Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK. So ... WHY are there so many regulations and safety procedures? Is this political fluff? Pure overhead? I don't think so. It is inherent to the nature of a solid fuel rod reactor, the incidence (and fear) of meltdowns, and the fear of nuclear waste. What is a nuclear meltdown. In solid fuel reactors a nuclear chain reaction is induced, so an atom of nuclear fuel splits from an incoming neutron, and in the process…
"But, like Fukushima showed, control systems are vulnerable to failure." Fukishima showed that organizational incompetence that led to backup generators being placed in the tsunami zone is a bad idea.
*You're arguing against the wrong point.*
Organizational incompetence is an every GREATER inevitability than a tsunami, earthquake, meteor strike, tornado, hurricane, or terrorist attack.
The point is that solid fuel reactors are currently completely fucked from an economic standpoint. They are fundamentally economically noncompetitive. They will hang on until grid storage, geothermal, or (god help us) natural gas turbine + CO2 capture replaces them as grid levelers. No, I don't think pebble bed or other approaches will work.
I love nuclear, it is so cool. I WANT a viable nuclear reactor option, that's competitive and useful. Does it HAVE to be LFTR? No, it's just the only design I see that really addresses all the semi-rational political concerns.
The nuclear lobby does itself no favors, just like you did with your immediate retort. "Death rates are low". "Nobody died from Fukushima". Those are fundamentally losing arguments politically, it will get the nuclear industry nowhere.
Now, as I said, the entire "nuclear lobby" is the "solid fuel legacy nuclear design lobby". They are riding out a loser's hand as long as they can. A switch to a radical new design might as well be the same thing as shutting down every existing nuclear plant. It's the same economic armageddon to them, so they don't care about "nuclear the idea" just "nuclear the profits".
But the dangerous thing is that all the practical nuclear engineering/knowledge that might allow a radical reactor design to succeed won't be around if the nuclear industry just clings to a slowly sinking ship. Everyone will die or retire in a generation, and then nuclear power, the IDEA, has a longer road to viability. Or it may be permanently disabled.
I don't want that. I want the nuclear industry, nuclear lobby, and American research infrastructure to WAKE UP and start really working on economically viable reactors. NOW. I mean, China isn't asleep at the switch.
But I don't see it. I see bullshit astroturfing stories like clockwork here. Which just saddens me.