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:
“Depression moods lead, almost invariably, to accidents. But, when they occur, our mood changes again, since the accident shows we can draw the world in our wake, and that we still retain some degree of power even when our spirits are low. A series of accidents creates a positively light-hearted state, out of consideration for this strange power.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Not infrequently, we encounter copies of important human beings; and here, too, as in the case of paintings, most people prefer the copies to the originals.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The woman who does her job for society inside the four walls of her home must not be considered by her husband or anyone else an economic “dependent,” reaching out her hands in mendicant fashion for financial help.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.—Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)