ABSTRACT
This chapter examines discrete and widespread patterns of behaviour, action and outcomes across a range of national, regional and global data in respect of the nuclear power industry, using evidence-based analysis. The high and very high energy levels of radiation inherent in some fields of nuclear power generation technologies and systems, principally within the nuclear fuel cycle, account for the physical and genetic damage which exposure causes in humans, as well as in nearly all of the flora and fauna of the world's biosphere. The official Report of the 2012 Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) to the National Diet of Japan which commissioned it provides authoritative evidence of the responses of a large number of individuals and groups caught in the national nuclear emergency situation. As crucial as the formal socio-political and specialist elements obviously are for nuclear energy policies generally, they are nevertheless insufficient to constitute the full extent of influence and action bearing upon them.
