The public is still skeptical of the safety of nuclear power reactors. A new report by sociologists published in Science criticizes Obamacon & Folks for leaving the human factor out of their technical calculations for a "rebirth" of the heavily subsidized industry. {"nuclear renaissance"} The social scientists say that another blue ribbon commission appointed to sell a nuclear future to America is not addressing the concerns Americans have for nuclear safety issues. The primary concern the public has is the safe and secure storage of radioactive wastes, a problem made all the more urgent by the closure of the Yucca Mountain, Nevada national repository {"Yucca Mountain"}. More than 170 national and grassroots environmental organizations from every state have signed a petition asking for the 18 member panel to require hardened storage for high-level radioactive waste currently stored at nuclear power plants across the US. About 60,000 tons of waste has accumulated in the US without a final disposal site available. Funding for the repository was ended by the Senate Appropriations Committee in July. Reactor safety is still something to think about. One of the major conclusions from the analysis of the Three Mile Island near meltdown was that reactor design should be standardized. Currently five designs are being studied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which requires time and expense to verify and approve. So no new reactor is expected to be built before 2016. All of the submitted designs rely on proven technology--pressurized water and boiling water reactors. NRC does not require the new reactor designs to be safer than existing reactors, but it does require hardening of the containment shell to withstand a direct impact by a jetliner. Ideally there should be just two designs to vet. Using a pre-approved design for a PWR or BWR would simplify licensing, construction, operation and malfunction response. Because of this country's ideological bias for the free market, all of its 104 existing reactors are custom built, thereby magnifying their cost and complexity to build, run and regulate.
The new designs have been subjected to mathematical risk assessments to measure the probability of an accident. The designs have lower scores than existing plants, but only if internal events such as pipe breaks, fires, or welding failures are considered. When external events such as earthquakes are considered, the new designs are no safer than the old plants. Nor are the designs intended to withstand a unexpected sequence of events, something the engineers could not predict as probable or beyond the design parameters. The partial melt down at Three Mile Island was just such a "black swan".