Decius wrote:

] A "Chernobyl like accident" cannot occur in a modern reactor
] because modern reactors are based on a completely different
] designs that simply work in a different way and experience
] different kinds of failures. Whether the risks associated with
] those failures are acceptable is an unrelated, but important,
] question.

Complex systems are always liable to failure, and a new type of Chernobyl would be no more acceptable than the original. A close friend of mine was a mathematical engineer at our local nuclear power station. He was confident of his own abilities and therefore of the station's safety. He got so excited about this that he accidentally spilt coffee over me ...

.. of course, he said "sorry", but it was too late.

RE: Boing Boing: 'Girl Photoblogs Chernobyl on Motorcycle' thing a fraud