Here is a picture of a nuclear plant that I've worked on. The large cylinder at the bottom is a torus. The cap that is lying in the foreground is called the reactor head. It weighs about 110 tons. I've been under that particular one, at least 12 times. TVA administration decided in the 1990's that I was the guy for those inspections.
I've also been inside all the larger pipes leading to the torus.
Weird to see it like that knowing how much building is all around that engine in its current state. I'm thinking about contacting them and seeing about working an outage.
By the way, that plant in Alabama is the exact same design as the one in Fukushima Japan. In fact, I was at that plant the night the tsunami hit and was watching the whole thing on the internet at work.
A few weeks later a bunch of Japanese dudes came over to check out our plant.
Japan had their diesel fuel out back in large tanks. They were washed away by the tidal wave. Alabama has theirs buried underground in case of tornados. Diesel fuel is crucial if there is a disruption in off site power. Fuel in the core as well as spent fuel on site must be kept cool or it will melt.
If Japan would have had underground storage for their diesel fuel then they wouldn't have had the problem they had.
Once again. Not a nuclear power problem. This was a human problem. Just like every other nuclear "incident". The Japanese were operating under the assumption that no wave would ever reach high enough to affect them. They were wrong and now they know better.
I said all that drivel to say this, I read that Biden is pushing for more nuclear power! Tell you what. If you want more nuclear power, then the next time you want to throw away a trillion dollars, build 300 nuclear power plants! Screw all the solar and wind.