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Plus worst case for a nuclear submarine is that you flood the reactor with sea water if you have a loss of cooling.

Surely there are worse cases for a sub than this?

The idea is that you are not going to have a meltdown even in a badly malfunctioning reactor.

Is it? It's not at all difficult to stock enough seawater to flood a terrestrial plant. What's distinguishing the submarine?

A submarine (when submerged) has a large body of water for heat to radiate out into.

A (previous generation) terrestrial plant already has systems that can dump ludicrous amounts of water onto the core, but they all rely on there being power to operate pumps. A nuclear submarine that can dump in sea water does not need this - the body of water it is in is cold enough (relative to the heat in the core) that it will naturally carry heat away.

Smaller size than commercial power station reactors, easier to keep cool.

This contradicts the comment I responded to, though. The scenario is that we've already failed to keep it cool.

There is less of it to cool.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com