Introduction
Europa moet zich afvragen of het in de nabije toekomst zonder kernenergie kan. Dat heeft de eurocommissaris voor Energiezaken, Günter Oettinger, gezegd voor de Duitse televisiezender ARD.  
 
Over the past decades many steps on the path to increased economic output in highly technological societies have been taken hand in hand with increased vulnerability to large scale disasters: many of the risks modern societies face are inevitable consequences of the modernization process.  
 
-          Mining accidents
-          Chernobyl
-          Random chemical plant 
 
Beck uses the paradoxical phrase “organized irresponsibility”, to signify the characteristics of a risk society, which can be understood as that the opening of a nuclear power plant to provide an economy with energy is a positive development, and might even be environmentally beneficial in when the focus is on GHG emissions, while allowing the possibility of nuclear meltdown is pretty irresponsible.   
 
The writer of the 19XX book ‘NormalAccidents’  Charles Perrow  would say that the unanticipated interaction of errors in complex and tightly coupled technological systems will always defeat the safety systems, if systems run long enough or if enough systems are in place. Accidents with high risk technologies like nuclear power plants are normal as they are complex, the number of potential failures are numerous, and the number of dangerous complex technological systems in modern societies is high.
 
These risks become even more XXX if we throw disasters in the mix. 
 
-          [d]espite some of the most sophisticated models, monitoring systems, and science in the world, we were unable to effectively anticipate and predict the series of cascading impacts rendered by the attacks” (Cutter, 2003:1 italics added). 
-          SARS
-          Haiti
-          Tsunami 2011
 
Even if we have safety systems like earthquake safe buildings or super well-secured nuclear power plants, the number of unanticipated interactions is infinite- as we are witnessing right now- and accidents will happen. 
 
Furthermore  the relative contributions of geophysical and biological processes, on the one hand, and social, economic, and political processes are disaster dependent.  Vulnerability is not context-independent but is dependent on the condition of a specific system component at a particular time in a particular space. For example: Earthquake Japan 1995 global economic fuckup, Haiti lots of deaths. 
 
This nuclear disaster is doing something particularly interesting. 
 
Complexity, technology, modernity
Large technological systems tend to be more risky as they are more complex and more tightly coupled. The measure of interactive complexity typically increases with the amount of technology incorporated in the system. Modern societies contain shitloads of technology. 
 
For example, a vital component of the vulnerability of these societies lies arei energy production and distribution. Large scale facilities like nuclear power plants provide 5% of a countries energy mix cause a lot of trouble when they melt down. 
 
Modern societies are vulnerable in a different way than less technological societies because of their complexity and tight coupling. The measure of tight coupling determines the speed in which changes in one part of the system invoke changes in other parts of the system. Failure in one part of the system can cause ‘cascading failures’ in other parts of the system. Global society is very tightly coupled which is illustrated by Tsunami. 
 
-          Natural disasters become social, political, economic through a technological disaster (Pathways to a new energy future, economic growth)
-          Technological disaster becomes natural (radioactive leakage)
-          Natural disaster becomes economic as shocks to the Japanese economy generally resonate throughout other western economies, and losing 5%-10% of your energy supply while 23 billion in damages have been done sucks ass  
-          The effects of the tsunami on the nuclear debate transcend time, as the strategies to avert climate change are heavily influenced by the possibility of nuclear. 
 
Living in contemporary society means living with risk.  On the one hand modern science and technologies like nuclear power plants can improve environmental performance of an economy and stimulate economic growth, when disasters occur the same technology can do the exact opposite. 
 
The idea that nuclear is not only posisitive is not a new idea in the nuclear power debate. This debate howver, has become very much though this wake up call.  What is new in the debate is how a nuclear disaster hits us while we are dealing with other wicked problems like climate change, a tightly coupled global economy, and our current visions of an energy future.