Comment Re:Coverage? (Score 1) 252
Are there extraordinarily well engineered nuclear plants that can withstand attacks of idiocy?
Pretty much all of the US designs. Take a look at the EIA's data from 1998 through 2009. The two baseload sources that are supposed to be running 24/7 are coal and nuclear. Nuclear power has been ridiculously reliable in the past decade. Even with a select few nuke plants shut down for a year or more, the average for nuclear is way higher than coal.
The reason for this is simple - the nuclear industry is very effective in implementing predictive/preventive maintence programs and sharing operating experience between companies. Whenever anything goes wrong with a critical component it is extensively analyzed, and the important information is relayed to all other nuclear generating facilities in the US. External failure is treated with the same rigor as internal failure.
Of course, there are some exceptions to this, but the point I'm trying to get across is that the nuclear industry takes itself seriously, and the results of the dedication are self-evident.