And the French Are Probably the Best in the World at Nuclear Safety

But they just had an explosion at their nuclear reprocessing facility in Marcoule:

One person has been killed and four injured, one seriously, in a blast at the Marcoule nuclear site in France.

There was no risk of a radioactive leak after the blast, caused by a fire near a furnace in the Centraco radioactive waste storage site, said officials.

The owner of the southern French plant, national electricity provider EDF, said it had been "an industrial accident, not a nuclear accident".

The cause of the blast was not yet known, said the company.

This has not been a good year for nuclear power, but the idea of dismissing the recent problems with nuclear power (Japan, Virginia, and now France) as some sort of Black Swan event is not rational.

The problems, at least those in Japan and Virginia, the jury is out on Marcoule, are an artifact of old, under-designed nuclear facilities, not simply a triple witching day for nukes.