Talk:List of nuclear power accidents by country

Scope of the article

Many entries do not meet the criteria set in the overview section of the article (loss of life or more than 50k$ property damage). They also do not meet the INES scale definition which defines INES-4 or higher levels as accidents. Incidents with a lower scale are incidents, not accidents. These incidents de facto do not result in loss of life or offsite consequences. I propose removing events that do not meet these criteria.

There is also the discussion of whether this article should include research and military reactors. Since this article is titled nuclear power accidents military and research reactors should not be included as the Wikipedia definition of nuclear power is "the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity." MCvarial (talk) 14:54, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Strong oppose - as this suggestion is contrary to the terms spelled out in the article itself. Clearly the lead states accidents and incidents. INES does not trump the sourcing involved in this long-standing stable article. BTW, this message was posted in the wrong location. Netherzone (talk) 01:37, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Have you even bothered to read the article? The incidents clearly do not match the criteria set within the article. Neither do they match criteria set by international standards. So please undo your last edit. The fact that this article has been stable is indeed worrying considering the lack of quality. And feel free to guide me to the right location. MCvarial (talk) 19:33, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that Nuclear_power_accidents_by_country be merged into Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_country. The "Power" in nuclear power is obvious, so redundant . People who are looking for information on the subject would type "nuclear accident" or "radiation accident" Mark v1.0 (talk) 18:23, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

the merge is off . Nuclear and radiation accidents by country is for FATAL. I made a mistake.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 00:09, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Japan

Only section not in a table. Maybe someone can find the costs somewhere and update it.

General

Since when is an electrical failure a "nuclear accident"? It is a an accident at a nuclear facility, and doesn't meet the definition provided in the Wikipedia link to Nuclear and radiation accidents. Given that definition, several items in the table should not be included - 16 May 2005 in France for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RickH86 (talk • contribs) 18:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree with that. Bringing in fatalities of electrocuted workers is no more "nuclear accident" than construction workers who die from falling off the roof of a nuclear plant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.10.23.204 (talk) 14:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed! Along with most of the entries for the united states. A conventional safety accident at a nucler power plant is different than a nuclear accident. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.75.48.150 (talk) 18:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree this article needs a rewrite as it may not be either accurate or unbiased.

For example: (i) 9 references, 5 coming from one author - there is a much wider database of information available. (ii) The dairy farms around Windscale/Sellafield were NOT destroyed in the 1957 reactor fire. (iii) There were not 4056 fatalities from Chernobyl - according to UNESCAR there are about 4000 additional thyroid cancer cases at present —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neptunium236 (talk • contribs) 20:03, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Have added a couple more citations and made a few minor changes: Windscale farms were contaminated. 4,000 fatalities for Chernobyl, which is the most commonly found figure -- 4,000 mainly treatable thyroid cancers were apparently on top of this. Have linked a couple of the Chernobyl articles which give more info. Johnfos (talk) 23:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Too broad a definition of accident is bad, but too narrow is also bad. A fire of a power transformer in a plant is not a nuclear accident, but it is known a fire usually spreads, so a fire in a nuclear facility should be included."Entergy Arkansas nuclear reactor offline after transformer fire" http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/09/us-utilities-operations-entergy-arkansas-idUSBRE9B80SL20131209 --Mark v1.0 (talk) 16:12, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Only civilian power plants? No military installations?

Given the title of this article, I'm surprised to see that none of the numerous military accidents of which I am aware has made the list, which seems to be composed entirely of civilian nuclear electric generation station accidents. Rather a significant restriction of scope, if you ask me... --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 19:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

The 1961 SL-1 (US Army) accident where three people died is included here. But I'm aware that the 1985 Soviet submarine K-431 accident, where 10 people died and 49 people suffered radiation injuries [1], and the 1961 Soviet submarine K-19 accident, where 8 people died and more than 30 people were over-exposed to radiation p. 14 are not on this list. Do you think they should be? What other nuclear accidents were you thinking of? Johnfos (talk) 23:08, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

There is another list elsewhere on wikipedia describing military nuclear accidents ... I'm rather disappointed that this was included on wikipedia's front page without the addition of the word civilian since there has been a large amount of military nuclear accidents too. The subs, of course are serious accidents, but there is a large number of mistakes with nuclear tests and aircraft that crashed with nuclear weaponry on board. Each of these would've been as serious in scope and repair costs as this article's defined "accident".--Senor Freebie (talk) 23:53, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits have clarified that we are looking at both civilian and military nuclear power plant accidents here -- plane crashes and submarine accidents are outside the scope of the article. If there are more military nuclear power plant accidents which meet the criteria and which you wish to add, please do so. Johnfos (talk) 00:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, good to see this has changed, but the current fatalities from Chernobyl "...of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster...", whereas "A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident..."; quotes are from the WHO report. So 4000 is a potential, not an actual figure. For comparison, I ride a bicycle in London, and may be a potential fatality - cycling is hazardous in a city with as much traffic as London - but I am not yet a fatality. I'm sorry to labour this point, but the implication of the article is that there are 4000 fatalities, which there are not although there may be by 2100. You have to have such data accurate, otherwise they are misused. 139.143.5.160 (talk) 10:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

