Surely the main cause of failure is human rather than the actual design. Nuclear stations may be safe, but that comes at an increasing cost in money and complexity. How do we deal with the institutional failings that allowed us to build "old reactors with very shitty failure modes". Stop blaming it on the tech. I want reactors that are simple enough to be cheap and easy.
Humans will always make mistakes, even within the design process. Nuclear is a dangerous technology to make a mistake with.
Diablo Canyon Power Plant was partially built backwards, by mistake. It's absurd.
The company updated its plans and added structural supports designed to reinforce stability in case of earthquake. In September 1981, PG&E discovered that a single set of blueprints was used for these structural supports; workers were supposed to have reversed the plans when switching to the second reactor, but did not. According to Charles Perrow, the result of the error was that "many parts were needlessly reinforced, while others, which should have been strengthened, were left untouched." Nonetheless, on March 19, 1982 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided not to review its 1978 decision approving the plant's safety, despite these and other design errors.
