title: Reactor Accidents: Nuclear Safety and the Role of Institutional Failure
author: David Mosey
description: In this book seven of the most significant accidents in the history of nuclear power are examined in detail, identifying root causes and looking for common features. In the cases analysed it is shown that the root causes of these accidents were not design flaws or the mistakes of individual operators, however much these may have affected the accident sequence. The root causes were rather deep-seated failings in the institutions involved in the operation of the nuclear plant - failings which allowed the adoption of flawed designs, the provision of inadequate operator support and guidance and a dangerous overconfidence in the technology.
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  7/ A HITCH IN TIME
  
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  Rematerialisation occurred in a fair-sized room containing an emergency-power
  reactor and a converter bank. Farther to the left were the control panels
  which were connected to the pile by heavy cables. High tension lines led
  through the thermically-glazed rock walls into an adjoining room where the
  tanks containing pre-catalysts and nuclear fuel were located. There were also
  the moderator pumps for dampening down the reactor with regulated injections.
  
  I knew that the emergency power pile had never been called upon for any
  current demands. I had found the place during my numerous inspection tours and
  learned that its installation had been a useless precaution.
  
  Typical of this type of construction, the whole assembly sat on a shoulder-
  high foundation made of armourplate plastic metal. One wall was broken by a
  maintenance hatch. Behind it was a passage through which one could crawl to
  the cleanout access holes around the reactor zone. The hatch was no more