>afaik the reactor at Fukushima was not old

That's not true. All of Fukushima reactors were constructed before Chernobyl's reactors. Fukushima's reactors are based on a 50's design by GE/Westinghouse.

They are very old to the point where they could be labelled ancient.

Even for a strong democracy it is tough to sustain the blow of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake followed by tsunami. And no, reactors/technology in Fukushima were not new, they were from 1960s.

I'd argue that Chernobyl, which was basically a man-made disaster that stemmed from a drill, is quite fundamentally different from getting hit by the fourth highest magnitude earthquake known to man.

> which was basically a man-made disaster

So the man-made disaster consisted in allowing to build something like this in an area where there are earthquakes so big.

For me, the man-made disaster is the amount of dirty coal the Germany burns, after shutting down their nuclear power plants. And from pressure by the Greens, no less!

Man made disaster is the prices for electricity we pay in Germany, while France is happy generating nuclear power and pays 30% less.

France is not so "happy" with nuclear.

A state law (2015-992, from 2015, the "loi relative à la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte") states that the part of nuke-produced electricity must fall to less than 50% in 2025, from 72% then, and that renewables must replace it.

In France nuke-power is backed by gas (which produced 10,3% of gridpower in 2017).

The sole reactor currently planned (Flamanville-3) is a complete disaster, more than 10 years behind schedule and 4x overbudget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...