#NuclearEnergy
Still not much info on the event at the Belarusian nuclear plant. But, people are freaking out, and many are calling it an "accident". In technical fields, words have specific meanings, so I'm going to be pedantic and try to explain why that is wrong. 1/

Here are the links for source material.
https://www.iaea.org/resources/databases/international-nuclear-and-radiological-event-scale

https://iec.iaea.org/inesrilt/introduction
2/

When something happens at a NPP, it can be classified on the INES scale. It has 7 levels. 1-3 are INCIDENTS. 4-7 are ACCIDENTS. It is a logarithmic scale, so a 2 is 10X as bad as a 1, a 3 is 10X as bad as a 2. 3/

It is also broken down by effects along the top in blue.
People & Environment
Radiological Barriers & Control
Defense in Depth
4/

Let's zoom in on Level 1 - Anomaly
This is where I would put the Belarusian event, under the 2nd bullet. A tank was damaged - not good, but minimal consequences & a lot more defense available. 5/

Take a look at the kind of things that would rate a 2 - exposing someone to 10mSv. That is 1 Rem, half my annual limit as a worker, and 2X what I actually have over 20 yrs in nuclear power. A 3 would be 50 Rem (annual limit of 5 Rem in US). 6/

Now for the lowest level of ACCIDENT - Lvl 4. This requires significant events, fuel melting, possibly deaths. If any radiation is released it won't cause an evac, only control of food supply, but that is a huge jump, worthy of being called a nuclear accident. 7/

Lvl 5 - severe core damage, large radioactive releases possibly requiring evacuations, several deaths. At Three Mile Island no one died, very (seriously, not much at all) little radiation was released, but they melted about half the core. Containment did it's job. 8/

Lvl 6 - Serious accident. Significant releases. Only 2 that can find - Mayak in Russia, & Simi Valley in US. Large amounts of uncontrolled radioactive releases, huge effort to clean up & protect population. Evacuations & displacement will probably occur. 9/

Lvl 7 - Major Accident. Again, only 2. Chernobyl & Fukushima. This is what people see in their mind when they hear NUCLEAR ACCIDENT. This is as bad as it gets. Areas will be rendered uninhabitable - widespread health & environmental effects. 10/

Here is another table with a few events placed on the scale. I'm not minimizing the risk, or the consequences. My goal with this was to define the word ACCIDENT, as I hear it with my insight. An accident is bad. Calling every event an accident is just fear mongering. -End-