We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[Loren Pechtel]

4) Shielding (it's just a big pile of rocks. We stick those rocks together, to stop them from moving; That's called "concrete". The Romans used it to build loads of stuff, including the Collosseum Colosseum, and they didn't need a single piece of fossil fuel burning equipment to do so).

<nitpick>
The Romans would have used some fossil fuels to build the Colosseum
1. Lime for mortar Roman lime burning
2. Cooking of some food for slaves, free workers, soldiers etc.
3. The metal used in the construction would have been forged using fossil fuel

Granted nowhere near the proportion of fossil fuel used by them compared to what we would use
</nitpick>

Wood. I don't believe they used any fossil fuel.

relases carbon though

Nope.

It only "releases" carbon that was captured yesterday, and that was likely to be released again today or tomorrow regardless.

For a very large definition of "day".

At any given time, the amount of carbon in plants, and the amount in the atmosphere, was roughly constant. If you cut down a tree and burned it, the carbon went into the tree (or the crops, or the grazing lands) that grew in its place, and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration didn't change.

Disagree--replacing tress with cropland or grazing land raises atmospheric CO2. The reverse lowers it. (As seen when the plagues devastated the New World.)

If you take a hundred bucks out of your bank account every day, and your boss* pays you a hundred bucks a day, no problem. That's what burning wood does to the carbon account.

But if you take a hundred bucks a day out of an account that was bequeathed to you by your long-ago deceased ancestors, and never put any money back in, eventually you are going to go bust. That's what burning coal does to the carbon account.

I prefer to compare it to the filter pumps on a swimming pool vs a lowly garden hose. An Olympic pool has some pretty big pumps but will never flood the pool. I've seen someone flood a pool with a garden hose.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We don't know what future science will find. I agree.

But one should not say, "I don't know. Therefore, all is well." That is like saying, "I don't know. Therefore God."

We are not saying that. We are saying that your path is definite failure. We don't want to choose a path we know leads to collapse.

Here is my written path forward:

So, what do we do? Most of the above. First, we need to accept that whatever comes, it is what it is, and make the most of it. And we must always make room for hope, to always hold out that we will make the most of what comes. But that hope should not include denial and should not come at the expense of a realistic preparation for what may come. And yes, societies need to include nuclear reactors, windmills, solar panels, batteries, and hopefully many other innovative technologies that are around the corner. And we could tell people that, for each decision not to have another child, that is one less person that needs to be supported on this overfilled lifeboat, Earth. We could actively ask for people to reduce birthrates, especially in rich countries. And of course, where we can individually or collectively cut back our impact to preserve the planet, let’s do so.

Nobody knows what is going to happen. There needs to be a concentrated effort to understand it better. We need accurate models and predictions of the future based on the best available science. And we need to inform people of what scientists find. We need to be working to develop technical solutions. There are plenty of challenging areas in which people can apply their thoughts to make things better.
-- https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/#Forward

Can you please explain to me how you know that choosing this path leads to collapse?

Resources become harder to obtain. Eventually society can't.

The models they use predict this--a slow decline that they never graph to the point of serious trouble.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Note that it did not take long to fill low Earth orbit space with junk.

I used to be fascinated to spot a satellite, now I cuss at them. Thick as flies they are, especially in the polar orbit. Maybe it’s just that our longitude is close to Cheyenne Mountain and everybody has to have eyes/ears on that?

No. All orbits cross the equator. The only question is how far away from the equator the satellite goes. The farther from the equator the fewer satellites there will be.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, but I don't exactly like the idea of doing so. You really want that chemical plant (with the potential to go boom) next to your nuclear plant???

I once worked in a power plant that was next door to a paper mill. It is an excellent combination. Power plants inherently have waste low pressure steam coming off the discharge of the turbine, which results in a big energy loss and inherent inefficiency. But paper mills require high quantities of low pressure steam to run the process. So if you put the power plant next to the paper mill, you can use the waste low pressure steam to make toilet paper. Its a win-win.

That would be an excellent idea as far as I'm concerned. Powerplant discharge is a good for low temperature heat processes.

But if the steam from the reactor leaked into the steam making the toilet paper? Well, I suppose your toilet paper then glows in the dark, saving you electricity to light the bathroom.

Would that be a win-win-win?

1) The steam from the reactor normally goes no farther than a heat exchanger right next to the core. That transfers the heat to coolant that has never been inside the reactor and won't have neutron activation.

