A review of 'Safe Enough?' by Thomas Wellock, exploring the history and limitations of Probabilistic Risk Assessment in nuclear safety.
Longer summary
This book review examines 'Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk' by Thomas Wellock, which chronicles the development of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) in nuclear safety. The review discusses how PRA became the dominant method for analyzing nuclear risk, its successes in reducing accidents, and its limitations in predicting extreme events like Fukushima. The author argues that while PRA greatly improved nuclear safety, it cannot fully account for rare but catastrophic 'dragon king' events, leaving the question of whether nuclear power is 'safe enough' ultimately unanswered.
Shorter summary