In his book '' Normal Accidents '' , Charles Perrow says that unexpected failures are built into society 's complex and tightly-coupled nuclear reactor systems . Nuclear power plants can not be operated without some major accidents . Such accidents are unavoidable and can not be designed around . An interdisciplinary team from MIT have estimated that given the expected growth of nuclear power from 2005 – 2055 , at least four serious nuclear accidents would be expected in that period . To date , there have been five serious accidents ( core damage ) in the world since 1970 ( one at Three Mile Island in 1979 ; one at Chernobyl in 1986 ; and three at Fukushima-Daiichi in 2011 ) , corresponding to the beginning of the operation of generation II reactors . This leads to on average one serious accident happening every eight years worldwide
Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island accident
Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents