Well, the fact that the reactors were old and newer designs were safer was the excuse used to deflect attention from Chernobyl by nuke apologists on FR shortly after Fukushima blew up. We were assured melt-thru was impossible with the newer, safer design. And then melt-thru occurred on all three reactors despite the newer, safer design.
TEPCO was in trouble for falsifying safety inspections before this disaster. They were warned to retrofit the location of the fuel tanks. THey chose not to. A scientist provided TEPCO with a report demonstrating that catastrophic tsunami risk was present due to the historical occurrence of one in that region x years prior and the geology/activity of the area. TEPCO chose to ignore his data. TEPCO certainly knew it built on seismic faults. Shortly before Fukushima blew up, TEPCO celebrated a worker who showed them how to conceal damage to a reactor vessel at the foundry it was made (big dent in it meant it had to be discarded to the tune of millions of dollars and he showed them how to pull the dent out so it could pass inspection; he feels bad about that now, that one was intended for the fourth reactor at Fukushima). Once the disaster occurred, safety precautions and procedures were discarded: SPEEDI data projecting the path of the plume was not released to the public to avoid panic, Potassium Iodide was forbidden to be distributed but one mayor went against the directive and helped to protect the children in his district anyway.
So you see - ‘safety’ means nothing if the public cannot force the nuke companies to obey safety regulations, implement known retrofit needs, respond to tsunami risks given them in reports from scientists, distribute Potassium iodide etc. ‘Safety’ precautions are apparently just smoke and mirrors the nuke industry uses to silence the will of the public. Oh and Japan also built the largest nuke plant in the world on a seismic fault and didn’t know it until an earthquake knocked the plant offline. When Fukushima blew up, 25% of US nuke plants reported that they, too, had excessive amounts of nuke fuel suspended in pools above reactors and requested fed funds to develop a safer alternative. This, inspite of FEMA’s New Madrid fault etc. Safety? Right.
PS: THank you for including your picture - it makes our exchange a bit more like a conversation, a tiny little perk I didn’t know I would like.
I'm sure your mom thinks you're clever.