California's Last Nuclear Power Plant to Be Shut Down

Re:California's Last Nuclear Power Plant to Be Shut Down by darawk on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @03:10AM (#11952064)

While I do agree with the broader point that nuclear power is probably a good idea, an estimate like "1 per million years" is, by definition, absolute bullshit.

There is no way to reliably estimate an event that rare. And to publish such an estimate at all is insanely irresponsible.

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Re:California's Last Nuclear Power Plant to Be Shut Down by s_q_b on Saturday June 25, 2016 @11:09PM (#11979231)

Actually, if you have the data, estimating failure rates of reactors is fairly straightforward. Just use a Poisson distribution, the same as calculating MTBFs for other rare events.

It's the same way one calculates the probability of being struck by lightening, for example.

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