Abstract:
From the primitive discovery of uranium in 1789 to its current employment as a vital, advanced source of energy currently fuelling 438 nuclear reactors distributed in 30 countries around the world, numerous events took place and influenced the development of nuclear fission as a pacific “weapon”. The Superpower competition in the second half of the twentieth century and the emergence of concurrent countries in the international arena has spurred progress in nuclear technology and crowned the U.S, France and Russia as the Top 3 World Nuclear Power Producing Countries. Although the military use of the atom haunted its dissipation in the early years, the International Atomic Energy Agency struggled to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies for the benefit of the mankind. Nonetheless, three main nuclear accidents – the 1979 Three Mile Island (TMI-2) in the U.S.A, the 1986 Chernobyl Accident in Ukraine and the 2011 Fukushima Accident which unseated Japan from the Top 3, surely influenced the proliferation of nuclear power during these 60 years of “Atoms for peace”. Why? and How? has nuclear industry developed in the Top 3-plus Japan following those three catastrophes and what is the Future? of nuclear power given the prominence of the last infamous Fukushima Accident.
