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Probability Of Nuclear Power Plant Disasters
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Probability of Nuclear Power Plant Disasters
Back in 1975, nuclear plants were being built around the U.S., and proponents were touting their immense safety. I wrote an essay then about the potential probability of nuclear power plant disasters. Through very simple probability analysis, I estimated that although the odds of failure of any one plant may be utterly minuscule, the cumulative odds of at least some failures among many plants, over time, is anything but negligible. I sent the essay to the local newspaper (at the time, in Eureka, California) as an extended letter to the editor, responding to a recent pro-nuclear article on the subject. My essay was soundly rejected on the ostensible grounds that they publish articles only written by their own staff. Yet, soon thereafter, they published some extended letters to the editor that extolled the virtues of nuclear plants. That was in 1975. On March 28, 1979, Reactor 2 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant suffered a partial meltdown. And on April 26, 1986, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl suffered a catastrophic failure, releasing immense clouds of nuclear waste that would contaminate parts of western Russia and northern Europe.
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