Nuclear Accidents

As Japan shuts down the last of its nuclear reactors, Germany shows the way to an energy-efficient future with its rapid timetable for conversion to renewables.

• By Gail Osherenko

As the U.S. prepares to relaunch domestic production of plutonium-238, the space community wishes to assure the public of its safety. Are they right?

• By Wendee Holtcamp

By age 10, most people are exposed to enough radiation to be at risk, but the science is so complicated that exposure could even have benefits.

• By Valerie Brown

The 10-day long protest at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant 30 years ago this month may have been the most significant anti-nuclear power demonstration ever held in the U.S.

• By John McKinney

Phasing out nuclear power around the world is easier said than done; the Germans (and Japanese) are, so far, the most serious about it.

• By Michael Scott Moore

Nuclear engineer Cesare Silvi studied unlikely outside threats to nuclear plants in Italy, which soured him on the energy source and caused him to go solar.

• By John Perlin

Over its short lifetime, nuclear power has migrated from being the miracle of America's energy future to an at times unruly nuclear demon, says historian Patrick McCray.

• By Jai Ranganathan

In this last of a three-part podcast, Dr. Theo Theofanous talks about the health impacts of radiation leaking from the crippled Japanese nuclear power plant and about the future of nuclear power.

• By Jai Ranganathan

In the second of three parts, engineering professor and nuclear risk expert Theo Theofanous discusses the options Japan has to avert even greater catastrophe at the badly damaged Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

• By Jai Ranganathan

Engineering professor Theo Theofanous, long recognized for his work on risk and accident analysis specifically focused on nuclear reactors, begins the first of three podcasts on the Fukushima incident with Curiouser & Curiouser host Jai Ranganathan.

• By Jai Ranganathan

Valery N. Bliznyuk was a young physicist in Kiev 25 years ago during the Chernobyl disaster. His recollections of the slow spread of accurate information about what was really happening suggest parallels with the current nuclear crisis in Japan.

• By John Perlin

In a report planned before Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Union of Concerned Scientists suggests that U.S. nuclear regulators are way too complacent about the possibility of a catastrophe.

• By Emily Badger

We provide some background and context for the nuclear-power crisis in Japan.

• By Miller-McCune Staff

Human error helped worsen a nuclear meltdown just outside Los Angeles, and now human inertia has stymied the radioactive cleanup for half a century.

• By Joan Trossman Bien and Michael Collins