[sir_bearington]

> Does anyone honestly think the United States has institutions sound enough to safely manage nuclear power over multiple decades?

Seeing as they have done so for 70 years, yes. I don't just think it, I observe that it has safely managed nuclear power. All of the plants have run safely, save for Three Mile Island. And even in that case, safety measures worked and the secondary containment prevented large scale contamination.

I don't think it's infallible. But it's aware of its own fallibility and enforces measures like secondary containment.

[jhayward]

> I observe that it has safely managed nuclear power.

This is not a correct statement. You cannot assert, for instance, that the pressure vessel head corrosion issue at Davis-Besse[1] was a 'safely managed' power plant.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Besse_Nuclear_Po...

[sir_bearington]

I'm not sure I follow. The vessel head corrosion was detected, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had the plant shut down. How does a story of a safety issues being detected, and operations ceased accordingly indicate unsafe management? It demonstrates the opposite.

[jhayward]

The vessel head had corroded completely through the 6.63" steel pressure head, and the pressure vessel was relying only on the inner cladding to contain pressure. They were just a transient away, for years, from a steam explosion that would completely disassemble the pressure vessel and core and would place maximal stress on the containment building itself.

The issue was only "detected", after being covered up for years by falsified reports, when the engineer doing inspections decided to turn himself in.

There is no way this condition can be regarded as safe operation, and if that is what you are arguing there can be no question that it is flat wrong.

There are many, many of these kinds of situation where, just by the grace of whatever, we dodged a bullet and didn't have the catastrophe. You can't count those situations as adding to a cherry-picked "safe operation record".

There is a huge different between "didn't explode today", and "can't explode ever". We have spent too many days, months, years, in the former, rather than the latter. The so-called safety record is a lie.

[sir_bearington]

> steam explosion that would completely disassemble the pressure vessel and core and would place maximal stress on the containment building itself.

This venturing into the realm of hyperbole, at best. Nothing in your link mentions an explosion that would "completely disassemble the pressure vessel". Stress on the containment building isn't mentioned at all. These statements seem to be of your own invention.

Can you substantiate your claim that a pressure vessel failure stood to compromise the containment building?

> There is a huge different between "didn't explode today", and "can't explode ever"

Again, we set up our safety measures such that the danger is contained even if a meltdown occurs. Even the most scrutinized designs may fail. Humans are never perfect. You're right: no plant can guarantee that it can't fail. That's why safety measures are built to withstand failure.

[quesera]

I know nothing about DOE/NRC inspection requirements, but..

> The issue was only "detected", after being covered up for years by falsified reports, when the engineer doing inspections decided to turn himself in.

Is it really policy that the same inspector can be responsible for successive inspections accumulating to years? That would be stark raving insanity for any critical systems.

Financial businesses have a traditional 2-week enforced vacation for critical systems employees. This is not an aggressive work-life balance effort. :)

[HPsquared]

It's down to luck that the corrosion was detected before a serious incident occurred.