A tale of two reactors: Austria's Fukushima that never was

While thousands have had to flee the area around Japan's Fukushima reactors, hundreds of Austrians flocked to a nearly identical nuclear power plant near Vienna this week, climbed into the dark reactor core and walked freely around the control room.
This was possible because Fukushima and Austria's Zwentendorf plant have exactly opposite histories, despite their technical similarities and their origins in the 1970s.
While one was in use until a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, the other one was never switched on.
While Japan embraced nuclear energy, Austrians voted in a popular referendum in 1978 to forgo that technology, which many viewed as unsafe. The Vienna government and the population have stayed staunchly anti-nuclear ever since.
At an open house event on Friday in Zwentendorf, an hour's drive west of Vienna, 64-year-old Wilhelm Deibl waited for his turn to tour a part of Austria's technological history that is intertwined with his own biography.
He was back at the plant for the first time since he installed ventilation systems there. He had been set to become a staff member, but the referendum changed all his plans.
"At that time, my wife voted no and I voted yes. Today I would also vote no," he said. "I changed my mind not just after Fukushima, but already after Chernobyl," he said, referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine.
Most of the hundreds who came from all over Austria on Friday to visit Zwentendorf had made plans for their trip before Fukushima's safety systems were debilitated by the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
But the recent events in Japan were very much on the minds of many visitors.
Thomas Goetschnig, a journalism student from Vienna, said he had many questions about possible accidents and safety measures that are related to Fukushima.
"It think it's bad that people say this could have happened only in Japan because of the tsunami. A flood can happen everywhere," he said, pointing to the Danube river, which flows next to the reactor.
Both Zwentendorf and Fukushima contain so-called boiling water reactors with a similar electric output.
But at the Austrian site, only one of two planned reactors was built, while Fukushima boasts six units.
Despite its fate, Zwentendorf did not become an industrial ruin.
Local power company EVN, which owns the facility, rents out the plant to nuclear experts from Germany and other countries for safety, engineering and operational training.
For example, these experts and other visitors can enter the huge protective metal globe around the reactor core, which would normally be filled with radioactive water, or go below the control rods that loom above like stalactites in a limestone cave.
The power plant also has been put to some more unusual uses. The administration building housed the local elementary school, and the reactor building is covered with various solar panels that are being tested by EVN.
Near the school gate, the visitors that came and went all said they are against nuclear technology. Many said they were concerned about the dozen or so nuclear power plants that stand close to the border, in neighbouring countries such as the Czech Republic or Slovakia.
The only pro-nuclear person to be found was Johann Fleischer, the chain-smoking manager of the plant.
He put the Japanese nuclear accident down to unforeseeable magnitude of the natural forces that hit Fukushima. "It was not the fault of the reactor or the way it was constructed," he said.
But during a tour through the reactor, he said he did not really want to talk about Japan and made it clear that he would rather show off what he called the "industrial romanticism" of his Austrian plant.
Standing above the reactor's empty water pool he said, "When the pond is filled, it shines in a beautiful sky blue colour."