re: #264 Eowyn2

But but what about Chernobyl? I mean, just because the Ruskies were experimenting and were down to like 9 cooling rods is no reason to believe that it couldnt happen here.

Did you forget the sarc tag?
Chernobyl had no containment, and was a graphite reactor. Those have a “positive temperature coefficient” - when they heat up, the reaction speeds up as well.
Most reactors are much safer.
Water cooled reactors have a negative temperature coefficient. When they heat, the water doesn’t moderate (slow down) the neutrons as well, and the reaction slows.
In the late 1950s or early 1960s, they built a reactor with a “fast negative temperature coefficient”. They drained the water, and the reactor shut down immediately without overheating.

And we’ve done tests of reactors similar to the current designs, simulating a loss of cooling accident. The result was not as bad as predicted.