An editorial in Las Vegas Review Journal highlights the need for facility siting, inherent safer design and cost benefit trade off Vs Risk. The article mentions the following:
"It's not too early to start asking the billion-dollar questions: Is it possible to build nuclear reactors that can be relied on to safely shut themselves down, using passive cooling systems dependent on gravity rather than electric pumps, during an earthquake of such magnitude? Of the 442 nuclear reactors in operation around the world today, the World Nuclear Association estimates 20 percent are located in areas of "significant seismic activity." Siting will be re-examined. Better designs do appear possible.
One hundred percent passive cooling systems are not yet commercially available. But had even a partial passive system been in place at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, Japan's current nuclear crisis could have been averted, argues John McGaha, a board member of the American Nuclear Society.
"The thing that got Japan in trouble was not the earthquake, but the tsunami that took out power supplies," Mr. McGaha says. "Passive reactors would have been part of the answer to what happened."
In General Electric's design for the Fukushima reactors, the cooling tanks for storage of spent fuel rods sit atop the containment buildings. Some of these tanks appear to have gone dry, leaving the spent rods to spew radiation. If the tanks sat at or below ground level, they could be refilled by simply opening a spigot from backup water tanks, or through gravity-fed pipelines.
Meantime, the backup diesel generators that might have averted the disaster were positioned in a basement, where they were overwhelmed by the tsunami. In the end, cost-benefit trade-offs will still be made. But a valid cost-benefit analysis requires data as to what the true "costs" are when systems fail."
Read the editorial in this link..
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