Safety & Accidents

TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima, SL-1 and what reactor safety engineering means.

217 articles in the archive

Core concepts

Chernobyl: what happened and what the toll was

A uniquely Soviet disaster that says little about modern reactors: it took an unstable design with no containment. Even history's worst accident caused far less harm than widely feared.

Fukushima Daiichi: tsunami, meltdowns, and the radiation question

Contested

A magnitude-9 quake and tsunami caused meltdowns yet no confirmed radiation deaths — a striking demonstration that nuclear is safer than our fears, and that overcaution can be its own hazard.

How reactor safety is actually engineered

Settled science

Defense-in-depth plus modern passive safety make nuclear one of the safest forms of energy ever measured — and newer designs are safer still.

Most substantial articles

Sabotage at TMI – Part 3 2014-01-20 TMI Operators Took Actions They Were Trained to Take 2014-04-11 Solar’s dirty secrets: How solar power hurts people and the planet 2022-02-24 Fukushima Nuclear Accident – Exceptional Summary by Murray E. Miles 2011-04-01 NYAS used as part of campaign to increase unwarranted fear about radiation 2011-07-13 Critical Analysis of Mousseau Fukushima Presentation 2014-03-22 Nucleating our carbon-managed future 2021-04-22 Miscommunications Are Frequent in Human Discourse – Sometimes They Become Intentional Weapons 2010-04-25 Science Controversies and Print Edition Limitations – Jacobson versus radiation biology specialists 2012-07-25 Devastating review of Yablokov’s Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment 2011-10-20 Why is the New York Academy of Sciences allowing its name to be used in an anti-science FUD campaign? 2011-04-25 Some lessons were learned from TMI. Others were not. 2014-04-05

Common misconceptions

Myth: Chernobyl shows what any reactor can do.

Reality: It required a flawed Soviet design with no containment — impossible in Western reactors.

Myth: Fukushima killed thousands from radiation.

Reality: Reactor radiation caused no confirmed acute deaths; the evacuation caused the documented harm.

From Nucleation Capital

Source: Nucleation Capital

DOE Approves Preliminary Safety Analysis for Aalo Atomics Demonstration Reactor () 2026-03-07 Radiant Advances Toward First Reactor Startup with DOE Safety Submission () 2025-11-20 US Approves $1B DOE Loan to Advance Three Mile Island Unit 1 Restart () 2025-11-20 Singapore Weighs Offshore Nuclear as Experts Stress Safety, Regulation, and Public Trust () 2025-11-17 Rani Franovich: Former NRC regulator and reactor safety consultant 2023-06-09 Nuclear ‘Power Balls’ May Make Meltdowns a Thing of the Past 2020-06-30

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1. What design feature did the Chernobyl RBMK lack that Western reactors have?

2. What caused most of the confirmed harm at Fukushima?