Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety approval

Re:Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety ... by p1mrx on Friday September 04, 2020 @03:33AM (#24372633)

> an evacuation of staff and it boils off during the resulting excursion.

It is trivial to design a system that powers off when unstaffed. Without power, this reactor will SCRAM and passively switch to air cooling over the course of a month.

Presumably, a skilled attacker could compromise the passive safety systems and force a meltdown, but wouldn't it be easier to steal some spent fuel and disperse it?

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Re:Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety ... by hansthehorse on Friday September 04, 2020 @08:31PM (#24380373)

Once an attacker is inside the plant, with just some Wiki knowledge, any plant is as good as melted down. It's a much better plan to simply drain the spent fuel pool.

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Re:Small nuclear reactors: tiny NuScale reactor gets safety ... by p1mrx on Friday September 04, 2020 @10:10PM (#24380850)

I think it takes a bit more than Wiki knowledge to drain an in-ground pool... you would need to keep a large pump running for hours, under duress.

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