Safety

Sinister Energy?

Many are creeped out even by the mention of nuclear energy. Didn’t Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima show that this technology cannot be mastered? Shouldn’t humanity rather focus on renewables?

It is a fact that the presence of machines and technology does not lower the safety of humans, but rather increases it: Since industrialization, our average lifespan and health have improved drastically. Maladies, which used to be life-threatening in the 18th century, can now be healed by a simple injection. Infant mortality plummeted during the last 200 years, much like the risk of being attacked by a fellow human being, in spite of modern wars and the crime rates in some major cities.

Nonetheless: Hydroelectic dams can burst, nuclear reactors may melt, airplane and automobile crashes and factory explosions threaten human lifes. Realistic risk assessment is in order: Which of the technologies mentioned is the most dangerous?

“Nuclear power”, many will reply. But is this true? Learn in the subchapters about the difference between public perception and reality of the largest nuclear accidents, how the DFR handles emergencies — and how it would have fared in place of light-water or RBMK reactors in the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukushima plant.