> questioned or critically examined. It does not a bit surprise me that
> nuclear power tends to be viewed as "safer" by physicists or engineers
> than by general public. In the same vein, turbulence is not a big
> deal to airline pilots, but it scares the living shit out of the
> passengers.
Yes, but turbulence genuinely isn't a big risk, provided you're strapped in, and the people I'm talking about aren't nuclear specialists. On the contrary, it's the apparent specialists who are providing a coherent account of events. The people I'm talking about assert things that are manifestly untrue except in absurd, legalistic senses: Yes, the plant wasn't washed out to sea or immediately rupture, and so in that sense survived, but you don't salvage a reactor with a partially melted core pumped full of corrosive seawater. They're "under control" insofar as a self-sustaining fission reaction was stopped, but without active cooling the heat from the decay still wrecks the core and provides us with the current drama, and possibly melts the fuel together to get your fission reactor back. It's positively Rumsfeldian.
-- Andy