Go back to my first post. My concerns are with allowing the Obama administration run the show. The Chernobyl disaster was in large part a result of the political system in the Soviet union.
Its not that there are problems with our designs, I’m mostly concerned with who would run them under this administration. I really prefer something that becomes harmless with mismanagement.
Chernobyl was a graphite-moderated reactor. It is an inherently unsafe design. With the loss of the graphite moderator, the reaction goes out of control.
No US plants use this design. US plants are slow-neutron reactors. Water is used to slow the neutrons down for capture and fission. If the water is missing, the neutrons are too fast and the reaction stops. This why Three Mile Island was more of a financial disaster than an environmental disaster...the reaction stopped when the water went away.
The relationship between the government, the utilities and the NRC is rather complicated. I believe that most of the NRC is paid for by the utilities, so there are some checks to an overreaching Obama administartion.