The book’s history shows nuclear safety moved from 'nothing must ever go wrong' to probabilistic risk assessment (PRA): quantify failure modes, estimate frequencies, and mitigate the biggest contributors. This approach balances safety against cost and feasibility in complex systems. The same logic can guide governance for modern high‑risk technologies (AI, bio, grid) where zero‑risk demands paralyze progress.
— Shifting public policy from absolute‑safety rhetoric to PRA would enable building critical energy and tech systems while targeting the most consequential risks.
Irus Braverman
2026.01.09
82% relevant
Braverman’s essay argues current blanket protections prevent rapid, potentially risky interventions to save reefs; that connects directly to the existing idea advocating probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) over absolute zero‑risk demands. Both address how to balance catastrophic climate risk against regulatory precaution and call for governance that quantifies trade‑offs instead of blocking action by default.
msmash
2026.01.08
85% relevant
The article illustrates the limits of deterministic planning for climate mitigation ("You cannot force the forest to grow"), making the case for probabilistic risk management: forests are a stochastic carbon sink vulnerable to compound drought + pests, so policy must accept uncertainty and prioritize robustness (diversification, staged buffers) rather than assuming fixed sequestration rates.
Jason Crawford
2026.01.05
92% relevant
The author explicitly invokes the systems‑engineering lesson that perfect predictability isn't required for control and cites weather, floods and infectious disease to justify probabilistic approaches; this maps directly onto the existing idea that governance should adopt probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) instead of demanding zero risk (the nuclear PRA analogy appears in that idea).
2026.01.05
90% relevant
Sandia’s description directly maps onto the ‘probabilistic risk assessment (PRA)’ framing in the existing idea: it reports decades of PRA work (SOARCA) and the MELCOR modeling toolbox used by the NRC to quantify low but non‑zero risks and now to extend PRA methods to advanced reactor designs.
2025.10.07
100% relevant
Wellock’s account of Davis‑Besse, Three Mile Island, and the NRC’s adoption of PRA as the core method to understand and manage nuclear accident risk.