Accidents and Safety, The Human and Financial Costs
See also: Nuclear safety, Nuclear and radiation accidents, and Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidentsSome serious nuclear and radiation accidents have occurred. Nuclear power plant accidents include the Chernobyl disaster (1986), Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011), and the Three Mile Island accident (1979). Nuclear-powered submarine mishaps include the K-19 reactor accident (1961), the K-27 reactor accident (1968), and the K-431 reactor accident (1985). International research is continuing into safety improvements such as passively safe plants, and the possible future use of nuclear fusion.
Nuclear power has caused far fewer accidental deaths per unit of energy generated than other major forms of power generation. Energy production from coal, natural gas, and hydropower have caused far more deaths due to accidents. In comparison nuclear power plant accidents rank first in terms of their economic cost, accounting for 41 percent of all property damage attributed to energy accidents.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Power
Famous quotes containing the words accidents, human, financial and/or costs:
“The day-laborer is reckoned as standing at the foot of the social scale, yet he is saturated with the laws of the world. His measures are the hours; morning and night, solstice and equinox, geometry, astronomy, and all the lovely accidents of nature play through his mind.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“The most dangerous word in any human tongue is the word for brother. Its inflammatory.”
—Tennessee Williams (19141983)
“One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.”
—William Howard Taft (18571930)
“To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitledbecause a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)