Re:Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy
by BurningFrog on Thursday July 07, 2022 @10:57PM
(#32022514)
OK, I'll clarify:
Modern reactors all have a containment shell made of concrete and steel that is capable of keeping the melted down uranium core inside it, if the worst possible event would happen. Had Chernobyl had this, the incident might have destroyed the reactor and even killed some employees, but that would have been the end of it, and the world would never even have heard about the incident.
There are also plenty of other security improvements since that ancient design, but the containment shell alone makes what I would call "chernobyl happening again" just about impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment_building
Biggest dam accident is arguably worse than Chernobyl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
WTF? Chernobyl will NEVER happen exactly the same way again, that much is obvious since
a) it was already a pretty rare event to begin with,
b) the event is likely referenced during the training of every nuclear operator _worldwide_, making an exact repeat of the human errors involved even more unlikely than it was to begin with,
c) steps were taken to avoid this exact situation to happen _even on the other chernobyl reactors themselves_.
I thought it quite obvious that no one would be worried about a exact repeat of Chernobyl like if you hit the "replay" button on YouTube. (But if you believe this is what people have in mind when they ask "can chernobyl happen again" then please do tell). Therefore the only remaining interpretation is "can a chernobyl[-like] event happen again" -- a category which would roughly map to "major historic nuclear accident, the kind of which it is still talked about several decades after on a non-nuclear discussion forum like HN".
Most assuredly, non-nuclear accidents, no matter how large, won't fit this category. But I have been wrong in the past, maybe people would call a dam breakup "a chernobyl" these days?