Re:Amazon's Jeff Bezos Backs Nuclear Startup General Fusion
by pyre on Friday May 06, 2011 @04:32AM
(#2520362)
There's an alternative way of looking at it:
* The US government did nothing because they've already considered and inspected for these contingencies, knowing that the reactors are in earthquake zones.
* The German government is displaying their incompetence because it took a huge disaster somewhere else for them to decide to look at these issues, rather than being more proactive about it.
You're assuming that because the US did nothing that it's reactors are vulnerable and the government must be turning a blind eye to it. You've provided no evidence to back this claim.
Re:Amazon's Jeff Bezos Backs Nuclear Startup General Fusion
by lispm on Sunday May 08, 2011 @03:38AM
(#2525449)
Several US reactors share a lot of the design of the Japanese and are built and designed by GE. That Lone would make me nervous.
The accident in Japan provided knew knowledge: it showed multiple scenarios which were thought to be extremely unlikely or which were not thought about at all.
Germany did shut down the more problematic reactors for a security check. The question is whether the reactors survive a scenario, where multiple systems are failing (like in Japan). This can be caused by operator errors, terrorist attacks, earth quakes (yes, germany has earth quakes), etc.
Compare that with the US, which has several reactors which are much more dangerous than most German ones, has some in very dangerous earth quake zones, etc. The US did mostly nothing.
I know which government I prefer.