And often has. Uranium processing plants like Tokaimura are common in the West, though not in Asia outside Japan. There are seven similar facilities in the United States alone, and comparable mishaps have occurred, by one estimate, 60 times since the 1940s dawn of the nuclear era. One killed a Rhode Island worker in 1964. Yet Japan learned little from others’ mistakes. Tokaimura workers tried to mix way too much fuel, dangerously rich in explosive uranium, in a round container filled with water–all factors well known to magnify a runaway reaction. “There’s always a risk,” said Jean-Michel Maurel, a spokesman for the French Atomic Energy Commission, but “everybody is asking themselves how this happened, and nobody has the answer.”
Tokaimura was unusual only in the details. Another localized accident caused by human error is probable, perhaps increasingly so. Facing a public outcry over nuclear safety, the industry finds it hard to build new plants at a time when many are reaching the end of 25- to 30-year life spans. The resulting pressure to cut costs and cloak operations in secrecy may raise the risks. “The safety culture in the nuclear industry is a complete mess, because it’s driven by economics,” argues Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International. ‘“Confidence is shattered in Japan, and it should be shattered elsewhere as well.”
The danger zones are known. A secret 1995 report by the U.S. Department of Energy listed the seven reactors most at risk of a major accident. All are the same type that melted down at Chernobyl in 1986: Metsamor in Armenia, Kozloduy in Bulgaria, Ignalina in Lithuania, Kola in Russia, Bohunice in Slovakia and two at Chernobyl itself. What Tokaimura demonstrates is that poorly designed Soviet facilities are not the only ones at risk. France’s state-run nuclear industry has a sterling safety record, but has been accused by environmentalists of leaking radiation at a plant in La Hague, the world’s most advanced reprocessing facility. Minor mishaps are almost routine. Since last October there have been 13 stoppages at South Korea’s 14 reactors–most due to human error, according to the Korean Federation for the Environmental Movement. None of these incidents caused a leak, or injury. But to pretend it couldn’t happen serves nothing–least of all the hopes for clean, safe nuclear power.
