284 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 12 / 2018 using Magnox technology in the United Kingdom’43 44. Today, there are a total of 446 nuclear reactors operating in 30 countries45, therefore the possibility of an attempted attack on a nuclear power plant is considerably high. In his manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, Anders Behring Breivik calls upon his followers to use nuclear power plants as a weapon of mass destruction, urging them to attack them to cause nuclear disasters like that of Cher-nobyl. In addition, Breivik recognises the role insiders would play in a terrorist attack, pointing out that: ‘All committed individuals (to his far-right cause) will have ample time to take a relevant education granting them access to W. European Nuclear facili-ties’ 46. We will now look at the different types of attacks that an individual terrorist could carry out on a nuclear power plant: a) Suicide attack with a commercial aircraft. Crashing a commercial aircraft into a nuclear power plant would have a devastating effect and could even destroy the site of the impact, including the containment building. However, the destruction wreaked would be even greater if the aircraft’s fuel tanks were full, thus possibly causing further damage to auxiliary systems and resulting in the uncontrolled emission of radioactive material. And even if the containment building were not seriously damaged, Martín Corrales claims that ‘an impact of this magnitude would render so many systems unusable that short- and medium-term operation of the plant would be impossible and could even lead to it being shut down permanently’47 48. Nowadays, while most nuclear power plants would be able to withstand the impact of an aircraft, the impact of a commercial aircraft with its fuel tanks full would cause far greater controversy49 50. Most nuclear power plants were designed (special mention for the first and second-ge-neration nuclear reactors) to withstand the damage caused by earthquakes, hurricanes and other meteorological phenomena51. However, deliberate attacks with commercial aircraft loaded with fuel were not taken into account, such as the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. Accordingly, months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster and following 43 See Corrales, op. cit., p. 29. 44 See Ferguson and Potter, op. cit., p. 202. 45 BHATIA, Vandana. The US-India Nuclear Agreement: Accommodating the Anomaly? London: Lexington Books, 2017, p. VIII. 46 See Breivik, op. cit., p. 1027. 47 See Corrales, op. cit., p. 30. 48 See Ferguson and Potter, op. cit., pp. 194 and 212-217. 49 See Ortega García, op. cit., p. 14. 50 ESCARTÍ, Francisco. Los análisis del impacto de un avión comercial en una central nuclear, 16/09/2015, at https://elsecretodelospajaros.net/2015/09/16/los-analisis-del-impacto-de-un-avion-comercial- en-una-central-nuclear/ (accessed on 29 March 2017). 51 CONSEJO DE SEGURIDAD NACIONAL CSN. Pruebas de resistencia realizadas a las centrales nucleares españolas. Informe final. Reino de España, 2011. Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos n.º 12 - Año: 2018 - Págs.: 273 a 298
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