Citation

Walker JS. Technol. Cult. 2001; 42(1): 107-132.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, Johns Hopkins University Press)

DOI

10.1353/tech.2001.0045

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

During the early years of commercial nuclear power development in the 1950s and 1960s, the main concern with regard to reactor safety was the possibility of a severe accident that would cause a massive release of radioactivity into the environment. The nuclear industry and the government agency primarily responsible for nuclear safety, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), focused their efforts on preventing an accident that would seriously imperil the health of those exposed to radiation from a crippled plant. But another problem of potentially even greater importance received less attention: making certain that reactor fuels or other materials could not be used by individuals or groups to make nuclear weapons. The objective of keeping materials that could be made into bombs from reaching the hands of terrorists, criminals, or aberrant individuals did not receive a great deal of consideration until the 1970s, when it emerged as a major technological and political issue. An internal AEC report appraised the question in stark terms in April 1974: "The potential harm to the public from the explosion of an illicitly made nuclear weapon is greater than that from any plausible power plant accident, including one which involves a core meltdown."

Consideration of appropriate means to protect nuclear plants and materials intensified an already bitter national debate over nuclear power during the 1970s. Eventually the uproar over "safeguards," which was the term applied to the protection of nuclear plants from sabotage and nuclear materials from theft, resulted in tightened regulations imposed by the AEC and its successor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The safeguards issue added a new dimension to the debate over the risks of nuclear power.