2) Water that undergoes neutron activation pretty much can't glow in the dark. I was doing some math on it a while back about the old "nuke them until they glow"--and it's not going to happen to any meaningful degree. To get a blue glow you need particles to break local lightspeed. Lightspeed in air is high enough that it takes awfully powerful particles to do this--you normally see it in water. Transparent (so you can see the glow) and lightspeed is well below c (not too hard to make a glow.) However, there's a minimum energy of the particle to do this--and the decay energy of the first unstable isotope above the stable isotope(s) of the normal light organic elements is too low. Besides, it's pretty hard to make water radioactive in the first place--typically you would get H-1 becoming H-2. You only get radioactivity when H-2 becomes H-3. And O-16 has to become O-17 which has to become O-18 and then finally becomes radioactive at O-19. Nukes in seawater make a big mess but it's the activation of the salt, not the water.

 

[bilby]

I know that we are using up resources that we can't replace

Not really. We are using up Helium; Apart from that, we're just spreading resources around in ways that will require lots of cheap energy to reverse.

We aren't "using up" anything - it's all still here, apart from that Helium.

But what's dispersed through the environment is too diffuse for current tech to recover it.

Not really. It's just too diffuse to be cost effective to bother with, given that there's plenty of rich ore still accessible at far lower cost.

The technology could do it, but it would literally cost more than it's worth. But what it costs, and what it's worth, are both movable feasts; If costs fall and prices rise, we can do it. If prices don't rise, it's not necessary to do it.

 

[bilby]

I'm not picturing breaking the dome. Rather, I'm worried about the blast damaging things inside--doesn't have to break the dome or the reactor vessel. Tear up enough cooling stuff and the reactor is going to Fukushima.

Even the Fukushima reactors wouldn't have "Fukushima-ed" if it hadn't been impossible to truck in an external generator (due to the entire region having been wiped out by a huge Earthquake and Tsunami).

And when they did, nobody died. The reactors were an expensive loss (but they were getting pretty old anyway); But in the big picture of the losses due to the Tsunami, Fukushima Daichi was a trivial event.

Fukushima Daini, (immediately next door, and a rather newer facility, built in the 1970s/80s, rather than the 1960s/70s) was undamaged; As was the Onagawa nuclear power plant, which was half as far from the quake epicentre, and which was used as an evacuation facility for local residents, due to it's being one of the few locations with undamaged buildings.

Your fear is possibly vaguely reasonable, IF the nuclear power plant is a Generation I design, none of which have been built for fifty years. More modern plants aren't going to fail in that fashion; And even Gen I plants would need an extraordinarily large and prolonged disaster in order to fail - and wouldn't likely add to the casualty list from that extraordinary disaster, even if they did.

 

[bilby]

And the reality is there are going to be accidents. We can reduce them, we can't eliminate them.

We don't need to eliminate them. Just to reduce them to below the severity of the technology they displace. Which goal has been exceeded to such an insane degree that it's absurd to contemplate safety being a worry.

To be as hazardous as the coal power stations they ought to replace, nuclear plants would need a Chernobyl sized disaster every two weeks. They actually had just one fatal accident in seventy years. And that was in a design known to be dangerous, that only failed because unqualified people were allowed to run unapproved tests in an incompetent manner.

 

[bilby]

Yes, but I don't exactly like the idea of doing so. You really want that chemical plant (with the potential to go boom) next to your nuclear plant???

I once worked in a power plant that was next door to a paper mill. It is an excellent combination. Power plants inherently have waste low pressure steam coming off the discharge of the turbine, which results in a big energy loss and inherent inefficiency. But paper mills require high quantities of low pressure steam to run the process. So if you put the power plant next to the paper mill, you can use the waste low pressure steam to make toilet paper. Its a win-win.

That would be an excellent idea as far as I'm concerned. Powerplant discharge is a good for low temperature heat processes.

But if the steam from the reactor leaked into the steam making the toilet paper? Well, I suppose your toilet paper then glows in the dark, saving you electricity to light the bathroom.

Would that be a win-win-win?

1) The steam from the reactor normally goes no farther than a heat exchanger right next to the core. That transfers the heat to coolant that has never been inside the reactor and won't have neutron activation.

