LOL, I am very pro nuke but that statement is too much. The japanese didn’t properly anticipate a tsunami of this size. What happens when something not anticipated screws up the passive cooling scheme? Just had to ask.
I have to ask, yes in the clarity of 20/20 hindsight for me but, how do you figure there could be a design earthquake without a Tsunami in a nation where one goes with the other with amazing frequency?
Anybody?
Passive as in it's a brick, no moving parts required, ie...no dependency on external power to cool or stabilize.
Here's a question, what happens when a 747 hits a gust not anticipated by 14CFR25.561 ???
400 plus dead. That is at least 400 more then will be hurt by 4 obsolete reactors in full meltdown. This is media hype. Life is scary, engineering can only insulate you so much from the wilds.
How often has Japan see tsunamis of this size? And since we should all freak out now, how about someone tell us exactly what the radiation level is, what isotope it is associated with (if it is), and...is it alpha, beta, or gamma radiation...it kinda matters.
Kniow you weren’t asking me, but with the Hyperion design, it’s self-contained. No water in, no pumping, no water out. Nothing. Unless you literally blow it up with large explosives, it will be OK.
Then there’s the pebble bed reactor. The pebbles are graphite balls with unranium impregnated into them sealed by ceramic. That’s a passive safety design, the key word being “passive.” Even if you drain all the water, you don’t get a meltdown. Nasty hot, but no meltdown, and the ceramic is sufficiently heat resistant to withstand the heat.
The difference between modern designs and 40 year old ones is like the difference between fighter planes in WWII and fighters today.
But will that matter in the LSM? And therefore the dumbed-down voting public? Probably not...