On Answering Questions
I got into an argument last night on Twitter about hazards around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The other person argued that I should have emphasized worst cases and had a couple poorly thought out. What I try to do in my posts on such things is to answer the question “What is likely?” I think that’s what most people want to know.
“What is likely?” is different from “What is the worst thing that can happen?” It also takes more work to answer. Probabilities, quantitative information, and subjective judgments all enter in. Unfortunately, a large number of nuclear experts, particularly those opposed to civilian nuclear power or nuclear weapons, have used the worst-case approach. It’s time for them to change.
There’s a lot of quantitative or semi-quantitative information available on ZNPP. Much of it can be treated as “more than” or “less than” something else. For example, there is much more containment at ZNPP than there was at Chernobyl. Probabilities can be arranged in a rough order.
The worst thing that can happen requires multiple failures in the system. The Chernobyl reactor, under normal operating conditions, contained design flaws that were failures waiting to happen. A poorly thought out experiment at a time of night when few other operators were available set off the cascade. The earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima, along with poor engineering against them, set off multiple failures there.
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