Just wondering France is planning 14 new reactors what’s the safety protocol if an earth quake hits a reactor and does it do much damage to the environment around it
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> Just wondering France is planning 14 new reactors what’s the safety protocol if an earth quake hits a reactor
1. Try not to build your reactor where record breaking earthquakes happen. Japan is on/near a giant fault line. France is not, so French reactors don’t have to deal with huge earthquakes to begin with.
2. Ensure that your stuff doesn’t fall apart on an earthquake. Humans are pretty good at this, Asian and US West Coast engineers have a lot of experience designing stuff that doesn’t mind being shaken around. Fukushima-Daichi managed this just fine, the earthquake did not damage the plant. It, however, forced it to automatically shut down and knocked out external power for cooling pumps. It had diesel backup generators though!
3. Make sure any tsunami that comes after the earthquake doesn’t flood your diesel generators. This is where FD had an oopsie: they had an anti-tsunami wall that was undersized, and the diesel generators were in the basement. So they got fucked and the core overheated and got a bit runny. Worth to note that the Onagawa NPP, half as far from the epicenter than Fukushima but designed with a much taller tsunami wall, has weathered the earthquake and tsunami without issue.
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