> the disaster never would have happened if they had built it on higher ground
If it had been a heap of solar panels and wind turbines that got hit by a wave, at worst they'd lose some generating capacity and find the odd solar panel washing up in Hawaii.
Every accident "would have never happened if...". the point is to reduce the consequences when things do happen - we know damn well we can't stop every accident.
Honestly nuclear power had plenty of issues to solve before the Fukushima accident.
No, the point is to stop accidents from happening. Specially when they're this obviously preventable. I mean, we're talking about literally the most obvious precaution that one could possibly take when building in a Tsunai zone.
If it had been a factory producing solar panels, the whole production capability of solar panels would be set back by decades. Their production is this centralized.
Heck, it doesn't even take a tsunami to destroy quite fragile solar panels - just a bigger hailstorm.
Plus, I think you didn't even consider how harmful the resulting battery chemical spill would be if such an accident happened.
> If it had been a factory producing solar panels, the whole production capability of solar panels would be set back by decades
If it had been a factory creating coco-pops the whole pacific ocean would have become a chocolate milkshake. We can make random "if it was.." statements all day, but most of the other things it might have been wouldn't require it to be so close to such a large body of water for cooling purposes.
If it had been a heap of solar panels and wind turbines that got hit by a wave, at worst they'd lose some generating capacity and find the odd solar panel washing up in Hawaii.
Every accident "would have never happened if...". the point is to reduce the consequences when things do happen - we know damn well we can't stop every accident.
Honestly nuclear power had plenty of issues to solve before the Fukushima accident.