When I think how I would plan out a terrorist attack the first thing that comes to mind is when I worked for a private security company that did security for a nuclear power plant here in Cordova, Iowa. They had somewhat of a strong security team but lacked in the areas of the plant that needed the most security. They lacked security for the cooling towers which without could cause the whole plant to come unstable. So there for I’m going to explain how easy it would be to execute an attack on them.
I would research online and off line on how to make a simple bomb and I would make a few of them. After making them I would I simply hide them in my car as they do not 100 % search my personal car when coming though the main gate in which the parking lot faces the main cooling tower that without the main the second and third would fail, therefore creating the plant to overheat and explode.
I would wait to do this when the plant had its seasonal shutdown, they still had staff to keep the plant functioning but the majority of the staff were laid off for a week or so. Also being some of security. Only the full time security worked. I would wait till third shift when basically security was laid back and lazy. I would simply go out to my car for lunch, then quickly prep the explosives I made and drive my truck beside the cooling tower and wait till I was around the security team and set them off. I would then take out the security team I was with and proceed to the weapons locker and take grenades and heavy weapons as a saw and m4-203, that we carried on site and destroy key parts of the plant that stabilize the plant cooling system. By doing so it would over heat the nuclear reactors.
At this point I would go to the fallout shelter and wait for my plan to do its thing. The statistics of what it would do are mind blowing, not only would it take out probably most of Iowa its self but the radiation from the explosion would spread over the Midwest if