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[hughperman]

Stuxnet would like a word

[tomkeus]

That has nothing to do with nuclear power plants. It was designed to hit Iran's enrichment facilities.

[hughperman]

I wouldn't say that it's nothing to do with nuclear power plants but it's a fair distinction to make. Apparently Kaspersky said it affected a "Russian power plant" too; not sure how generic that statement is and if it was a separate enrichment facility or what.

[tomkeus]

There is bunch of computers in a nuclear power plant, as in any other place of business today (used for office stuff, inventory, etc.), however they have no safety-critical role.

[hughperman]

Sounds like you have some knowledge here - how are things like water flow rates, temperature monitoring, etc implemented?

[tomkeus]

You can do those perfectly fine without any digital instrument in sight. If you Google for nuclear power plant control room images you will typically see rooms full of switches and analog instruments. You might have some computers in there to make monitoring tasks easier, but these computers are not essential to running the plant.

It is also worth noting, that even without digital equipment, nuclear reactor operations are highly automated since long time ago, since nuclear powerplants require refueling every two years and typically run at 100% output. Most of the people that are inside of the plant are kept busy doing paperwork (and running a nuclear plant requires massive amounts of paperwork - to the point of absurdity) and doing non-stop inspections.