Misplaced nuclear optimism

October 27, 2025

Hannah Ritchie has great insights about using data to determine the best use of resources to lower emissions. Her optimism around nuclear is debatable.

Most nuclear accidents go unreported. American engineer and historian Thomas Wellock has published an account of the seemingly casual attitude within the US nuclear industry called Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk.

Analysts quoted by Wellock, and a 2016 study published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, all predict a serious accident quite soon. Wellock’s reviewer Daniel Ford did some similar calculations after Three Mile Island. “The numbers suggested that another major nuclear accident would come due in about three years. The Chernobyl disaster occurred roughly on schedule, four years later…Fukushima was a bit late in arriving. But since it involved three meltdowns, the quick calculation that I had made still proved a good-enough indicator of how much risk the world is running. The next meltdown, arithmetically speaking, is just around the corner; the only issue I cannot resolve is where it will occur."

A team from MIT estimates, given the expected growth of nuclear power from 2005 to 2055, “at least four serious nuclear accidents would be expected in that period”.