plants remained online.

“There is no direct threat to the power plants,” said Ine Wenmaekers, spokesman for the FANC, Belgium’s nuclear regulatory agency.

“This was done, based on new information, and the events of today. Extra security measures were taken, personnel that is not necessary for the safe functioning of the power plant was evacuated,” he said.

<snip>

[brett_jv]

10. Out of curiosity, just how many people on a given day are at a nuke plant ...

who are actually NOT 'essential to safe operation of the plant'? Some custodial staff, I'd guess, and beyond them ... who? Seems like you'd basically never want people there who were not playing an essential part in the safe operation of the plant. What's the point? Do they have like an accounting department? A reception desk? A mail room staff? I wouldn't think you'd have any of those types of things.

[NNadir]

9. How stupid.

The risk to the plants is extremely low, but never under estimate fear and ignorance, or the willingness of anti-nukes to spread it on the backs of dead people.

This reminds me of the time that a certain Vice President of the United States exploited anti-nuke fear and ignorance and some stupid commentary about uranium that was as scientifically illiterate as any other thing dribbling out of the mouths of anti-nukes - some stupid stuff about aluminum tubes and nuclear bombs - to launch a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East.

That war, um, by the way, resulted in the formation of ISIS.

As is always the case, fear and ignorance, easily killed more people than all of the nuclear events that have taken place since Enrico Fermi, one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, invented the nuclear reactor.

Don't worry, though, be happy. Air pollution kills seven million people per year, and some hysteria about shutting nuclear plants and replacing them with dangerous fossil fuels in Belgium will be a mere blip on the death toll from air pollution, which easily outstrips, every damn year by several orders of magnitude, all the deaths recorded from terrorism in the last half a century.

[bananas]

12. Military arrived Friday at the plants

http://www.politico.eu/article/security-crackdown-belgium-nuclear-plant-electrabel-brussels-attacks/

Security clamp-down at Belgian nuclear plants

The two facilities at Doel and Tihange are under military protection.

By Sara Stefanini
| 3/22/16, 1:28 PM CET
| Updated 3/22/16, 7:19 PM CET

Energy utility Electrabel has stepped up security at Belgium’s two nuclear power plants, following the attacks in Brussels Tuesday.

The two plants — Doel, made up of four reactors, and Tihange, with three — have been closed, with “systematic control” of all vehicles coming and going, Anne-Sophie Hugé, a company spokeswoman told POLITICO.

Military and police have been onsite since the weekend, she added. Employees who are not needed to run the two power plants are now leaving the sites.

Military arrived at the Tihange plant on Friday, months after authorities in the local Huy municipality asked for more security, Belgium’s RTBF reported last week.

“This is part of a comprehensive operation for the protection of power plants,” Serge Dauby, director of communications at Electrabel, was quoted as saying. “In many countries, there is protection. For us, it was not the case, that’s why we requested it.”