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.