2) Water that undergoes neutron activation pretty much can't glow in the dark. I was doing some math on it a while back about the old "nuke them until they glow"--and it's not going to happen to any meaningful degree. To get a blue glow you need particles to break local lightspeed. Lightspeed in air is high enough that it takes awfully powerful particles to do this--you normally see it in water. Transparent (so you can see the glow) and lightspeed is well below c (not too hard to make a glow.) However, there's a minimum energy of the particle to do this--and the decay energy of the first unstable isotope above the stable isotope(s) of the normal light organic elements is too low. Besides, it's pretty hard to make water radioactive in the first place--typically you would get H-1 becoming H-2. You only get radioactivity when H-2 becomes H-3. And O-16 has to become O-17 which has to become O-18 and then finally becomes radioactive at O-19. Nukes in seawater make a big mess but it's the activation of the salt, not the water.

Tritiated water from primary coolant loops is contained in this way only because people are too dumb to recognise that the radiation hazard from it is utterly negligible.

To the enviromentalists, all radioactivity is evil, so it's considered essential to include lots of needless, inefficient, and expensive steps to "protect" people from a material that's lethally dangerous ONLY because it's hot water under pressure.

It's not measurably dangerous because of its tritium content; You could drink it once it's condensed and cooled.

And nobody's asking anyone to drink it.

 

[Merle]

2) Water that undergoes neutron activation pretty much can't glow in the dark.

Understood. I was just joking about glow-in-the-dark toilet paper coming from a mill next to a nuke. Hence, the smile face.

 

[Merle]

We don't know what future science will find. I agree.

But one should not say, "I don't know. Therefore, all is well." That is like saying, "I don't know. Therefore God."

We are not saying that. We are saying that your path is definite failure. We don't want to choose a path we know leads to collapse.

Here is my written path forward:

So, what do we do? Most of the above. First, we need to accept that whatever comes, it is what it is, and make the most of it. And we must always make room for hope, to always hold out that we will make the most of what comes. But that hope should not include denial and should not come at the expense of a realistic preparation for what may come. And yes, societies need to include nuclear reactors, windmills, solar panels, batteries, and hopefully many other innovative technologies that are around the corner. And we could tell people that, for each decision not to have another child, that is one less person that needs to be supported on this overfilled lifeboat, Earth. We could actively ask for people to reduce birthrates, especially in rich countries. And of course, where we can individually or collectively cut back our impact to preserve the planet, let’s do so.

Nobody knows what is going to happen. There needs to be a concentrated effort to understand it better. We need accurate models and predictions of the future based on the best available science. And we need to inform people of what scientists find. We need to be working to develop technical solutions. There are plenty of challenging areas in which people can apply their thoughts to make things better.
-- https://mindsetfree.blog/we-are-overloading-the-planet-now-what/#Forward

Can you please explain to me how you know that choosing this path leads to collapse?

Resources become harder to obtain. Eventually society can't.

Yes, of course, resources become harder to obtain and eventually society will not be able to obtain them.

I am still confused why this fact justifies, "We are saying that your path is definite failure. We don't want to choose a path we know leads to collapse."

All paths lead to eventual collapse of society, if not in the next few centuries, then certainly in the eventual heat-death of the universe.

I think my plan would delay that demise, and soften the blow. Its not much, and as others have pointed out, my plan is not a lot different from what others are saying. But it outlines broad steps that we can do which I think would be helpful.

 

[Merle]

As those plants (mostly seedless lycopsids in the early carboniferous, and later sphenopsids and the first conifers) died, they failed to fully decompose (it was swampy; The air couldn't get to a lot of the rotting vegetation. Also many of the insects that today break down dead plants had yet to evolve), and instead formed peaty layers that, over time, were compressed into the coal seams that we mine today.

In today's newsfeed I got an article that said we could start sinking wood in the ocean and covering it up with limestone. It would basically just speed up that process to sequester carbon by burying wood. The article suggested we could have large bamboo farms that we regularly cut down and bury in the ocean.

Small problem: We would need 2.9 earths to grow bamboo as fast as we produce CO2.

But a smaller scale operation might help.

 

[Swammerdami]

This is a discussion board; It's trivially easy to go back and look at what was said, so trying to gaslight people by telling them they're only imagining things that you actually said, isn't going to work.

It's NOT trivial. Especially when the poster in question has made hundreds of posts on the same topic.

But still you have a good point. So, do YOU remember implying that if a given population would deplete an aquifer in 10 years, half that population would deplete the same aquifer in 20 years? If you claim you never wrote such a thing, please tell us in advance what penance you will perform when proven wrong. I'm not wasting clicks on this unless there's a big piece of cheese awaiting me at the end of the Search Maze!

