Quote:* And let us not forget the specter of Chernobyl and Fukushima, neitherOh, don't get me STARTED on how true this is. Fukushima was only such a problem because they put the backup generators in the wrong part of the reactor complex. Chernobyl was a case of unskilled operators, political directives, and experimental procedures being used on a quirky reactor design that didn't gracefully handle sudden control rod insertion.
of which would have been nearly as bad if they'd happened to the more
modern reactor designs.
Essentially, both disasters wouldn't have been a thing, but for design flaws.
Now, in any other industry, design flaws mean one thing- reengineering. Your design doesn't work/does X/doesn't do X, but should? Fine. Take the design, figure out what needs to be changed, and change it. For some reason, though (ECS named them off quite nicely), nuclear power is the one industry where a design flaw, even somebody else's design flaw, means that the whole field needs to be buried forever and never even contemplated again... except as something wrong and evil, which no civilized nation should ever use... except for the Europeans. And the Japanese. And the Iranians, because that's CLEARLY why they want enriched fissionables.
...okay, so maybe we're the only ones who aren't ideologically allowed nuclear power. Politics!
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.