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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Absolutely, Japan created a huge ecological disaster here. Fun fact about the whole thing is that this type of reactor was known to be unsafe even back in the 70s, and one of the scientists from GE actually quit in protest over it https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287
So, this isn't even a problem with a danger of using nuclear power, but rather one with capitalists cutting corners while chasing profits.
Nuclear power is like skydiving. If getting it right every time isn't something you're committed to doing, then don't do it.
Great potential in it to save the world, equal potential to destroy the world. Add on capitalist profit chasing and you've tipped the scales.
Also I'd just like to say this because I don't think a lot of people know it: The meltdown was not because the tsunami hit the reactor. It didn't. It hit an unrelated power station that was powering the cooling system, a system that was already extremely controversial due to its completely un-failsafe design and reliance on an external, much more vulrnable power source. This was not an unavoidable act of god, this was completely preventable and a massive insult to injury in an already devastated region following the tsunami.
The diesel generator, required when grid power was lost, was at the lowest point of the reactor site. Its an incredible lack of planning.
And to add Chernobyl wasn't due to a spontaneous failure, it was a deliberate shutting down of backup systems to test them by people who didn't plan it properly.