[MP-Ryan]

Every nuclear power accident to date is the result of human error and/or improper training.  The technology itself is incredibly safe.

[Klaustrophobia]

Well, Chernobyl's design wouldn't be called inherently safe by western standards.  It was triggered by (a ****ton of) human error, but couldn't have happened the way it did without the bad design.

[Klaustrophobia]

Not to mention Three Mile Island was a good example of a well maintained nuclear power plant. Even though the meltdown still happened, the plant's safeties (I forget the terminology) contained 50% of the material that leaked out.

More like 99.999%.  The only release that WASN'T contained was some short-lived radioactive noble gasses (which are physically impossible to filter).  The maximum exposure to anyone was 100 millirem.  5 times less than the annual exposure limit and 3 times less than average background exposure.  The average was 8 millirem.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Three-Mile-Island-accident/

[BritishShivans]

Huh. Turns out they were even more well-designed than I thought.

[Mongoose]

Every nuclear power accident to date is the result of human error and/or improper training.  The technology itself is incredibly safe.

Exactly.  Fukushima survived the earthquake just fine, and if those backup diesel generators hadn't been positioned on just about the most flood-prone part of the property, we wouldn't even know its name right now.

[Dragon]

Well, Chernobyl's design wouldn't be called inherently safe by western standards.  It was triggered by (a ****ton of) human error, but couldn't have happened the way it did without the bad design.

It was about the only nuclear plant design that could produce a positive feedback loop like this. And for this reason, this particular design was never used in the West. Also, IIRC, calling Chernobyl a nuclear power plant is a bit of a misnomer - it was a plutonium plant that produced power as a byproduct. That design wasn't even optimized for power generation, being a plutonium breeder first and a power plant second. A somewhat typical Cold War-era approach to reactor design, but new reactors are designed according to different priorities.

[BirdofPrey]

It should be noted Chenobyl lacked a containment vessel that is a part of basically any nuclear power plant design and actually exploded rather than just melted down.  it should also be noted, they were running an experiment with the reactor and NOT following the procedure as laid out for said experiment.

Or in other words, the accident happened because of tons of dumbass piled on mounds of stupid.

[Mr. Vega]

Nuclear power is safe, so long as you spend the money on safe plants and have people who know what they're doing to run it. I'm in favor of nuclear power's expansion, but I'm worried about whether we can expand at the rate that article is talking about without sacrifices, unintentional or not, to safety and quality control. How many colleges still train nuclear engineers?

[Klaustrophobia]

We were on the upswing.  Then 2007/2008 the economic and political winds changed.  However, the majority of people who work in nuclear power don't have nuclear engineering degrees.  There's more mechanical than anything else.  You only strictly need nukes for the design/maintenance of the core itself.  I've put my actual nuclear knowledge to use at my job maybe twice.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, once you get past how the heat is being created it's essentially just a steam turbine like any other.