How are U.S. reactors different from the reactor at Chernobyl?
There are many differences, which include not only physical differences but philosophical ones as well. The key differences have already been noted in the previous answer. These physical differences were made worse by the totally different attitude toward safety between the two countries. The U.S. is cautious to the extreme by comparison. It took seven years to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1 following the accident in the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor in 1979, the results of, which were much less severe than in the Soviet Union. The Soviets restarted their other reactors (of the identical design) at Chernobyl in a matter of a few weeks.
