3 ms·
That’s substantially only true of the designs we stopped building in the 1970s (outside the USSR, where safety standards mixed “overbuilt” with “crucial details
by danielheath 5y ago
That’s substantially only true of the designs we stopped building in the 1970s (outside the USSR, where safety standards mixed “overbuilt” with “crucial details not addressed due to internal politicking”, resulting in disaster). Chernobyl could have been so much worse.
That said, when comparing planetwide, the mean outcome is more important than the worst case. Eg: on average, over it’s lifetime, including the explosion, Fukushima was less polluting than a brown coal plant.
- Retric 5y agoModern are only passive safe in the sort term, these designs still need active cooling in the long term. So if humans disappeared tomorrow these reactors would eventually release a great deal of radioactivity into the environment. It’s not a serious concern outside of wide scale natural disasters, but over hyping modern designs isn’t a good idea as it eventually harms perceptions of the industry.
- coldtea 5y ago>That’s substantially only true of the designs we stopped building in the 1970s That's what they say every time. This time will be different, new designs are safe, etc...