Commentary: Nuclear Power as a Social Experiment—European Political “Fall Out” from the Chernobyl Meltdown

Society has become an experimentation field for complex technologies. Nuclear power plants are being sold as well-developed products by industry, they are legitimated as necessary for the future provision of energy by political agencies, and scientifically they are supported by seemingly objective and neutral safety studies and risk assessments. But none of the 300 existing nuclear power plants are identical and their safety cannot be tested under real extreme conditions: That is the nature of this technology. Thus, the actual safety of nuclear power plants in normal operation and the manageability of an accident remain specula-