“Is Nuclear Safe”? Is the Wrong Question

You hear some version of this question on every news report about Japan’s crisis: “Is nuclear power safe?”

Trouble is – that’s the wrong question. Here’s why.

Safety is not a status – nothing is inherently “safe.” Safety is a process – a continuous process. A process failure can turn a good design into a disaster, and a great process can keep a poor design from becoming a catastrophe.

This is true way beyond nuclear technology. Ask yourself: Is a Boeing 747 safe? Well, lots of them fly and it’s very rare for one of them to crash, so most of us would say “sure.”

But that doesn’t matter to you as you are walking down the gangway. The only thing that matters is: Is this plane safe right now? Does it have a veteran pilot in the cockpit, or a rank amateur? Did the mechanics get all the bolts retightened, and put in enough fuel? Did maintenance catch whatever got loosened in the last air turbulence?

What gives the airline a track record of safe landings – the assurance you need to take your seat – is a continuous safety process in the building, operation and maintenance of its planes. That’s also what keeps nuclear plants running safely.

With complex advanced technology, a small slip can fail a whole system. So nothing can be taken for granted. Every part and every maintenance action counts, just like every operator action.

If this sounds daunting – it is. It starts with initial construction, in which every part must meet specifications and every weld or screw tightening or concrete pour must be safety-verified. When a nuclear plant is completed, the final drawings have to be exactly what’s built. The people who operate and maintain the plant have to know what they have. That’s one reason nuclear plants cost so much.

Then operators have to follow carefully drawn procedures, every single time. They are like the most experienced pilots, who are sticklers for following checklists. Even if it’s the millionth time, they know that human beings can get complacent and forget a step – and with advanced machinery with complex interactions, that can be fatal.

Safety processes also apply to maintenance. In a nuclear station, everything requiring repair or maintenance, however routine, is tagged in advance, and logged, and its maintenance procedure scheduled down to minutes. Before maintenance personnel loosen a screw, they doublecheck that they’re performing the right task on the right equipment. And they have with them a step-by-step procedure for that task, beginning to end.

Everyone involved in running a plant is trained, and trained again, as part of their regular shifts. The processes used are continuously re-evaluated. The more everyone knows about the plant and how it works, the more likely it is that any safety problem will be spotted. Homer Simpson need not apply.

And neither should Michael Scott from “The Office.” Maintaining this kind of attention to detail, and running the team-oriented organization with a flattened hierarchy that can successfully carry it off, year after year, requires its own special kind of management.

So the question isn’t “is nuclear safe?” Of course it can be – literally billions of megawatt-hours of electricity have come from nuclear power without a problem – just like lots of 747s have landed.

The meaningful questions are whether safety processes are in place, are being followed, and are continuously re-evaluated in light of new challenges that come along, like the events at Fukushima. It’s that continual questioning that is our real assurance of safety – and what we have to be looking for from nuclear operators and regulators when we want to know whether our nuclear plants are “safe.”