nuclear is not safe

The endless claims that nuclear is the safest of low emissions are annoying so here is a paper that presents a far less cheerful reality that nuclear is not safe. Unless you are happy with a major event every decade.

Fukishma suggests nuclear is not safe
On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake shook only 19 miles away from Fukushima. The forty years old nuclear energy plants with inadequate safety features in Fukushima was soon hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The cooling system lost its ability because of a major power outage after the earthquake. Insisted for several hours, one of the nuclear units exploded and leaked radioactive substance into the ocean.

Here are the key points and insights from the paper by Rose et al.

Key Points

  1. The authors analyzed past core-melt accidents to estimate a failure rate of 1 per 3704 reactor years. That’s about 1 per decade with current operating reactors.
  2. They found that learning effects from past accidents were limited or absent, depending on the database used.
  3. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) does not have a publicly available list of nuclear accidents, making it difficult to analyze accident probability and learning effects.
  4. The authors used data compiled by the Guardian newspaper and energy researcher Benjamin Sovacool as an alternative source.

Insights:

  1. The study suggests that more severe nuclear accidents can be expected than previously thought.
  2. Nuclear power operators may not learn from past experiences, which could increase the risk of future accidents.
  3. The complexity and tight coupling of components in nuclear power plants make them inherently unsafe, according to Charles Perrow’s “normal accident theory”.
  4. Statistical analysis supports the idea that serious accidents with complex high technologies are inevitable.

Implications:

  1. Public support for nuclear power cannot be based on full knowledge due to limited access to information.
  2. A more detailed analysis of nuclear accident probabilities requires transparency from the IAEA and better data availability.
  3. The study’s findings highlight the need for caution when evaluating the safety of nuclear power plants, even with improvements in operation and reliability.

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