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25 July 2008

Answer to Question #4056 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

Category: Nuclear Power — Nuclear Accidents

The following question was answered by an expert in the appropriate field:

I am doing a research project about three major nuclear accidents: Tokaimura, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island. How could these accidents have been avoided ? Do these incidents prove that nuclear power plants should be phased out? Why or why not?

There is a comprehensive summary of all three of these events on a previous Ask the Experts question. This link will give you an excellent summary of the events. Regarding your last two questions, those are philosophical in nature. Everything in life involves risk. All risks have benefits associated with them. At any given time we all decide whether the benefit of a given activity is worth the risk of that given activity. For instance, flying in an airplane provides a real benefit allowing us to get to places more quickly, yet planes do crash and people are killed. Generating electricity provides a real benefit to billions of people, yet ALL sources of power generation can and have caused injury and/or death to people. Does that mean we should phase out nuclear power as a method of power generation? In my opinion, no, because it is by far the cleanest source of large-scale power generation currently available. Is it without risks? No, but those risks can and have been managed for the past 40 to 50 years.

Linda Sewell, CHP

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