Drones spotted near Belgian power plants

BrenMan 94 | Heroic Unstoppable!
 
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An unexplained drone has been spotted flying over a Belgium nuclear facility, a day after one of the plant's reactors came back on line after a four-month closure caused by sabotage.

The mystery appearance by an unmanned aircraft on Saturday, on which Belgian authorities refused to provide much detail, resembles a spate of similar drone sightings over nuclear plants in neighbouring France this autumn.

Around 20 unidentified drones have been spotted over nuclear plants since October throughout France.

"We can confirm that the East Flanders prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into a drone flight over the Doel nuclear plant," a spokesman for the investigation told Belga news agency.

"We will not provide further information for the time being," the spokesman added, hours after the plant's operator, GDF-Suez unit Electrabel, first disclosed the incident, which took place early on Saturday.

The imposing Doel nuclear site sits on a riverbank near the North Sea about 25 kilometres north of Antwerp. It holds four of Belgium's seven reactors.

One of those reactors, Doel 4, was shut urgently in August after a leak, caused by tampering, resulted in a leak of 65,000 litres of oil lubricant.

A steam turbine weighing 1700 tonnes was severely damaged by the loss of lubricant, requiring a €30 million ($45 million) repair job that was carried out in Germany.

Belgian prosecutors have refused to confirm the sabotage as an act of terrorism, without excluding it either.
From this story and reading on the starts off the Belgian power grid it sounds to me like one more incident could lead to rolling brownouts/blackouts.  Belgium's green party refuses to build more nuclear power plants, but they haven't developed any other alternatives, so what you have is an entire country being run on aging nuclear plants that can barely support the entire grid (at peak limits power is transferred from France).

Apparently guns are taboo in Belgium, so having guards shoot down the drones is likely to cause a shitstorm in the media, and EMP technology isn't at the level required to disable the drones mid-flight.


 
Isara
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They aren't giving details on the drones. That's more concerning than what the law allows on handling the drones themselves. Suppose it's not a terrorist group then it could be a secret agency. One could quickly assume Russia, but the worst could be that it's another agency from an EU country.


 
 
Flee
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More Than Mortal
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This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
Apparently guns are taboo in Belgium, so having guards shoot down the drones is likely to cause a shitstorm in the media,
Fucking peacenik hippie Belgians.


Not Comms Officer | Legendary Invincible!
 
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Khilafah420
Hey, maybe they're Russian drones!!!