So, then, they do not "completely eliminate" the possibility of failure. Your last sentence seems to contradict the "No." at the beginning of your reply.
I didn't say anything about "completely eliminating the possibility of failure". I said "completely eliminate the possibility of meltdown" which is in fact correct.
ThorCon plans on operating the plants about 100 feet underground, which will even mitigate a deliberate attack with an airliner. There is no way to make anything absolutely, 100% safe, but this approach is mighty close.
That is in contrast with fossil fuel pollution, which kills hundreds of thousands of people a year.
> New reactor designs completely eliminate the possibility of meltdown.
not necessarily of any failure, to which they were willing to accept that things can fail in novel ways, just not meltdowns in their view.
No.
Modern reactor designs are actually designed in a way that makes it difficult to maintain the reaction. If you are not actively maintaining it, then it will stop on its own. This is opposed to the most common existing designs, where you need to expend effort to _stop_ the reaction.
This is not to say that they cannot fail in some novel ways.