Quote:
Originally Posted by TracyCoxx
Your comments are really not relevant to the situation in Japan. It wasn't the Unknown that did in the reactors. Japan is right smack on the ring of fire. It is known that 9.0 quakes are possible. The reactors were built on a shore where it is known that tsunamis are possible. It's not the Unknown that caused this disaster, it was planning by beaurocrats and engineers who dismissed the possibility that Known dangers could happen.
In the US there are PLENTY of places to build nuclear reactors that are not on a fault, not where tsunamis can happen, not where hurricans are a danger, not where flooding can happen, not where there's a lot of tornados, etc. Humanity didn't get to where it is by having a defeatist attitude. When problems arise we can figure out how to design around them. I guess in Japan's case they were running out of options to power their country and unfortunately accepted known risks.
|
In their planning, they anticipated a tsunami and built a 25 foot high seawall. The tsunami was so big, it's hard to say weather any seawall would have stopped it. One town on the coast built a 30 foot seawall and the wave went right over it. A tsunami is very different from a storm wave. A storm wave is just a big regular wave. A tsunami is like a flash flood, a vast river with tremendous momentum able to smash everything in its path.