The Fukushima disaster could have been averted simply by putting the backup electric generators on a platform, and venting the hydrogen gases outside.

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mpweiher 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes.

Or not having your plant destroyed by the biggest Tsunami in recorded Japanese history, much larger than the size they planned for when they built the plant.

Or upgrading the seawall to the size mandated after scientists found out that Tsunamis of that size could actually happen, despite having no historical record of them. One of the reasons TEPCO was culpable.

A sister plant of the Fukushima plant actually survived a slightly higher crest and was even used as a shelter for Tsunami victims, because one engineer had insisted on the sea wall being higher.

German plants for example, despite facing no immediate Tsunami risks, have bunkered and distributed backup generators as well as mandatory hydrogen recombinators. Any German plant at the same location would have survived largely unscathed.

	▲	WalterBright 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		A larger seawall can still fail. Better to put the generators on a platform. Simple and cheap. Another backup would have been a pipe leading away from the reactor, where one can, from a short distance, pump water into it and it would cool the reactor.

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ViewTrick1002 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Everything is "simple" with hindsight in mind.

After SL-1 we realized that that we needed to allow a reactor to fully shut down even with the most important control rod stuck in a fully withdrawn position.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1#Accident_and_response

	▲	WalterBright 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Everything is "simple" with hindsight in mind. The fixes are still simple and cost little. I used to work at Boeing on airliner design. The guiding principle is "what happens when X fails" and design for that. It is not "design so X cannot fail", as we do not know how to design things that cannot fail. For Fukushima, it is "what happens if the seawall fails", not "the seawall cannot fail". Airliners are safe not because critical parts cannot fail, but because there is a backup plan for every critical part. Venting explosive gas into the building seems like a complete failure to do a proper failure analysis.