For this purpose assume aquifer use is at present. We all know that with unmetered energy (whether from dilithium crystals or the N word) we can transport huge amounts of fresh water to anywhere in the solar system.

Yes, with high tech and unlimited energy most chemicals can be recycled. (Even helium can be produced, e.g. with fusion reactors NOT intended for energy production.) But look at the prices paid! Do we care that many insect and vertebrate species are on the verge of extinction?

Thinking that future technology will solve problems ignores that problems due to overly large population are with us TODAY. Phosphates are one example. Cheap sources are being depleted -- fertilizer prices soar -- while runoffs of phosphate into lakes and rivers cause ecological problems. Sure, many problems vanish with the assumption of unlimited energy and increasing high tech. Nanodrones can be used for pollination when honeybees go extinct. And so on. But is this the world we desire?

 

[steve_bank]

Note that it did not take long to fill low Earth orbit space with junk.

I used to be fascinated to spot a satellite, now I cuss at them. Thick as flies they are, especially in the polar orbit. Maybe it’s just that our longitude is close to Cheyenne Mountain and everybody has to have eyes/ears on that?

In the news the moon is to become a cemetery. Ashes of Gene Rodenbury and others are on the probe on the way to the moon.

 

[steve_bank]

Our Midwest aquifers are drawing down, wells have been going deeper for a while. In Arizona land has snbk form all the water pimped out. In California wells are deep enough to be contaminated by ocean saltwater seepage. Florda aquifers have been contaminated by pollution.

How long until AZ runs out of water?
100 years
The study found that around 4% of the area's demand for groundwater, close to 4.9 million acre-feet, cannot be met over the next 100 years under current conditions – a huge shortage that will have significant implications for housing developments in the coming years in the booming Phoenix metro area, which has led the ...Jun 1, 2023

Arizona's groundwater losses to cause more earth sinking, cracking

A new state report showing massive over-drafting in five rural groundwater basins doesn’t discuss subsidence, the settling of the ground that occurs when over-pumping hollows out an aquifer and the

tucson.com

new state report showing massive over-drafting in five rural groundwater basins doesn’t discuss subsidence, the settling of the ground that occurs when over-pumping hollows out an aquifer and the aquifer collapses.

But all five agriculture-dominant basins studied by the Arizona Department of Water Resources already have some level of subsidence. And Brian Conway, ADWR’s subsidence expert, said that if groundwater over-drafting continues or increases in those basins, subsidence will likely continue there — with Cochise County’s Willcox Basin likely taking the lead.

The Ogallala Aquifer: When will the wells run dry? What then?

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – Parched for months, fired by yet another unforgiving heatwave, piled with wind-scattered topsoil and ash, the hard-packed clay of the High Plains resembled less …

www.myhighplains.com

What year will the Ogallala Aquifer run dry?
The Ogallala Aquifer: When will the wells run dry? What then ...
According to researchers from Stanford University, West Texas A&M University, and others, up to 40% of Ogallala will be unable to support irrigated crop production within the next 80 years. Other studies have even more dire news, projecting that the entire aquifer will be 70% depleted within the next 50 years.Aug 15, 2022

Within 50 years, the entire aquifer is expected be 70 percent depleted. Some observers blame this situation on periodic drought. Others point to the individual choices made by farmers, since irrigation accounts for 90 percent of Ogallala groundwater withdrawals.Feb 27, 2022

Is the Florida aquifer in danger?
Recovering Natural Springs

The Floridan aquifer, the source of groundwater for most of Florida's springs and 90% of the state's drinking water, is being depleted as water demand fr

Map of groundwater depletion in the United States

The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) map of groundwater depletion shows the cumulative depletion of groundwater for 40 aquifer systems across the U.S (excluding Alaska). The map depicts depletion over the time period of 1900 to 2008 and is measured in cubic kilometers. Click here to go to the...

www.americangeosciences.org

The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) map of groundwater depletion shows the cumulative depletion of groundwater for 40 aquifer systems across the U.S (excluding Alaska). The map depicts depletion over the time period of 1900 to 2008 and is measured in cubic kilometers.

From the Band's song Life Is A carnival, we are all in the smae boat floating off the end of the world.

 

[Elixir]

This is a discussion board; It's trivially easy to go back and look at what was said, so trying to gaslight people by telling them they're only imagining things that you actually said, isn't going to work.

It's NOT trivial. Especially when the poster in question has made hundreds of posts on the same topic.

