[overlordalex]

> I had repeatedly been told that a modern (post-Chernobyl) reactor was simply incapable of these failures modes

Fukushima was commissioned in 1971. Chernobyl happened in 1986. I would not call the design a "post-Chernobyl" reactor.

I can recommend the section on the wiki page for further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe...

> I had even, ignorantly, parroted back

I think this is probably the root cause ;)

[andrewla]

You are correct. My sense of history is very flawed. Even the construction of Chernobyl post-dates Fukushima, and in fact most still operating reactors.

Still, Fukushima has forced me to adjust my priors in estimating what the level or risk of a nuclear disaster is; before that I was a strong supporter of nuclear because I thought that the risk was essentially zero.