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Comment by shortandsweet | Hacker News Reader

You'd hope so. Reactors yes, but not spent fuel pools. Everyone misses things. I've found 3 design flaws myself in the industry. Not too big of a deal as actions can be taken to mitigate some of the flaws. The other flaws are less probable of causing an issue due to redundant and diverse systems but there's always the off chance...

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>but not spent fuel pools. Everyone misses things

Everyone who remembers the post 9/11 "but what if the terrorists attack X" pandemonium knows that spent fuel pools are outside the containment building. That was one of the scenarios that got paraded around to maximize FUD.

I was involved in closing of case, when terrorists wanted to create dirty bomb and throw it at Ukraine. S*it happens.

Wanted to is very different than doing. As far as I'm aware there has never been a dirty bomb attack. You could effectively create a dirty bomb with less radiation with more easily obtainable materials (still pretty expensive and labor intensive). The threat would be similar to a more radioactive substance because the biggest damage is the fear (that's what terrorism is about. They could do MUCH more _damage_ if they weren't as concerned about striking fear). The reason it hasn't been done is because it is impractical and difficult to do without killing yourself. There's better and far easier ways to strike fear into people's hearts. Killing a single person is more effective for them than increasing the chance of getting cancer in one's lifetime by 10% for a dozen people. The much bigger threat is a briefcase nuke but that is several more orders of magnitude difficult/expensive to obtain.

There is plenty of people which want to kill themselves for few, but common reasons, like cancer. It's not a stopper for terrorists.

NuScale claims "The reactor building is able to withstand aircraft impact". The reactors and spent fuel pool are in the same room:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Cut-away-view-of-reactor...

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