The Human Factor in Software Engineering

Using the data about accidents that have taken place, the risk of the maximum accident has been corrected. The research group of Jos Lelieveld (Max-Planck-Institut für Chemie in Mainz, Germany) counted 14.500 years of nuclear power plant operation so far and 4 worst case accidents (one in Tschernobyl, three in Fukushima). Multiplying this frequencies with the number of active nuclear power plants (440 currently active, 60 further are planned), they obtained an average mean time between two such accidents of 10-20 years. South-western Germany is the region with the highest risk, because the density of nuclear power plants (German and French) is highest here. We (me!) can expect one accident in 50 years. The probabilities had been assumed to be 200 times lower so far! This study has recently been published in the journal "Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics".