Development of risk assessment for nuclear power: insights from history

Abstract

Nuclear power plays an important role in the global energy economy, but its safety has been a contentious issue for over 50 years. Based on new designs of nuclear power plants, new methods of assessing risks, and calculations of cost efficiency, proponents of nuclear power see it as safe and necessary, but skeptics do not. How can people be so divided on a fundamental issue like safety? Part of the answer lies in the history of risk assessment’s invention, development, and deployment. The US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) developed a form of risk assessment extensively used today: probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). The AEC originally wanted to strategically assure the public of nuclear power’s safety. Controversy greeted PRA’s debut, however, and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, AEC’s successor agency, changed PRA into a tactical tool. Scientific and ethical criticisms, political opposition to nuclear power, and accidents combined to force the transition. In contrast to PRA for nuclear power, other forms of risk assessment successfully entered the regulation of toxic chemicals. The safety of nuclear power still elicits sharp disagreements between opponents and proponents of the technology, which in turn leaves a cloud over the future of the technology.