Nuclear Industry's New Year Resolution - "Let's get sloppier about safety"
yeah, well - it's a new day, it's a beautiful new year - let's look on the bright side. The global nuclear lobby is certainly doing that with its glowing plans for tripling of nuclear energy by 2050
Safety is now a downgraded priority. A couple of today's examples - Japanese nuclear safety regulators lifted an operational ban on a nuclear plant owned by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, deciding that it's now safe after all. In the USA, the NRC (federal nuclear safety agency) decides that cracks in a backup emergency fuel line at a South Carolina nuclear plant are not so serious any more.
Let's forget the nuclear industry's history of major (and continuing) disasters, "minor" mishaps and near-misses. And let's forget the dangers of crumbling old reactors, untested new gee-whiz ones, cracking and corroding copper pipes and waste containers, terrorism risks, drone dangers, cyber-security hazards, transport risks, extreme weather events, weapons proliferation, mishaps in space, and crookedness and corruption in the industry.
Yey! let's waltz away into 2024 with the jolly prospect of nuclear power solving the climate crisis, energy crisis and so on. We can brush up the old big reactors (saves us the cost of scrapping them - leave that job to our grandchildren ), build myriad little tiny reactors in every country, (sell them especially developing places that have no expertise in nuclear technology) , and bring happiness and wealth to that small but highly organised phalanx of global nuclear 'Influencers" - while the rest of us party on, and our bought politicians smile benignly.
After all, there are the various nationall safety and radiation protection agencies to save us . Right?
Trouble is - safety reporting procedures are designed to protect the nuclear industry, not the public.
Agencies like USA's Nuclear Regulatory Commission rely on the International Atomic Energy Agency - whose brief is to promote the nuclear industry - a brief beautifully expressed by its slimy Director General, Rafael Grossi.
Let's consider- the "safety" of ionising radiation:
The established health ministeries rely on the Commission on Radiological Protection, which relies on The Radiation Protection Commission which relies on the international Commission on Radiological Protection, which relies on the IAEA / RERF (Reference Materials)
The IAEA / RERF relies on the military industrial nuclear complex of five veto-wielding Security Council members
They pass the nuclear safety handball back and forth between each other - as the nuclear-industrial-military complex rolls on towards armageddon.