Why accidents happen.

Einstein once said, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” While it may sound condescending, it is certainly true. It is the reason that things like nuclear power, fuel reprocessing, and Yucca Mountain exist, and it is the reason that nuclear power isn't safe.

The design, construction, operation, and oversight of a nuclear power plant involves the skill and cooperation of literally thousands of people. Often, a single person is in a position to turn a safely operating power plant into a radioactive wasteland.

You can never account for every possible instance of human stupidity. You can spend years designing a power plant, only to have some construction worker build it wrong. That's what happened at Mihama-2 PWR in 1991. Misplaced supports led to the rupture of a steam generator tube and a radioactive release.

You could design a system for an auxiliary pump to access the steam generator, only for a maintenance worker to accidentally leave it closed. Even if you put a warning light on the control board to indicate this very thing, someone might cover it with a label. It happened at Three Mile Island.

The point is, whether it's stupid design (the Windscale fire), stupid operators (the SL-1 incident), or stupid everything (Chernobyl), it has been proven over and over that humanity is too stupid to have anything to do with nuclear power.

What is INES?

It's the International Nuclear Event Scale. Anytime there is any event involving nuclear reactors or nuclear materials that might pose a safety threat, the event is assigned a number 0-7 based on the scale.

The purpose of this scale is really just to allow authorities, (that's me), to communicate the severity of an event clearly and quantitatively to the general public. (That's you.)

Below is the scale as it appears on the IAEA website.

As you can see, we refer to events at levels 1-3 as incidents, and events at 4-7 as accidents. The boundary comes from the level of public exposure. A level 3 event could have some public exposure, but at a fraction of the limit that we consider “safe”, so it wouldn't be anything to worry about. A level 4 event would involve public exposure on the level of magnitude of the limit.

The scale is rightfully pessimistic about worker exposure. An event rated as low as level 2 could involve “overexposure of a worker.” A level 3 event could involve “acute health effects to a worker,” and the lowest level of accident, level 4, involves worker death.

I think that the fact that this scale exists and is necessary says a lot about the safety of nuclear power. Nuclear power isn't safe and officials in the IAEA and the NRC know that. They expect nuclear accidents to occur. They know exactly what could happen, but they never know how it's going to happen.

That's why they have to hire people like me to pick up the pieces, figure out what happened, and decide which number to assign a tragic blunder that killed people.

Nuclear power is unsafe, and can't be fixed. To the scientists researching renewable energy methods, to Greenpeace, to the protesters in the streets: I may appear to be working for the enemy, but my heart is with you.

Hello

I suppose I should begin by introducing myself. My name is Sarah Pilsner, and it is very likely that you will never meet anybody who knows more about nuclear energy than I do.

Long story short, I graduated from the University of Illinois in 1979 with a degree in Nuclear Physics. I found a job at Iowa's Duane Arnold reactor and worked there for a couple years before finding my dream job with the NRC- that's the United States' Nuclear Regulatory Commission- as an inspector.

The NRC oversees all reactor safety and licensing, materials safety, and waste management in the US. My job is mainly to inspect plants as part of their license renewal procedure, routine stuff mostly, but when there are accidents at plants, I am often called in to investigate and determine how the accident was caused.

Accidents? you are probably wondering, unless you investigated Chernobyl, what accidents?

I hate to break it to you, but there are plenty of nuclear accidents, even here in the US. Some are minor. Some are near-Chernobyls. Some are publicized, but many are ignored by a largely pro-nuclear media.

When I graduated, an idealistic and wide-eyed young adult, I was as pro-nuclear as they come.

However, based on my 26 years of experience with nuclear accidents, I have concluded that nuclear power simply isn't safe. The next devastating nuclear accident could happen anytime, and it's effects would be felt for generations.

I started this blog to share my knowledge about nuclear power- the truth about nuclear power- with the world. It would be irresponsible for me to do otherwise.