Legal Problems of Reactor Safety

Abstract

Nuclear energy has already reached a stage at which it is not only competitive with but superior to other forms of energy in terms of all such factors as economy, reliability, safety, and environmental effects. During the next 25-30 years of nuclear power, there will be no alternative energy source capable of competing with it. The nearly 25 years of experience of operation of nuclear power plants (NPPs) has persuasively demonstrated their economic and ecological superiority over coal-fueled thermal power plants (TPPs). In a number of countries nuclear energy already accounts for a significant share of electric power output. In Switzerland, for example, it accounts for about 20 percent; in England, 15 percent; in West Germany, 12 percent; in the USA, about 10 percent; and in the Common Market countries as a whole, about 10 percent. Approximately the same figures apply to the German Democratic Republic, Bulgaria, Japan, India, and other countries.