On August 9th 1945, The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, launching the world into the nuclear age. Over the next decade, the nuclear arms race began, and nations would also look to find peaceful applications for this new technology. Less than 10 years after the dropping of the first atomic bombs, the Soviet Union became the first nation to harness the power of the atom and connect a nuclear reactor to the power grid. The US was not far behind, and the second half of the Twentieth Century saw the rise of nuclear power across the globe. While this new technology was a good way to meet the growing demand for energy, it came with risks that occasionally led to disaster.
Three major nuclear disasters between 1979 and 2011 have come to define the danger of nuclear power. At the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the United States in 1979, an equipment malfunction caused a partial meltdown and small release of radiation, causing alarm and fear of nuclear power. The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl power plant in the Soviet Union was one of the defining nuclear events of the 20th Century. Inherent design flaws in the reactor combined with unsafe operating conditions resulted in the worst nuclear disaster in history, with high levels of radiation being released and massive amounts of land being rendered uninhabitable, forcing thousands of people to relocate. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake caused a tsunami that devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The full station blackout and ensuing consequences prevented the plant operators from cooling the reactors, resulting in the first and only triple meltdown in history.
These disasters were not freak accidents. The political landscape in each country allowed for each disaster to happen. Three Mile Island proved that safety regulations in the US nuclear industry needed improvement in order to decrease the chances of an accident. It also greatly stalled the expansion of the nuclear industry in the US, as the fear caused by the accident played right into the hands of antinuclear activists looking for a reason to take down the industry. The Chernobyl accident exposed glaring problems in the Soviet nuclear industry. The nuclear culture in the Soviet Union allowed for lackluster safety standards and an overconfidence in the technology. The accident caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011 resulted in radiation being released and tens of thousands of people being forced to evacuate. The conditions in Japan prior to the disaster led to more danger, as there were safety standards not met, as well as efforts to cover up existing problems by the utility company that owned the power plant. All three nuclear accidents were the result of unmet safety standards and industries that did not protect against the full danger of nuclear power, and more would have to be done to prevent future accidents.