[lbo-talk] Nuclear plant chief weeps as Japanese finally admits radiation leak is serious enough to kill people

[Fernando Cassia]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:49 AM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> It seems to me that the way to tackle the inevitability of human (*and* system) failure is not to rely purely on backups and safeguards (all of which might in turn fail) but to prefer solutions that have less catastrophic consequences when these inevitabilities come to fruition?
>
>        —ravi

AGREE. And to me, the nuclear industry is prone to "over-engineering".
In other words "KISS" (Keep it simple,stupid) applies here, as well.

For instance, building a large water tank / reservoir in a separate
building above the reactor level would have allowed having an
emergency water cooling system that would have worked by pure
_GRAVITY_... open the valve and water flows down. And not having to
wait for hours while disaster unfolds to finally suck up water from
the ocean and bombing it into the damaged ones...

FC