An ongoing concern in the area of nuclear safety and security is the possibility that terrorist organizations may attack facilities possessing radioactive material in order to cause widespread radioactive contamination or to construct nuclear weapons. Such facilities may include nuclear power plants, civilian research reactors, uranium enrichment plants, fuel fabrication plants, uranium mines, and military bases where nuclear weapons are stored. The attack threat is of several general types: commando-like ground-based attacks on equipment which if disabled could lead to a reactor core meltdown or widespread dispersal of radioactivity, external attacks such as an aircraft crash into a reactor complex, or cyber attacks.
The United States 9/11 Commission has said that nuclear power plants were potential targets originally considered for the September 11, 2001 attacks. If terrorist groups could sufficiently damage safety systems to cause a core meltdown at a nuclear power plant, and/or sufficiently damage spent fuel pools, such an attack could lead to widespread radioactive contamination. The Federation of American Scientists have said that if nuclear power use is to expand significantly, nuclear facilities will have to be made extremely safe from such attacks. New reactor designs have features of passive nuclear safety, which may help. In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission carries out "Force on Force" exercises at all nuclear power plant sites at least once every three years.
Nuclear power plants become preferred targets during military conflict and, over the past three decades, have been repeatedly attacked during military air strikes, occupations, and invasions.Benjamin K. Sovacool (2011). Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power: A Critical Global Assessment of Atomic Energy, World Scientific, p. 192. Various acts of civil disobedience since 1980 by the peace group Plowshares have demonstrated extraordinary breaches of security at nuclear weapons plants in the United States. The National Nuclear Security Administration has acknowledged the seriousness of the 2012 Plowshares action. Non-proliferation policy experts have questioned "the use of private contractors to provide security at facilities that manufacture and store the government's most dangerous military material". Nuclear weapons materials on the black market are a global concern,Jay Davis. After A Nuclear 9/11 The Washington Post, March 25, 2008.Brian Michael Jenkins. A Nuclear 9/11? CNN.com, September 11, 2008. and there is concern about the possible detonation of a dirty bomb by a militant group in a major city.Orde Kittrie. Averting Catastrophe: Why the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is Losing its Deterrence Capacity and How to Restore It May 22, 2007, p. 338.Nicholas D. Kristof. A Nuclear 9/11 The New York Times, March 10, 2004.
The number and sophistication of cyber attacks is on the rise. Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010 that is believed to have been created by the United States and Israel to attack Iran's uranium enrichment facilities. It caused major damage to the facility by operating the centrifuges in erratic and unintended ways. The computers of South Korea's nuclear plant operator (KHNP) were hacked in December 2014. The cyber attacks involved thousands of phishing emails containing malicious code, and information was stolen.Penny Hitchin, "Cyber attacks on the nuclear industry", Nuclear Engineering International, 15 September 2015. Neither of these attacks directly involved nuclear reactors or their facilities.
Military attacks Nuclear reactors become preferred targets during military conflict and, over the past three decades, have been repeatedly attacked during military air strikes, occupations, invasions and campaigns:
On 25 March 1973, before its completion, the Atucha I Nuclear Power Plant in Argentina was temporarily taken over by the People's Revolutionary Army who seized a FMK-3 submachine gun and three .45 caliber handguns from the security detachment. When they did retreat they had a confrontation with the police, injuring two police officers.Estrella Roja Nº19, p. 10. On 30 September 1980, during the Iran-Iraq War, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force carried out Operation Scorch Sword, a surprise airstrike on the Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex in Ba'athist Iraq. The raid, which occurred 17 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, damaged an almost complete nuclear reactor.When Iran Bombed Iraq's Nuclear Reactor, Iraq's Osirak Destruction. In June 1981, Operation Opera was an Israeli Air Force air strike that completely destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear research facility. On 8 January 1982, the 70th anniversary of the formation of the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC attacked Koeberg Nuclear Power Station while it was still under construction and planted four limpet mines inside the facilities. Damage from the explosions was estimated at R 500 million and the commissioning of the plant was put back by 18 months. Between 1984 and 1987, Iraq bombed Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant six times. In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. Air Force bombed three nuclear reactors and an enrichment pilot facility in Iraq. In 1991, during the Iraqi missile attacks on Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iraq launched Scud missiles at Israel's Dimona nuclear complex. In September 2007, Israel bombed a Syrian reactor under construction in Deir ez-Zor Governorate. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, fighting took place at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar. As a result, a personnel training block on the 4th and 5th floor was damaged and set on fire. The plant was eventually occupied by Russian forces.
