Re:article text (Score 1)

"Lastly, it would take a lot more than a computer crash to take down a reactor in such a waythat it would go critical , somehow ignore the multitude of safeguards, etc."

Kind of off the point but that is one of the great TV/Movie 'Junk Science' pieces of missinformation about reactors.

Reactors operate critical at steady state. Critical is the term used for when a reaction is self-sustaining, not out of control. Think of it as idle, but producing power (kind of like cruise control) Even super-critical is not a problem to a point(think of it as accelerating the reaction to reach a higher thermal power output level). The problem is when the reaction is SO super critical that it is accelerating out of the control rod's ability to dampen the reaction. Think of a car where you stomp on the gas and the tranny breaks free so the engine revs out until something blows.

I shake my head everytime I see some movie where the engineer runs out screaming "My god, the reactor is critical!"