Deaths per unit of energy for various sources

Re:Deaths per unit of energy for various sources by webXL on Thursday March 17, 2011 @12:45AM (#2335104)

So in order to get the trust of the public, all we have to do is build a super safe prototype reactor and wait for a 9.5 earthquake and direct tsunami hit to come along and have the damn thing survive? Sorry, but that just means we'll be building more coal plants for at least the next 100 years.

If we managed to get a man to the moon, I think we can figure out a reliable system for backup power at earthquake and tsunami prone plants. And if that fails, add a couple more levels of containment. Some of the latest designs don't require external power for cooling, so once all the old reactors are decommissioned, we shouldn't run into this kind of problem again.

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Re:Deaths per unit of energy for various sources by blahblahblah on Thursday March 17, 2011 @02:41AM (#2335298)

You don't have to wait for a 9.5 earthquake to come along to test a design. That's what computer models are for. How do you think they came up with the estimate of what magnitude of a quake the existing design could withstand (assuming that the statement that this quake was "five times stronger" than what the plant was rated to handle has some basis in fact and isn't just a number plucked out of thin air)?

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