Scientists to create controlled nuclear meltdown in Ibaraki facility

[Chan790]

6. I share your sentiments...

and I'm a proponent of nuclear energy.

At least they had the good sense to build a scaled-down reactor to perform testing with. The Russians opted to use full-sized reactors to perform testing until their fail-safes failed and Chernobyl occurred. (Really. Chernobyl occurred because of poor safety protocols--during a test of the safety system by intentionally creating a malfunction, the fail-safes they left in place were insufficient...then the meltdown occurred and it was too late to stop. You can read about it minute-by-minute. It's a diary of stupidity and hubris.)
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Appendices/Chernobyl-Accident---Appendix-1--Sequence-of-Events/

Still...this isn't the kind of thing you do in a suburb of Tokyo, it's the kind of thing you do in the middle of nowhere a mile underground and far away from the water-table so if your fail-safes fail, you can contain the damage.