The risks and detriments involved in nuclear power development come from three major characteristics of nuclear energy: it is energy intensive, it generates radioactive material and it generates strategic material. To avoid damaging accidents, the chain reaction, the transfer of heat and the confine­ment of radioactivity have to be kept under strict control by nuclear safety measures. To protect the health and safety of workers, the general public and the environment, radioactive materials have to be confined for lengths of time well beyond when they were first produced, requiring the establish­ment of a radioactive waste management system and a final repository strategy. The production of strategic materials creates the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, which needs to be controlled by tough security mea­sures. As a large industrial installation, nuclear power plants also create non-radiological detriments: there is an increase in light and heavy traffic, noise, pollution, aesthetic impacts and heat releases. To a greater or lesser degree, some of these aspects may affect the whole world, the country where the nuclear power is developed, and/or the region where nuclear power plants are operated.

242 Infrastructure and methodologies for justification of NPPs