But still you have a good point. So, do YOU remember implying that if a given population would deplete an aquifer in 10 years, half that population would deplete the same aquifer in 20 years? If you claim you never wrote such a thing, please tell us in advance what penance you will perform when proven wrong. I'm not wasting clicks on this unless there's a big piece of cheese awaiting me at the end of the Search Maze!

For this purpose assume aquifer use is at present. We all know that with unmetered energy (whether from dilithium crystals or the N word) we can transport huge amounts of fresh water to anywhere in the solar system.

Yes, with high tech and unlimited energy most chemicals can be recycled. (Even helium can be produced, e.g. with fusion reactors NOT intended for energy production.) But look at the prices paid! Do we care that many insect and vertebrate species are on the verge of extinction?

Thinking that future technology will solve problems ignores that problems due to overly large population are with us TODAY. Phosphates are one example. Cheap sources are being depleted -- fertilizer prices soar -- while runoffs of phosphate into lakes and rivers cause ecological problems. Sure, many problems vanish with the assumption of unlimited energy and increasing high tech. Nanodrones can be used for pollination when honeybees go extinct. And so on. But is this the world we desire?

I try not to be dismissive of what bilby sees through what I consider his rose colored glasses, because I think he is fully cognizant of the gap between his optimistic view of the (possible) future, and the grim future that I foresee as more likely.
A large component of bilby’s optimism is, I suspect, his knowledge that focus on an optimistic outcome makes that outcome more likely. Pessimism can be, and often is, self-fulfilling.
Of course I consider my own relatively pessimistic outlook to be more realistic than bilby’s optimistic one, but I certainly hope and believe that bilby is sincere in his own, because I hope I am wrong and he is right.

 

[Merle]

To those who think France is doing so great on their electrical grid, here is an interesting statistic: In France it costs $0.26 per kw-hr and in the USA it costs $0.17. Just saying.

Electricity prices by country 2023 | Statista

The cheapest electricity in the world could be found in Iran in 2023, whereas the cost of residential electricity per kilowatt-hour was highest in Europe.

www.statista.com

 

[Swammerdami]

Clicking the Like button here wasn't enough, so I duplicate Elixir's post also.

This is a discussion board; It's trivially easy to go back and look at what was said, ...

So, do YOU remember implying that if a given population would deplete an aquifer in 10 years, half that population would deplete the same aquifer in 20 years?. . .

Sure, many problems vanish with the assumption of unlimited energy and increasing high tech. Nanodrones can be used for pollination when honeybees go extinct. And so on. But is this the world we desire?

I try not to be dismissive of what bilby sees through what I consider his rose colored glasses, because I think he is fully cognizant of the gap between his optimistic view of the (possible) future, and the grim future that I foresee as more likely.
A large component of bilby’s optimism is, I suspect, his knowledge that focus on an optimistic outcome makes that outcome more likely. Pessimism can be, and often is, self-fulfilling.
Of course I consider my own relatively pessimistic outlook to be more realistic than bilby’s optimistic one, but I certainly hope and believe that bilby is sincere in his own, because I hope I am wrong and he is right.

 

[southernhybrid]

Our Midwest aquifers are drawing down, wells have been going deeper for a while. In Arizona land has snbk form all the water pimped out. In California wells are deep enough to be contaminated by ocean saltwater seepage. Florda aquifers have been contaminated by pollution.

How long until AZ runs out of water?
100 years
The study found that around 4% of the area's demand for groundwater, close to 4.9 million acre-feet, cannot be met over the next 100 years under current conditions – a huge shortage that will have significant implications for housing developments in the coming years in the booming Phoenix metro area, which has led the ...Jun 1, 2023

Arizona's groundwater losses to cause more earth sinking, cracking

A new state report showing massive over-drafting in five rural groundwater basins doesn’t discuss subsidence, the settling of the ground that occurs when over-pumping hollows out an aquifer and the

tucson.com

new state report showing massive over-drafting in five rural groundwater basins doesn’t discuss subsidence, the settling of the ground that occurs when over-pumping hollows out an aquifer and the aquifer collapses.

But all five agriculture-dominant basins studied by the Arizona Department of Water Resources already have some level of subsidence. And Brian Conway, ADWR’s subsidence expert, said that if groundwater over-drafting continues or increases in those basins, subsidence will likely continue there — with Cochise County’s Willcox Basin likely taking the lead.

The Ogallala Aquifer: When will the wells run dry? What then?

