S. Korea halts construction of two nuclear power plants

They should have planned from the start to take any power of earthquake without damage.

Smart decision. After seeing what happened in Japan it would be stupid to NOT be cautious.

>>131734893
That's not how buildings work

>>131734769
If they were so scared of a meltdown they should have gone for a thorium reactor instead.

>>131735047
>That's not how buildings work
The reactor in Fukushima Daiichi built in the 1960s took the 3rd most powerful earthquake in recorded history effectively without damage. They had 2 secondary steam pipes crack.

>>131735255
But then a meltdown would be inevitable.

>>131734893
All new nuke plant designs can take >8.0 earthquakes, but you're supposed to pick a site that is extremely unlikely to experience any earthquake to begin with.

>>131735260

You're said "They should have planned from the start to take any power of earthquake without damage".

Not sure if that's what you meant, but that's what you said. You basically said they HAVEN'T been planning from the beginning.

What do you think they started constructing and then waited to plan?.

Everything starts with a plan. What you don't comprehend (but they do luckily you're not in charge) is that no amount of planning is good enough. You can plan something as best you can (providing it's economically feasible) and it could end up in disaster within months.

You can't plan around nature dude. Especially when cost matters. I'm sure they would love to put a 50 foot thick steel wall to completely encase the fucking thing but who's going to pay for that?. Not even sure that could be done.

>>131734769
smart.
scrap the whole thing.
start over with thorium reactors

>>131735260
I got only two responses for you

>you don't know because you don't work in the field
>you do know, but you're in denial

>>131735541

They had two partly constructed reactors and have stopped due to fears about earthquakes after several earthquakes in the area. They are going to do new assessments and change the plans to better handle the potential danger.

Which means they were not building a reactor able to survive a 9.0 earthquake without damage from the start.
Which means they were planning on building a reactor less safe than 1960s era reactors.

Oh it costs too much money!

That's a valid option for many industrial operators. They know spending an extra 10% upfront would make a system that would last for hundreds of years but they don't have the money for it so they keep having to replace parts every 10 years. It's retarded but viable.

For a nuclear reactor with access to unlimited amounts of government bonds it makes no sense not to build the longest lasting unit possible and amortize the cost over 50+ years.

>>131735461
>All new nuke plant designs can take >8.0 earthquakes, but you're supposed to pick a site that is extremely unlikely to experience any earthquake to begin with.

Again we had designs that took 9.0+ without meaningful damage. Only 8.0 without damage is a 32 times reduction in power it can handle.

>>131736346

>Again we had designs that took 9.0+ without meaningful damage

You act like earthquakes are manufactured and sent out by a factory.

All quakes are different and your attitude is one of a high up corporate executive looking at a one page run down of the good news and positive out look because he doesn't want to be told "it can't be done" and has to get to a golf game before lunch.

Do you work for BP?

>>131736700
If we can build reactors that can handle 9.0 quakes with designs from the 60s on 50 year old buildings.
Then surely we can with modern methods build reactors to handle 9.0s today.

That they were building a set of reactors and stopped due to nearby earthquakes to redesign means that they were building to a far lower safety standard than was used 50 years ago.

They should take the time and money to build a safe design, not a safe enough design. Over the life span of the reactor any upfront cost that's met with government bonds is more or less negligible.

So we have two options:
1: They were building unsafe reactors.
2: They are using safety concerns to meet short term anti nuclear political goals today.

Many places in the world have no risk of earthquakes and simple 6.0 designs are more than proper. However for a Pacific Rim location it's unsafe to build for anything short of a max reasonable earthquake.

>>131734769
Our biggest earthquake ever recorded was a 5.4. Fucking nothing. It's absurd.