There are many active reactors of older design in which a China Syndrome scenario (release of tons of radioactive steam) is still possible - although those built since the lessons of Three Mile Island may be less vulnerable. But in the TMI incident, the core was less than an hour away from a containment breach when they finally got it under control. In the event, half the core melted. Besides that, no one knows for sure exactly what would have happened if the concentration of radioactive hydrogen inside the containment blew up. Every deterioration in the conditions in the country's worst accident was either caused by faulty machinery, faulty instrumentation, or unfortunate guesses on the part of the control room personnel. Nothing has changed the human factors, and an attack on a control room (which could probably be accomplished by a light single) could quickly lead to an out-of-control reactor.

I think fission power is a bad idea from a risk/benefit point of view. Do we really need the power that badly? In the case of the Palo Verde construction, the interest paid on the construction financing would buy a solar water heater for every residence and business in the service area, obviating the need for additional generating capacity altogether.

Instead of building more time bombs (which is what anything capable of causing widespread devastation is, no matter how improbable such an event might be), why don't we require all beverage containers to be reused, thus saving gigaWatt-hours of electricity by not smelting a million tons of aluminum every year?

And how presumptuous of you for suggesting that I don't understand the technology. Shame on you.