Abstract
Those who are cautious about nuclear power often quote safety as one of their concerns. These concerns usually involve the safety of the reactors, the safe storage of the waste, and the risk that somehow the nuclear fuel used in the reactor will finish up in a nuclear weapon of some kind. In this chapter, we take an objective and open look at these safety issues. We start with the thorny issue of reactor safety and discuss the three main reactor accidents in the 50-year life of nuclear power plants; at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. We then look at the volume of nuclear waste and issues around its storage and finish by discussing the nuclear proliferation risk.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
External costs to climate, human heath, crops, structures, biodiversity, etc. that are not accounted for in the electricity cost.
- 2.
Passive means that no operator action is required to trigger the safety feature and they do not rely on an external power source to work.
References
MIT Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (2011) Technical lessons learned from the Fukushima-Daichii accident and possible corrective actions for the nuclear industry: an initial evaluation. http://mitnse.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/fukushima-lessons-learned-mit-nsp-025.pdf. Accessed 24 July 2011
European Commission—ExternE (2003) External costs: research results on socio-environmental damages due to electricity and transport. http://externe.info. Accessed 24 July 2011
Gabbard A (2008) Coal combustion: nuclear resource or danger. http://ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html. Accessed 24 July 2011
IAEA (2011) Factsheets, managing radioactive waste. http://iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/manradwa.html. Accessed 24 July 2011
Rockwell T (2010) Nuclear energy facts report. http://learningaboutenergy.com/nuclear-energy-facts-report/. Accessed 24 July 2011
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nicholson, M. (2012). Safety First. In: The Power Makers' Challenge. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2813-7_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2813-7_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-2812-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-2813-7
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)