Safe Enough? - by Thomas R Wellock (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Published in 2021 by University of California Press in association with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)"--Title page verso.

Book Synopsis

Since the dawn of the Atomic Age, nuclear experts have labored to imagine the unimaginable and prevent it. They confronted a deceptively simple question: When is a reactor "safe enough" to adequately protect the public from catastrophe? Some experts sought a deceptively simple answer: an estimate that the odds of a major accident were, literally, a million to one. Far from simple, this search to quantify accident risk proved to be a tremendously complex and controversial endeavor, one that altered the very notion of safety in nuclear power and beyond.

Safe Enough? is the first history to trace these contentious efforts, following the Atomic Energy Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as their experts experimented with tools to quantify accident risk for use in regulation and to persuade the public of nuclear power's safety. The intense conflict over the value of risk assessment offers a window on the history of the nuclear safety debate and the beliefs of its advocates and opponents. Across seven decades and the accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, the quantification of risk has transformed both society's understanding of the hazards posed by complex technologies and what it takes to make them safe enough.

From the Back Cover

"The focus on safety is a brilliant narrative choice that allows the text to quickly jump to the heart of many of the most contentious issues in nuclear power regulation and politics over the past fifty years."--Robert Lifset, author of Power on the Hudson: Storm King Mountain and the Emergence of Modern American Environmentalism

"I know of no other book that so authoritatively recounts how the very notion of safety was forged in the US nuclear industry over the decades."--Sonja D. Schmid, author of Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry

"An authoritative insider account of the different technical approaches taken to assess the risks of nuclear power accidents. It also examines the disputes over the reliability and relevance of these approaches, and whether they could be implemented in the field by the industry."--John Krige, Regents Professor Emeritus, Georgia Institute of Technology

Review Quotes

"[A]n excellent history."-- "Journal of American History"

"Clearly written and compelling."-- "American Historical Review"

"Safe Enough? is an important book that elucidates an essential historical narrative for nuclear historians while informing readers of its present-day relevance. . . . Safe Enough? should be assigned to graduate students studying how states, societies, and technology interlace to form public policy. Historians of technology will find this book immensely useful for examining human interactions with technology, particularly assessing nuclear reactors as political artifacts."
-- "H-Net Reviews"

"A fascinating story, spanning more than seventy years, of attempts in the United States and abroad to assess and measure risk for a controversial energy source. . . . Wellock's calm, balanced tone, extended historical sweep, and deep excavation of a variety of archival records make this book a must read for graduate students and scholars interested in risk analysis and the U.S. nuclear industry."-- "California History"

"Wellock's focus on regulatory principles and practices is key to understanding what nuclear regulation really means. . . . Whether [probabilistic risk assessment] is the best path to follow remains an open issue, as the search continues for an answer to the question that provides the title of this excellent history of technology regulation."-- "Technology and Culture"

About the Author

Thomas R. Wellock is the historian of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.