On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:30:20 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:

Ignoramus28574 wrote:


The reactor is American, I would call it American engineering.
Yup, a 1960's US design. Only a couple of that vintage are still
running in the US, and not for much longer. I think those have been
upgraded a bit on their safety systems, while the Fukushima Dai-ichi
#1 had relatively few updates.

Just an translation errata: Dai-Ichi = Number One. (Know that much.)
Thank you.
The Department of Redundancy Department.

And yeah, their planning sucked. Now we know better...

But back then they were just thinking "Hey, why should we pump this
sea-water up any higher than we have to just to get it to the heat
exchangers? We'll save a lot of energy that way."

Now they would put the plant 1/4 mile onshore on top of a high bluff,
and/or have a huge series of energy-absorbing breakwater earthworks
between the plant and the shore - and a dike around the whole thing.

And the power utility trying to license the new reactor would STILL be
complaining about the costs of "unnecessary precautions" for events
that couldn't possibly play out that way.

-- Bruce --