The 1986 Chernobyl disaster exposed Soviet secrecy, weakened public and international trust, intensified nationalist movements, strained the Soviet economy, undermined Glasnost and Perestroika, accelerated Soviet decline, and prompted Europe-wide reforms in nuclear safety and international cooperation.

After the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant was all but destroyed, leading to a desperate effort to prevent a full blown nuclear disaster. The Japanese government has been pumping water into the power plant in order to cool the radioactive debris and prevent further nuclear meltdown. This solution has in itself generated more problems. What is to be done with the radioactive wastewater? The Japanese government has ultimately decided to dilute the amount of tritium, the element that irradiates this water, to an acceptable level and release the diluted but still radioactive water into the ocean over the course of the next 30 years.