France Investigating Mysterious Drone Activity Over 7 Nuclear Power Plant Sites

thygate writes In France, an investigation has been launched into the appearance of "drones" on 7 different nuclear power plant sites across the country in the last month. Some of the plants involved are Creys-Malville en Bugey in the southeast, Blayais in the southwest, Cattenom en Chooz in the northeast, Gravelines in the north, and Nogent-sur-Seine, close to Paris. It is forbidden to fly over these sites on altitudes less than 1 km in a 5 km radius. According to a spokesman of the state electric company that runs the facilities (EDF), there was no danger to the security and production of the plants. However these incidents will likely bring nuclear safety concerns back into the spotlight.

Comments

Have they checked up on the Swiss Green Party?

[cirby]

They have a history of "direct action" against French nuclear plants.

They fired five RPG-7 rounds at the Superphenix when it was still under construction in 1982.

Re:Unless the plant is surrounded in a glass dome.

[rogueippacket]

That doesn't sound remotely true. Most of the important equipment (HVAC, Power, Connectivity) is made of iron and steel and sits behind concrete walls (or underground in the case of fiber), separated either by large distances or placed at opposite ends of the same buildings. So unless you have full building access to walk around and stick explosives inside conduits, raceways, fuel tanks, and generator housings (which you won't if it's a Tier 4 datacenter), there's no way lobbing a few grenades from the parking lot will do anything but force a controlled shutdown of some systems for emergency repairs.
Fun fact, even a datacenter in the middle of a desert can cool every piece of equipment inside via a process known as evaporative cooling; using a heat exchanger connected to an underground water tank or adequate commercial supply, the differential in humidity inside causes heat to be evaporated in the desert sun.

Re:Unless the plant is surrounded in a glass dome.

[AK Marc]

If fukushima taught us anything, it's that you need to cut the power coming in (the plants require mains power from the grid to operate), and disable the generator. Those two things, and nearly all designs of plants will melt down. Only one of those things is on site. The other is "easy" to take down (drive a pickup truck into a nearby power line support). They don't even have to be simultaneous if you disable the generator in a way that isn't discovered. Find out who supplies it with diesel. Infiltrate them. At some point, they'll do a top-up of fuel. Spoil it. Then you have from then to the next generator test to take out mains power coming into the plant. Though a portable generator might be brought in, apparently nobody thought of that at fukushima, or it happened too fast.