Vulnerabilities of nuclear reactors and waste-sites within war-zones Risks of nuclear energy systems aren't limited to deliberate bombing/shelling of or near nuclear energy plants – nuclear energy systems within war-zones in general have various additional vulnerabilities. Deliberate or unintentional bombing/shelling of or near radioactive waste-sites is a further concern. These risks have become clearer during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. For example, when Russian forces occupied the inactive nuclear plant at Chernobyl, it still required "a crew of workers to maintain and monitor it to prevent any further nuclear incidents" and before occupation, fatigue of workers, which may not be allowed to freely come and go, may make mistakes more likely.
Nuclear terrorism
The EU Commission’s research center (JRC) investigated in spring 2021 in a report and concluded that the terrorist risk of nuclear power plants is vanishingly small, and that even successful terrorism will have relatively insignificant consequences. JRC, finds that hydropower/dams and oil and gas infrastructure pose a significantly greater terrorist risk, although this is still an extremely unlikely hypothetical scenario
American physicist and nuclear energy critic Amory Lovins, in his 1982 book Brittle Power, argued that the energy generation and distribution system of the United States is "brittle" (easily shattered by accident or malice) and that this poses a grave and growing threat to national security, life, and liberty. Lovins claims that these vulnerabilities are increasingly being exploited. His book documents many significant assaults on energy facilities, other than during a war, in 40 countries and, within the United States, in some 24 states. Following 9/11, he re-released this book.
Lovins further claims that in 1966, 20 natural uranium fuel rods were stolen from the Bradwell nuclear power station in England, and in 1971, five more were stolen at the Wylfa Nuclear Power Station. In 1971, an intruder wounded a night watchman at the Vermont Yankee reactor in the US. The New York University reactor building was broken into in 1972, as was the Oconee Nuclear Station's fuel storage building in 1973. In 1975, the Kerr McGee plutonium plant had thousands of dollars' worth of platinum stolen and taken home by workers. In 1975, at the Biblis Nuclear Power Plant in Germany, a Member of Parliament demonstrated the lack of security by carrying a bazooka into the plant under his coat.
Nuclear plants were designed to withstand earthquakes, hurricanes, and other extreme natural events. But deliberate attacks involving large airliners loaded with fuel, such as those that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, were not considered when design requirements for today's fleet of reactors were determined. It was in 1972 when three hijackers took control of a domestic passenger flight along the east coast of the U.S. and threatened to crash the plane into a U.S. nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The plane got as close as 8,000 feet above the site before the hijackers' demands were met.Threat Assessment: U.S. Nuclear Plants Near Airports May Be at Risk of Airplane Attack (Link Defunct) , Global Security Newswire, June 11, 2003.Newtan, Samuel Upton (2007). Nuclear War 1 and Other Major Nuclear Disasters of the 20th Century, AuthorHouse, p. 146.
In February 1993, a man drove his car past a checkpoint at the Three Mile Island Nuclear plant, then broke through an entry gate. He eventually crashed the car through a secure door and entered the Unit 1 reactor turbine building. The intruder, who had a history of mental illness, hid in a building and was not apprehended for four hours. Stephanie Cooke asks: "What if he'd been a terrorist armed with a ticking bomb?"
Fissile material may be stolen from nuclear plants and this may promote the spread of nuclear weapons. Many terrorist groups are eager to acquire the fissile material needed to make a crude nuclear device, or a dirty bomb. Nuclear weapons materials on the black market are a global concern, and there is concern about the possible detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon by a militant group in a major city, with significant loss of life and property. It is feared that a terrorist group could detonate a radiological or "dirty bomb", composed of any radioactive source and a conventional explosive. The radioactive material is dispersed by the detonation of the explosive. Detonation of such a weapon is not as powerful as a nuclear blast, but can produce considerable radioactive fallout. Alternatively, a terrorist group may position some of its members, or sympathisers, within the plant to sabotage it from inside.
The IAEA Incident and Trafficking Database (ITDB) notes 1,266 incidents reported by 99 countries over the last 12 years, including 18 incidents involving HEU or plutonium trafficking:
There have been 18 incidents of theft or loss of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium confirmed by the IAEA. British academic Shaun Gregory alleged in 2009 that al-Qaeda and the Taliban had attacked Pakistani nuclear facilities three times; twice in 2007 and once in 2008. However, Pakistan's military rejected the allegations. Talat Masood, a political analyst, said that the nuclear link was "absolute nonsense". All three attacks were suicide and appeared to aim at causing maximum damage and not seizing weapons. In November 2007, burglars with unknown intentions infiltrated the Pelindaba nuclear research facility near Pretoria, South Africa. The burglars escaped without acquiring any of the uranium held at the facility.Washington Post, December 20, 2007, Op-Ed by Micah Zenko In June 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released to the press the name of Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah, allegedly the operations leader for developing tactical plans for detonating nuclear bombs in several American cities simultaneously. In November 2006, MI5 warned that al-Qaeda were planning on using nuclear weapons against cities in the United Kingdom by obtaining the bombs via clandestine means.