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0 pointsrootusrootus7y ago0 comments

> One thing I've found interesting in talking about > Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often > willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they > confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively > "safe" even in case of disaster.

I figure it balances out the people who are extremely critical of nuclear power and accept that there could actually have been a 5 megaton explosion.

I'm not a strong advocate of nuclear power myself, but I tend to discount the value of Chernobyl as an argument for/against nuclear power. It was a terrible design in addition to being old, had little in the way of containment, and the games the operators were playing with the plant were off-the-charts stupid. Compared even to the oldest commercial Western-design reactors, it is a horrid contraption.