There are various estimates about Chernobyl deaths. I notice now that there is a WHO health effects report adopted by the UN, published in April 2006, see Chernobyl disaster effects#The Chernobyl Forum report. Johnfos (talk) 19:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Points of discussion on Scope

Can we all agree on two points in order to make this list better moving forward?

1. This list should contain actual Nuclear Accidents, not conventional accidents at a nuclear power plant.

2. I agree this list should include military reactors... (some significant safety lessons were learned from early designs such as SL-1). Perhaps a new column in the tables to distinguish military from civilian?

Furthermore, relating to point 1...

if one considers electrocutions and other such conventional hazards to be directly attributable to the nuclear world then I think there should be some serious consideration to a whole slew of new lists being created... including:

1) list of electrical industry accidents (electrocutions etc. at fossil fuel, hydro, wind, and solar plants)

2) list of electricity related industry accidents (e.g. mining and manufacturing for the electrical industry)

3) list of industrial accidents (similar to the above but containing all industry) (there is a list of industrial disasters but not accidents). This would have to include instances where factories have been shut down/ suffered a production loss all over the world for safety reasons (in order to maintain consistency with the current nuclear accident list)

Each of these lists should be able to quantify in the same way as the nuclear list, the estimated financial impact of their occurrence, including as a total of their own category anbd maybe as a percentage of all industrial accidents?

Without this type of comparison and completeness it would be very easy for some one to look on this list and say "oh nuclear has had 99 accidents (plus probably a dozen or so military?), they cost X dollars, shut it down!". Meanwhile, I can almost guarantee there were 99 industrial accidents in the world today. No, these were not all Chernobyls. But there is a Bhopal out there. And the majority of the entries on the list are in fact things like electrocutions, on which the nuclear industries safety record is stellar... anyway, sorry for the rant... my 6 cents 99.244.26.187 (talk) 23:40, 7 July 2010 (UTC) A Nuclear Eng.

No probs for the rant :) Good to be getting some input...

I've looked again at the Sovacool source and his listing is under the heading "Nuclear power accidents", and I think this is better than just "Nuclear accidents" as it helps to better define the scope of this article. So I'm taking the bold step of moving the article to "Nuclear power accidents by country". So this clearly includes both civilian and military nuclear power plants, but excludes the nuclear submarine accidents and those involving aircraft carrying nuclear weapons. It may be that a further move, to "Nuclear power plant accidents by country" could be helpful, but I'll see what people think.

Conventional accidents at nuclear power plants would still be included under the definition given -- "incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage, the amount the US federal government uses to define major energy accidents that must be reported". Johnfos (talk) 00:35, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

But the previous version of this article linked to "Nuclear and radiation accidents" which are defined as "loss of control of radioactive material with the potential to cause radiation poisoning.", not conventional accidents at nuclear power plants. As with industrial accidents, you would need a comparable list of accidents at all other types of power plants to be an objective, unbiased article.212.243.156.148 (talk) 08:36, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

One thing I would like to do if I have time (or you might like to do it) is create the article Energy accidents, and link this as a sub-article. Johnfos (talk) 09:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Windscale/Sellafield

Should be listed under same name.--Grahame (talk) 02:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

1983 Sellafield was just mentioned on TV by BBC FOUR: "Britains Nuclear Secrets: Inside Sellafield" Accidental release of nuclear waste into the sea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.29.165.165 (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Nuclear safety

I've added a section on Nuclear safety which helps to further balance the article. Johnfos (talk) 19:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Safest Mode of Power Generation

In the opening preamble is the assertion that the form of Electricity production using a Nuclear fuel is the safest, Yet in researching the source documentation, the number of Lives lost per TerraWatt of energy Generated, shows a lesser amount for Hydro-Electric, than is for Nuclear-Electric. If the assertion that 'Nulcear Power is the Safest'... is accurate, then why are the charts for showing opposite?

I am open to change the statement back to nuclear being the safest medium to generate, if it can be cited that the Nuclear mode of Energy Generation, has the lowest loss of life during operation (Not Construction, as Construction is a differenet Paramater). Richard416282 (talk) 19:26, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Misleading data on Chernobyl (Ukraine section)

The cost of the Chernobyl Disaster is listed in the tables at $6700 million US. While this figure is in the cited reference, it is clearly wrong, as the government of Belarus has provided figures of between $200000 and $300000 million US, and the figures from the Ukraine are only slightly lower.

