re: #80 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

True. So long as it doesn’t breach the containment vessel, then any radioactivity will be (hopefully) limited to the facility itself. Not the most cheerful scenario, but it beats the alternatives.

Correct. The problem with Chernobyl was the fact that it *lacked* any sort of containment structure around the reactor. Additionally, my understanding is that the explosion at Chernobyl occurred due to the still active reactor suddenly spiking in power, either when they attempted to shut it down (Since apparently the design was flawed in such a way that the shutdown process actually increased reaction activity before it decreased it) or before hand.

These reactors are already shut down, so as long as containment holds, outside damage shouldn’t reach catastrophic (Or, perhaps, not even serious) levels. Of course, if containment fails…then we may have very serious problems.

And yeah, this isn’t going to help any pushes for new (or keeping existing) nuclear power, regardless of how this turns out from here. This is unfortunate, since newer designs are supposed to be extremely. That said, if things go really badly with this, I don’t think I’ll blame people for questioning safety, even if it is short sighted when you look at health effects of other methods of energy production, like gas or coal.