The Fukushima-Daiichi meltdowns certainly turned the opinions of many people and governments against nuclear power \u2013 including Germany and Italy, the UK being a notable exception. However, the reaction within the nuclear research and engineering community itself has not been one of \u2018radical re-thinking\u2019 or \u2018course changes\u2019. Amongst technologists, what transpired in Japan isn\u2019t really seen as a failure of modern nuclear technology at all; rather, an unfortunate combination of obsolete designs and too-cosy state capitalist operation. The operating company, TEPCO, had a long history of poor safety enforcement and maintenance. On top of which it failed to follow its own advice in a 2004 report, which recommended a higher seawall that could have kept Fukushima\u2019s generators dry.<\/p>\n
On the technology side, the Fukushima reactors which failed were General Electric BWR\/3 models, designed in the late 1960s and installed in Japan in 1971 \u2013 that is, more than 15 years before the Chernobyl disaster. Failsafe procedures and general reactor configuration have moved on so much since BWR\/3 that this kind of cooling failure is not possible in more modern reactors. One example, the Canadian CANDU reactor, is designed so that a failure of cooling causes the vessel to deform in a way that separates the fuel elements, preventing a meltdown.<\/p>\n
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The Fukushima-Daiichi meltdowns certainly turned the opinions of many people and governments against nuclear power \u2013 including Germany and Italy, the UK being a notable exception. However, the reaction within the nuclear research and engineering community itself has not been one of \u2018radical re-thinking\u2019 or \u2018course changes\u2019. Amongst technologists, what transpired in Japan isn\u2019t really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":1117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[41],"class_list":{"0":"post-483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-public-engagement","8":"tag-james-miller","9":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n