So you build a nuclear power plant, and your estimated risk of a major accident within the next 300 years is, say, one chance in one million. This sounds OK.

However, this number does not take into account the fact that we already have 1,000 nuclear plants (including military facilities and nuclear waste disposals), each with one chance in a million to experience a major accident.

In a nutshell, the risk of a major accident anywhere in the world is about 1,000 times higher than the risk of an accident in a specific facility. Nobody takes this into consideration when building a nuclear plant, because it involves international factors that can not be controlled.

The end result is that we live in a world where risks are much higher than what local governments say, not because local governments lie, but because they are local and don't integrate global data.Thoughts?