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – Parched for months, fired by yet another unforgiving heatwave, piled with wind-scattered topsoil and ash, the hard-packed clay of the High Plains resembled less …

www.myhighplains.com

What year will the Ogallala Aquifer run dry?
The Ogallala Aquifer: When will the wells run dry? What then ...
According to researchers from Stanford University, West Texas A&M University, and others, up to 40% of Ogallala will be unable to support irrigated crop production within the next 80 years. Other studies have even more dire news, projecting that the entire aquifer will be 70% depleted within the next 50 years.Aug 15, 2022

Within 50 years, the entire aquifer is expected be 70 percent depleted. Some observers blame this situation on periodic drought. Others point to the individual choices made by farmers, since irrigation accounts for 90 percent of Ogallala groundwater withdrawals.Feb 27, 2022

Is the Florida aquifer in danger?
Recovering Natural Springs

The Floridan aquifer, the source of groundwater for most of Florida's springs and 90% of the state's drinking water, is being depleted as water demand fr

Map of groundwater depletion in the United States

The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) map of groundwater depletion shows the cumulative depletion of groundwater for 40 aquifer systems across the U.S (excluding Alaska). The map depicts depletion over the time period of 1900 to 2008 and is measured in cubic kilometers. Click here to go to the...

www.americangeosciences.org

The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) map of groundwater depletion shows the cumulative depletion of groundwater for 40 aquifer systems across the U.S (excluding Alaska). The map depicts depletion over the time period of 1900 to 2008 and is measured in cubic kilometers.

From the Band's song Life Is A carnival, we are all in the smae boat floating off the end of the world.

Thanks for taking the water issue seriously. I don't think that most people have a clue as to how much water we waste and how soon it could be before most of the country has serious shortages of water. Farming is what uses most of the water, especially crops that are grown to feed cattle. Then there are those who insist on having lawns in dry places, so they use a lot of water to keep them green. We are simply ignorant as to the coming water shortages and regulations regarding water usage are almost nonexistent. I've read articles and find this very concerning.

 

[steve_bank]

The looming water issue has been known for some tine. The Colorado has long been nothing but a tackle as it gets to Mexico.

The lost river: Mexicans fight for mighty waterway taken by the US

The Colorado River serves over 35 million Americans before reaching Mexico – but it is dammed at the border, leaving locals on the other side with a dry delta

www.theguardian.com

In the late 80s when I was up in the North Idaho Panhandle California floated an idea to damn up a valley in the pamphlet and pipe the water to Ca.

If you look into it part of the mid east conflict involving Israel, Iraq, and Iran is over water rights.

Jordan River Dispute

Past conflict over the Jordan River Basin includes skirmishes and a war. In 1951, states undertook unilateral plans for distribution of the water. Jordan announced an irrigation plan by tapping the Yarmuk River. Israel then closed the gates on a dam south of the Sea of Galilee and began draining the Huleh swamps.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm not picturing breaking the dome. Rather, I'm worried about the blast damaging things inside--doesn't have to break the dome or the reactor vessel. Tear up enough cooling stuff and the reactor is going to Fukushima.

Even the Fukushima reactors wouldn't have "Fukushima-ed" if it hadn't been impossible to truck in an external generator (due to the entire region having been wiped out by a huge Earthquake and Tsunami).

And when they did, nobody died. The reactors were an expensive loss (but they were getting pretty old anyway); But in the big picture of the losses due to the Tsunami, Fukushima Daichi was a trivial event.

Fukushima Daini, (immediately next door, and a rather newer facility, built in the 1970s/80s, rather than the 1960s/70s) was undamaged; As was the Onagawa nuclear power plant, which was half as far from the quake epicentre, and which was used as an evacuation facility for local residents, due to it's being one of the few locations with undamaged buildings.

Your fear is possibly vaguely reasonable, IF the nuclear power plant is a Generation I design, none of which have been built for fifty years. More modern plants aren't going to fail in that fashion; And even Gen I plants would need an extraordinarily large and prolonged disaster in order to fail - and wouldn't likely add to the casualty list from that extraordinary disaster, even if they did.

In Fukushima the cooling system was intact, they just needed power to run it. I'm talking about if the cooling system breaks. Break the pipes, the reactor will make a mess. Normally this is a failure mode that is pretty much limited to very skilled terrorists, but if you're going to put a bomb next door....

(On the other hand, put a berm between them such that they can't see each other and there's little danger of a blast wave wrecking things. Not right next door but if you insulate your pipes well it shouldn't impair function much. Ideally that would be done with all high energy facilities anyway.)