Chernobyl-scale disasters or worse can happen at modern reactors

[bananas]

http://news.discovery.com/tech/is-nuclear-energy-safe.html

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Could a Chernobyl-type accident happen in the United States at a nuclear power plant?

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Lyman: The short answer is yes. An accident resulting in a large radiological release to the environment comparable to or worse than that of Chernobyl could definitely occur at a U.S. nuclear power plant. While the particular accident mechanism resulting in a catastrophic release of radioactivity would be different for a U.S. light-water reactor than for a Chernobyl-type reactor, the outcome could be similar. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a policy that if a core-melt accident occurs (such as the one at Three Mile Island in 1979), then the probability that the event could result in a large radiological release should be less than 10 percent.

According to computer simulations, some U.S. reactors would comfortably meet this limit, while it is less clear for others. Some reactor-containment buildings could be ruptured by a hydrogen explosion, for example. In addition, when a plant is down for a refueling outage, the containment building is open to the environment, but the fuel remains hot and is still vulnerable to melting if cooling is interrupted. And finally, terrorists with the tactical skill to attack a nuclear plant would find it fairly easy to blow a hole in the containment building.

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[bananas]

1. kick, because a lot of people have been misinformed about this.