Nuclear plants in a US-USSR massive nuclear exchange.

I don't see why they would be targeted any more than other targets; I mean, if you hit one with a nuclear weapon, there would be contamination anyway, so there's not much incentive to put special effort into targeting a nuclear plant.
 
Presumably, reactor is open to the air and vomiting crap out? My knowledge about nuclear power is a bit dusty tbf.
 
What would become of nuclear plants in this scenario? How would they affect the aftermath?

Depends on how much the government and infrastructure collapse in the aftermath. Presumably, the Government and Army of both countries would pull through in some shape, and be able to prevent the complete failure of such plants.

So long as the plant is making power to keep itself functioning, a nuclear plant shouldn't experience severe problems.
 
I know the power the plant generates, it all goes to the grid, none of it goes back to the plant itself, the plant takes power from the grid to run although there are diesel generators and battery backups to boot up the plant to get it running from a cold start and/or to run it in an emergency. We have Shippingport here, Beaver Valley 1 and 2, and next to the atomic plant, there is a huge coal fired one so I'm sure they can get power from that.

The big thing is that if there is no operators, most likely the plant will scram and shut down, the control rod will be lowered as well as cooling water to cool the atomic pile down. IIRC, as long as the control rods remain in place, the reactor should just sit there until years and years of decay come in, provided there is no human intervention, where the containment building will start to fall apart and releasing radiation. I think it would take years and years, maybe a couple of hundred at least.
 

CalBear

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Actually, nuclear plants were secondary targets, to be hit after the enemy's missile silos and bomber bases. They would be targeted at the same time as other weapon manufacturing facilities. All nuclear reactors can be used to generate fissile elements and/or tritium, the critical components to producing more devices.

The fact that hitting them would tend to make the area surrounding the plant a wasteland for a couple generations is just a really nice side benefit.
 
The fact that hitting them would tend to make the area surrounding the plant a wasteland for a couple generations is just a really nice side benefit.

Maybe, maybe not. Keep in mind that nuclear bombs produce huge clouds of dust and debris, and much of that would end up in the sky. Chernobyl's area around it is steadily dropping in terms of contamination. From a nuclear blast, much of the radioactive elements from a nuclear power station would end up way up in the atmosphere, falling many miles away - and if you've nuked the plant and vaporized it, much less of the radioactive crap is left behind. You'd clean it up the same way one cleans up a hazardous waste site - remove the contaminants and remove the soil and contaminated dirt around it.
 
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