Even Chernobyl isn't destroyed for good, though it's still an expensive mess to clean up. Fortunately, nobody builds reactors with such an idiotic design (a positive void coefficient[1]).
The actual site at Fukushima Daiichi is going to to be a long, expensive cleanup, but that's about the extent of the damage. Concerns about the surrounding area is just radiophobia and an extreme overreaction by the Japanese government. With how incredibly destructive the tsunami was, Fukushima Daini (which was also badly damage by the tsunami) showed us how incredibly safe nuclear power can be.
> can tell you that from looking at CS
More CS people need to study the lesson of incidents like therac-25[2]. It's very important to learn what fail safe means, which is very possible to implement, usually by avoiding as much of that "complex system". I trust the inherent and engineered safety systems of a nuclear reactor much more than I would trust any software project - including my own.
> A complete failure/breach of a big reactor is very costly.
So are fly ash slurry spills. You're holding coal to the same standards, right?
now were just very lucky that there was no full meltdown of the reactor core. Can you claim without flinching that this will never ever happen? I doubt it.
Just look up 'heroes of Chernobyl' - we were very close http://knowledgenuts.com/2014/04/13/when-three-divers-swam-i...
The fact that an accident of similar magnitude happened after Chernobyl sort of invalidates the point that it was all exclusively due to faulty reactor design.
In Germany this assessment led to a full shutdown of all nuclear power plants.
I never said there wasn't. The cleanup is ongoing and will take a very long time, but it still isn't "destroyed for good". At least the caesium eventually goes away. The Pb, Hg, and As in the 1.1 billion gallons of fly ash slurry that the Tennessee Valley Authority spilled[0] over homes and into the Emory and Clinch rivers doesn't have a half life.
> economy and agriculture
The tsunami also did incredible damage to the economy and agriculture of Japan.
> Can you claim without flinching that this will never ever happen?
Absolutely. Even the idiotic RBMK design can be run safely after being modified to fix the void coefficient. I suggest actually reading my link[1] above, which explain in great detail the problems in the design of that reactor. Even with those problems, it took incredible effort[2] to trigger the steam explosion.
> 'heroes of Chernobyl'
I'm give a lot of respect and thanks to those that had to deal with Chernobyl's immediate aftermath and the 600,000 liquidators that were part of the cleanup afterwords. In particular, the 3828 people that cleaned up the worst section of roof in two minute shifts. Their story - in their own words[3] - is something I will never forget.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...
[1] http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/chernobyl.html
> Tsunami
The tsunami in Japan killed over 15,000 people (with several thousand more missing, likely dead). Radiation from Fukushima Daiichi (or anywhere else) hasn't killed anybody yet, though a handful of unfortunate workers and others in the immediate vicinity may have cancer problems in the future. Hopefully those cases will be treatable, but we won't know for some time.
15,000+ dead seems to indicate some tsunamis are far more dangerous than nuclear power.
> coal dusts
You might want to look again at the contents of fly ash. It's radioactive, full of a long list of heavy metals, with trace amounts of nasty things like dioxins.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isn...
Chernobyl? Fukushima?
The technology has the potential of destroying huge areas for good. Do we want that?
A complex system that is attacked on multiple threat vectors is likely to fail - no matter how many redundandancies are put into safety. I can tell you that from looking at CS/network security.
A complete failure/breach of a big reactor is very costly.