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Comment by AngryData | Hacker News Reader

To be fair Chernobyl was designed what, 15 years after the invention of nuclear technology? Even discounting all the politicial and management control problems, the engineering and scientific knowledge of nuclear reactor design was still in its infancy. Imagine if we judged the safety of automobiles on pre-Model-T cars. Or steam boilers and engines on the first 20 yearrs of their invention.

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What's the worst accident involving a Model T, maybe a dozen dead? Early steam boilers aren't going to be much worse either. Nuclear accidents are essentially unlimited in size. Nothing else can do that kind of country-sized - let alone it being permanent.

Chernobyl showed the potential impact. Fukushima showed that even several decades down the line things can still rapidly run out of control. All the knowledge and experience in the world isn't going to save you when something unexpected happens and things are just waiting to spiral out of control.

Steam boilers have a lot of regulation, all written in blood. Entire boats would explode killing most/all onboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boiler_explosions

Do you understand the scale of Chernobyl if they had failed to stop the meltdown? Half of eastern europe would be uninhabitable. It would've killed 100s of millions.

It's even worse: the problems of that reactor type were, in fact, well-known at the time.

Which is one of the reasons that reactor would never have gotten an operating license in any western country. Oh, and not having any containment.

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