Towards a realistic estimation for the risk to the public derived from a nuclear accident

The controversy arised during the last decade around civil uses of nuclear energy has been focalized, principally, in its questionability as energetic resource, basing on the safety aspects and consequently on the risk magnitude associated with a nuclear accident, from which could arise significative releases of radioactivity to the environment. The reactor safety studies developed in the last decade overestimated, in some orders of magnitude, the radiological consequences, and therefore the nuclear risk derived from the operation of such installations. In this moment, after the lessons learned from Three Mile Island accident and the studies and researches, starting afterwards, it is considered suitable to develop a comparison of the above mentioned risk which allows an approach between its real value and that one derived from social perception. (author)