The Benefits of Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment, along with Health and Safety, is one of the dæmons modern life pursued by the tabloid and right-wing press. This often involves concocting a story, which may have no basis in fact, about men in grey suits banning playground toys, village fetes and anything else which makes it seem that the “British Way Of Life” is under threat.

While it is true that risk assessment can occasionally be taken too far at times, it is of inherent benefit to us. I’d like to illustrate this by using an example I was discussing earlier today. Specifically, an accident which may well have been preventable if risk assessment had been undertaken.

Image from Soviet Archives, Used under Fair Use terms

The above picture shows the remains of Chernobyl Reactor No. 4. It was taken in the weeks after the disaster, prior to construction of the containment sarcophagus.

One of the causes of the Chernobyl disaster was lack of risk assessment, with the dated reactor design simply deemed ‘safe’ by the Soviet powers that be on the basis that none of it’s predecessors had had problems. Unlike the UK, there was no regulators to ensure that any kind of real safety assessment was undertaken.

It is impossible to categorically state that such a disaster would never have occurred if risk assessment has been undertaken, but it is likely that a number of flawed practises would have been identified and eliminated. These include carrying out extended experimental procedures across shift changes, the absence of nuclear technicians as well as a number of technical issues in the design of the reactor itself. It is likely that, had risk assessment been carried out, building a city around the reactor complex would have been deemed too dangerous – as it is in the majority of nuclear states – which would have saved many hundreds of lives.

A slightly more recent example concerns a current design of reactor. The Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor, one of two proposed designs for the next generation of British nuclear power, is currently being redesigned to eliminate potential risks identified as a result of risk assessment.

Of course, risk assessment can’t eliminate every single potential problem. Nothing in life (especially nuclear power plants) will ever be 100% safe but as long as it’s carried out sensibly it is of great benefit and does save lives. Since the 1990s, there has been increasing risk assessment with fatal accidents at work declining by half.

Between fewer fatalities and slightly safer nuclear power station, I’m happy to give my support to the much lambasted and overlooked practise of risk assessment.