(CNN) — The more things change, the more they stay the same…
Explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, leaks of radioactive materials into the land and sea, heroic workers braving significant doses of radiation, material detected overseas — though not in the same league as Chernobyl this is certainly a serious nuclear accident. (Full coverage of the nuclear crisis in Japan)
The effects on nuclear power globally of the last major accidents — at Three Mile Island in 1979 and at Chernobyl in 1986 — were severe.
Several countries abandoned plans to build nuclear plants or decided to phase out their existing reactors. New safety requirements were hugely expensive — extra costs, long delays in construction programs and, at Shoreham in New York State, refusal of an operating licence to a completed plant because it proved impossible to devise an evacuation plan.
But Fukushima does not change the basic arguments over nuclear energy.
Continue reading at “Is nuclear energy worth the risk?”.
