> I remember paying close attention on HN when the Fukushima accident was under way, and there were plenty of people on HN and elsewhere swearing that the Fukus

> I remember paying close attention on HN when the Fukushima accident was under way, and there were plenty of people on HN and elsewhere swearing that the Fukushima reactor would never melt down, that it was designed to prevent just such a meltdown. It melted down nevertheless. Yep, there's a lot of misinformation on the Internet. That said, the Fukushima reactors would have been fine if the backup generators to power cooling had been available. However, they weren't in a watertight compartment (as recommended), and were flooded by the tsunami. Even then other backup generators would have worked, but were delivered with the wrong connector and time ran out. Many Gen-IV designs are, on the other hand, inherently or "walk away" safe. They literally can't melt down or explode due to basic physics.