Effect of Hurricane Helene on the Solar Industry?

[NNadir]

6. It was simply poor design; but I'm not sure there would have been profound cost implications.

From my perspective, it would be better to not have diesel back up generators at all.

Thermoelectric systems, possibly driven by the heat output of fresh used nuclear fuel would not have failed at all. In fact the flow seawater may have increased their output.

Of course, at the time the reactors were built there wasn't quite the valuable inventory we have today of used nuclear fuel.

The best case for this sort of thing would be ternary uranium-plutonium-thorium fuels, because of the month long half-life of ²³³Pa, which would generate significant residual heat in the fuels. Once through used uranium, restored to the reactors in a closed fuel cycle would also produce ²³⁸Pu for this purpose.

Of course, the city of Fukushima was poorly designed for a Tsunami. It was the collapse of buildings, drownings in the streets, etc., that actually killed people in the Sendai Earthquake. The death toll from radiation releases, if it existed at all, was trivial by comparison to the death toll associated with the city itself. There doesn't seem to be a movement to ban coastal cities however, and nobody ever whines about their existence because of the Sendai Earthquake.

Go figure.