A cautionary tale
From
Depleted Cranium:
The Other Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
Since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the world�s attention has been fixed upon the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The six reactor plant suffered major damage that disabled the primary cooling systems on units one, two, three and four.
Yet there is another Fukushima nuclear plant, which was struck by exactly the same forces but has gone largely unnoticed, primarily because there have been so few problems. Fukushima Daiichi translates directly as �Fukushima Number 1,� and was built starting in 1967. In 1976 it was decided to construct a second nuclear power plant, Fukushima Daini, directly translated as �Fukushima Number 2.� The first units came online at Fukushima Daini in 1982, with a total of four reactors being built, the last coming online in 1986.
Read the entire article -- it is amazing what less than ten years can do to reactor design and its resilience. The units that went through meltdown were brought online in 1973 and 1974. The oldest of the Daini series came online in 1981. The design changes made it essentially impervious to the shock of the earthquake and the same tsunami.
Considering what our own personal computers have gone through in terms of design evolution, it is not surprising that every other aspect of technology has gone through the same remarkable disruption and upheaval. Fun time to be alive...
Posted by DaveH at May 26, 2011 5:47 PM