Reflections on Chernobyl

The Chernobyl and Three Mile Island reactor accidents are revealing some of the social costs of such failures, widespread opposition to nuclear power. As far as mortality and morbidity go, Chernobyl was probably a smaller incident than the chemical disaster as Bhopal. But nuclear people must accept the idea that a nuclear hazard is perceived as somehow different. Since nuclear energy will be needed to replace oil eventually, and the environmental impacts of properly operating nuclear power plants are far less than those of fossil fuelled power plants, this appears to be an appropriate time for the United States and other interested countries to start developing inherently safe nuclear power plants which will be acceptable to the public.