Safety first

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. © Springer-Verlag London 2012.