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sorry Mary - I was away from the computer for a bit

@Peter Melzer thanks see it in my inbox

I find it interesting that Cantor finally did the right thing when it involved his district. He had been saying disaster aid should be cut or not given out.

@Peter, I mentioned this earlier today, as I am going through the EPA monitoring stations the ones that are not working are the ones where there are not major US govt installations. All the ones around DC worked perfectly. Ones on the west coast and south east largely didn't work at all. Same with many in the midwest. The one near the Idaho labs worked.

In a way making sure govt operations continue to work is good. Deciding where the people are doesnt matter, not so much

Hi Dean!

@Peter.. it's possible for some spontaneous fissions to be occuring but apparently on a smaller scale and nothing that seems to be going on to a sustained chain reaction

need to know the layout of the plant and what kind... and then compare to the last time reactors were bombed to look at the targeted parts of the plant @ Edano

russian type: en.wikipedia.org

I would think if they decide to commit bombs to prevent advancement of the program they would hit multiple sites..

The reactor units at Bushehr were initially built by a German company, Siemens, and were built to a plan closely resembling that of the Biblis A unit in Germany. The Bushehr I reactor was 85 percent complete and the Bushehr II reactor was partially complete prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, after which construction of both reactors halted. Ayatollah Khomeini declared the project "anti-Islamic," and the government of Mehdi Bazargan soon abandoned it.

The dome of the reactor building consisted of a cylindrical shell and hemispherical shell placed on top, each measuring a 60 meter diameter. The steel containment shell was a spherical and measured 56 meters in diameter.

Much of the exterior remained unchanged including a gantry that was mounted to the outside of the dome and was designed to allow easy access for materials and parts to the reactor dome.

Inside, the reactor building was divided into two containment areas, one formed by the steel containment and the other an outer containment shield. Both were high-pressure parts of the nuclear steam supply system and the spent fuel storage pool and the new fuel store. The German design called for the steel containment shell to be 56 meters in diameter and designed for a pressure of 5.7 bar, it was capable of absorbing the full equilibrium pressure in the case of a design basis accident. The outer shell would act as a barrier against direct radiation from the reactor building and as a protective shield for the reactor plant from ecternal impacts.

a fortress

@Edano.. back when Iraq reactor was bombed they didn't have the state of the art precision as they do now, I'm pretty certain today's technology and weaponry would cripple the plant

@Edano They would drop a bunker buster on it. The plant itself would get wrecked.

Yehuda Blum, in a speech to the United Nations Security Council following the attack, claimed that the operation was launched on a Sunday afternoon under the assumption that workers present on the site, including foreign experts employed at the reactor, would have left.[10] Notwithstanding this precaution, there were hundreds of French workers and other nationals at the plant at the time of the raid.[35]

The attack squadron consisted of eight F-16As, each with two unguided Mark-84 2,000-pound delay-action bombs.[49] A flight of six F-15As was assigned to the operation to provide fighter support.[36] The F-16 pilots were Ze'ev Raz (who was later decorated by the Chief of Staff for his leadership), Amos Yadlin, Dobbi Yaffe, Hagai Katz, Amir Nachumi, Iftach Spector, Relik Shafir, and Ilan Ramon.[56]

On June 7, 1981, at 15:55 local time (12:55 GMT), the operation was initiated. The Israeli planes left Etzion Airbase, flying unchallenged in Jordanian and Saudi airspace.[51] To avoid detection, the Israeli pilots conversed in Saudi-accented Arabic while in Jordanian airspace and told Jordanian air controllers that they were a Saudi patrol that had gone off course.[35] While flying over Saudi Arabia, they pretended to be Jordanians, using Jordanian radio signals and formations.[35][57] The Israeli planes were so heavily loaded that the external fuel tanks that had been mounted on the planes were exhausted in-flight. The tanks were jettisoned over the Saudi desert.[51]