John Rumm wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending the mistakes and cover-ups of the
industry in the past, however they are not necessarily failings of the
technology. Great swathes of the industry today around the world has
demonstrated that it can be done right, with far fewer casualties that
experienced in fossil fuel based power generation.


Mistakes and cover-ups are endemic in the British nuclear industry,
whether military or civil, because of the secrecy behind which the
nuclear industry routinely operates. Military secrecy has to some
extent given way to secrecy based on the Prevention of Terrorism Act,
because nuclear installations are prime terrorist targets.

Secrecy leads to complacency, because no-one ever gets exposed.
Complacency leads to incompetence, as anyone from outside the industry
who has worked at Sellafield will tell you. Incompetence leads to
mistakes, mistakes lead to accidents, and accidents lead to cover-ups,
because secrecy is all important.

Then secrecy leads to more complacency ... and so it goes on.