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Fukushima was built in the early 1970's from an early 1960's design. Nuclear power had barley started to be developed and then all development stopped. Of cours

Fukushima was built in the early 1970's from an early 1960's design. Nuclear power had barley started to be developed and then all development stopped. Of course there are many reasons for that, but if we had continued to develop new nuclear tech from the 70's till today, imagine how many extremely safe and inexpensive reactor concepts could have been developed. This is, of course, a long and complicated topic, not very amenable to forum discussion. Maybe it was a good idea that nuclear power was not developed, not because it was physically dangerous, but because giving the human race that much more access to power/energy at that point in history may have had a bad outcome. We may have needed slow down the industrial revolution's exponential advance for a bit.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
From what I read the root cause at Fukushima was improper risk assessment resulting in too low of a sea wall and not putting the gensets on piers. At least one engineer understood the mistake but was unable to overcome the bureaucracy to do anything about it. So while I agree with you about how "new nuclear" could be dramatically safer, I still have concerns about how this stuff is regulated and operated. It's also why I'm in particular gung ho about small reactors, as there even if the risk estimates are messed up, the scale itself alievates many concerns. Your final point/speculation is an interesting one. I've not heard this perspective before but it does seem plausible to me.