I contacted Benjamin Sovacool, the author of the reference, to find out whether there had been a misprint, with the correct figure being $670000 million. He responded that the higher figure might be correct; the figure in the article cited was the lowest figure he had found, not a representation of the actual cost.--ghh 11:42, 5 April 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by George H. Harvey (talk • contribs)

NPOV

This seems to be really POV to me: "The nuclear industry says that new technology and oversight have made nuclear plants much safer, but..." I have edited this out, since nuclear plants have gotten much safer than in the 60s, and this seems to suggest in a POV way, something unconfirmed, that is, disinformation from the nuclear industry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.235.123.134 (talk) 17:24, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Canada

I had placed several minor Canadian accidents, and one purposeful radiation poisoning in the Canada section. It disappeared . I plan on finding it and putting it back.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 04:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC) Okay I found my old work here http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_country#Canada--Mark v1.0 (talk) 04:31, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The NRU and NRX accidents should be removed from this page, since they were not power reactors, but research reactors, with no electricity output.

No one signed that last comment? The title "Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents" does not specify what kind of reactor "should" be listed. The NRU and NRX accidents don't get a free pass in my opinion.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 14:48, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay I found the place for the accidents here https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Nuclear_power_accidents_by_country#Canada --Mark v1.0 (talk) 14:53, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

UK Accidents - fatalities or no fatalities?

I have a document from the UK Government which confirms that there have been no fatalities from nuclear power in the UK. The document is dated about 1980. Yet this article claims that a 1957 fire at Windscale caused 20 fatalities according to a UK Govt. estimate. The article links to a Wikipedia article on the fire. The Wikipedia article on the fire mentions no fatalities. That article itself links to an article by the BBC on a recent research paper published fifty years after the event. It lists the authors but does not say on whose behalf they conducted the research. The BBC report says that that new research suggests that more people might have contracted thyroid cancer than previously thought, suggesting an increase from 200 to 240 cases. It does not mention any fatalities. This article supposedly links to an article by the TIME magazine which refers to 20 fatalities as being an estimate by the government. I have followed the link but no mention is made in the TIME article of any fatalities. I have therefore removed the reference, as I think a) It's pretty significant that nuclear power in the UK is the safest form of power, despite the many myths, and b) A claim of fatalities must be substantiated. DavidFarmbrough (talk) 08:01, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

According to Hansard there was one fatality at Chapelcross in 1978, for which BNFL were fined. It is not clear whether this was a radiological accident, although some sources (for example David MacKay's book) count it as cost of power generation. Can anyone find any more details about the accident? --BWDuncan (talk) 17:56, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The Windscale fire has statistically in fact caused a portion of late cancer fatalities! This can be found in some scientific web-documents of which I cant remember the exact URL--2A02:1206:4577:9700:7CC2:6B8E:D755:C3B6 (talk) 15:15, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

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HTML error?

Why is "Nuclear reactor accidents in the U.S" at the bottom of the page , so low it is below the references? This has to be a HTML error? If I knew where and what it was I would fix it.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 01:12, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I reordered the item list in an attempt to fix the bad USA listing and it did not work.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 01:29, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I managed to get the U.S. table looking like a table, and its in the correct place, but there is more minor editing to do.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 10:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

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Belgium

• 2006: Fleurus: Ines 4
• 2011: Doel: Ines 2
• 2002+2005: Tihange : Ines 2
• only 2007 - 2016: 94 incidents of Ines 1

[2] [3] [4] Excel from 2011: [5] -- 79.196.224.188 (talk) 11:52, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't find support for the "2002+2005: Tihange : Ines 2" and "2011: Doel: Ines 2" claims in the given sources. Could you be more specific about the sources for each claimed event and INES level? --Jhertel (talk) 14:32, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

I found the sources now by myself via Google. --Jhertel (talk) 15:11, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

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Jpgcwiki (talk) 13:55, 23 November 2017 (UTC) Looking through the incidents listed, I noticed that a number of USSR incidents are missing. There are some on the "List of nuclear and radiation fatalities by country" page, with which a merger has been suggested. But a merger would remain incomplete.

Many interesting incidents are listed in this document from Los Alamos which is contains a number it would be worth mentioning:

http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-13638

I have no time to include any and I'm sure others can do a better job than I anyway. I hope this may help make this list more complete.

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China

Have there been no nuclear power accidents in China? Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/14/politics/china-nuclear-reactor-leak-us-monitoring/index.html 98.123.38.211 (talk) 21:00, 8 September 2024 (UTC)