Comment 60963

By Ezaki Glico (anonymous) | Posted March 15, 2011 at 07:45:59

The manmade artifacts (GE-designed?), to my mind, are not as notable as the human element of this story. For all the touted systemic fail-safes, it's the "engineering solution" of the 50 selfless souls who opted to stay on that may be remembered the most. Once a more fulsome body of facts emerge independent of the filtration of the Japanese government and regulatory bodies ("crisis management" is another way of describing for spin), we may be better able to assess how well or poorly the system performed and how much came down to inspired improvisation. I would hate to think that nuclear safety simply relies upon human sacrifice of one order or another.

The "acceptable risk" engineering solution of building safeguards against only mid-magnitude quakes is another matter entirely. Was it that scientists in 1967 knew how to build a cluster of reactors but felt that despite straddling Pacific-Philippine-Eurasian triple plate junction, incorporating defences against anything stronger than an 8 was an wasteful long-shot?

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