The Hill News

The devastating and immediate effects of the March 11 tsunami on the six reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station are now well known, though events are still playing out and even more dangerous radiation leakages may yet occur. The global panic resulting from this disaster is a stark reminder that nuclear power, as opposed to more conventional means of generating electricity, still confronts a range of thorny issues, including safety and security, that prevents more widespread adoption.

Though the specter of a global nuclear catastrophe will remain in the public consciousness for years to come, the more surprising reality is how few serious nuclear accidents have occurred relative to how widely nuclear reactors and nuclear warheads have been deployed worldwide.

In the case of Japan, casualties from the earthquake and tsunami will be exponentially greater than those caused by radiation exposure. But we have been lucky. There have been! numerous near misses, ranging from reactor criticality incidents in Japan and India to the U.S. B-52 bomber accident that resulted in the release â€" but thankfully not detonation â€" of four nuclear bombs over Palomares, Spain, in 1966.

Continued good fortune is not something policymakers should count on, and it is certainly no substitute for sound and forward-looking nuclear policy.

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