Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk by Thomas R. Wellock (review)

• Published in: Technology and Culture Vol. 62; no. 4; pp. 1285 - 1287
• Main Author: Ionescu, Tudor B
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 2021
• Subjects: Accidents; Boiling; Boiling water reactors; History of medicine and histology; Near death experiences; Nuclear accidents; Nuclear accidents & safety; Nuclear energy; Nuclear reactors; Nuclear regulation; Nuclear safety; Risk assessment; Safety regulations; Technological change; Three Mile Island; United States > US
• ISSN: 0040-165X; 1097-3729; 1097-3729
• DOI: 10.1353/tech.2021.0184

[...]the quest for "enough" safety entails rendering an ever-growing body of knowledge applicable to diverse reactor designs and other regulated activities. The "beyond design basis" Fukushima accident, which affected an American boiling water reactor like dozens of other reactors in the United States and worldwide, adds three new failure events to consider in risk assessments, but leaves defense in depth and PRA largely unaffected (p. 209–17). Wellock aligns the book with Diane Vaughan's The Challenger Launch Decision (University of Chicago Press, 1996) when looking at how NASA was compelled to depart from deterministic risk assessment and adopt PRA in the 1980s, and with Theodor Porter's Trust in Numbers (Princeton University Press, 1995) when tracing the increasing reliance of nuclear regulation on quantitative risk assessment as a symptom of the larger phenomenon that Porter described.