Opponents of nuclear power have long warned that nuclear plants of all types are ideal targets for terrorists. It has taken the September 11th Twin Towers catastrophe to focus media attention and the owners’ minds on the issue. British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) admit that nuclear power plants have only been designed to withstand the impact of light planes and military aircraft. They accept that “the consequences of a plant being hit by a commercial aircraft loaded with fuel would be unthinkable”.

When a reactor explodes the devastation is far greater than that caused by an atomic bomb. In 1986 Chernobyl, for instance, released 3% of its radioactive material in vast plumes which will continue to contaminate parts of Cumbria (UK), France, Bavaria, Greece, Italy and Corsica for many more years. What degree of impact nuclear power plants have been designed to withstand is, anyway, beside the point. Advanced Gas Reactors (AGRs), for instance, dubbed ‘benign’ by the industry, depend on externally-generated electricity to power their safety and cooling systems. If the electricity supply was taken out by an attack there is the potential for a massive explosion.

Nuclear engineer Richard Webb describes the effect of a near full release into the atmosphere of the radioactive material from one AGR:

• The evacuation and abandonment of about 120,000 sq. kilometres of land (an area equivalent to half the UK). The abandonment would be temporary if the contamination were with gamma radiation, permanent if with plutonium

• The ruin of food-producing agriculture over 750,000 sq. km. for about 100 years due to strontium-90 and caesium- 137 fall-out

• The abandonment of 200,000 sq. km. due to all forms of radiation exposure

But compared to a hit on a nuclear reprocessing plant, like Sellafield or La Hague (on the French Channel coast), a hit on a nuclear power plant is as nothing. If either were hit, the caesium-137 released into the air would devastate England, France and most of Northern Europe. A World Information Service on Energy report indicated that if just one of La Hague’s four storage ponds released all its caesium-137 that would be 66.7 times more than that released by Chernobyl, probably causing 1.5 million cancer deaths.

Following the Twin Towers attack, the French Government has stationed land-to-air missiles at its La Hague nuclear reprocessing site.