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And sometimes people shoot guns and missiles at hydro dams to make them fail and kill tens of thousands of people. For both of these there needs to be cautious

And sometimes people shoot guns and missiles at hydro dams to make them fail and kill tens of thousands of people. For both of these there needs to be cautious assessment of the amount of risks that can be mitigated: - nuclear reactor containment domes, like hydro dams, are built to withstand a few bombs or the impact of a fighter jet, or maybe even a tsunami or once-a-millenium major quake - neither of the two are built to withstand nuclear weapons or continued bunker busters - that's the job of the military...

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Dams often aren't built for power generation, but to better control the river. Energy generation is only a side benefit. Also: A burst dam has predictable and limited consequences. There's still no final assessment for the cost of the Fukushima cleanup or when it will be finished or what they are even gonna do with all the radioactive earth and such. No, apparently not all reactors are built that sturdily. Certainly the proposed SMRs and micro reactors have no such ambitions. Fukushima was built to withstand Tsunamis and earth quakes. The topic of "impossible accidents" actually happening makes the public a little uneasy about predictions by pro-nuclear salespeople. The whole argument about dams vs nuclear plants is pointless.