8 ms·

What could go wrong?

• betterunix2 5y ago
  Probably very little? Modern reactor designs do not have the same risk of catastrophic failure that older designs like the Fukushima plant had.
  • tharne 5y ago
    Folks thought the same thing about Fukushima at the time. If history has shown us anything, it's that we're consistently not as smart as we think we are.
    • betterunix2 5y ago
      It is not as though the Fukushima operators were blindsided. They knew exactly what would happen if they could not restore power within a certain period of time; they could not restore power and the disaster proceeded as anticipated. What makes modern reactors different is that the worst case is not a catastrophe, and a loss of power does not cause a catastrophe. With older reactors the design philosophy was to make the worst case sufficiently unlikely; with newer designs the philosophy is to not have a catastrophic worst case.