BRATTLEBORO — Recent advertising and resultant commentary has left your readership with the mistaken impression that a meltdown at a nuclear reactor, such as the General Electric-designed Mark I BWR (boiling water reactor) at Vermont Yankee, can only happen with a natural disaster.
This impression is absolutely mistaken and should be corrected.
Three main technical glitches can lead to a meltdown: a rod drop incident, a loss of coolant accident, or an internal loss of electrical power.
It would be wrong to leave readers with the idea that they would be safe from a meltdown because we don't have massive earthquakes or tsunamis like the ones that caused the nuclear disaster at Fukushima.