What You Won't Hear When Gregory Jaczko, Peter Bradford and Arnie Gundersen Take to the Podium in New York and Boston This Week
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| Tom Kauffman |
This week in New York and Boston, anti-nuclear activists have scheduled panel discussions designed to scare the public into pressuring politicians into shuttering local nuclear power plants.
The members of the panel are:
- former NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko;
- Peter Bradford, former NRC commissioner; and
- anti-nuke extremist Arnie Gundersen, an engineer who never lets science or facts get in his way.
On the other hand, there are some facts they are sure to ignore:
- Not one person in Japan was killed due to the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. And despite Gundersen's prediction that "about a million cancers," would result from the accident in Japan, the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation determined that no significant radiation related health issues have been found in Japan or elsewhere.
- During the accident in Japan, Gregory Jaczko's claim that the Unit 4 used fuel pool was empty was later proven false by NRC staff. This mistake, along with his resistance to correct it, likely made things worse for the Japanese.
- All U.S. nuclear energy facilities are prepared for extreme events. Despite this, not one U.S. nuclear energy facility is subject to earthquakes or tsunamis the magnitude of those that caused the accident in Japan.
- After more than a half-century (more than 7,500 reactor-years) of operation, including the accident at Three Mile Island, there is no evidence that any member of the public has been harmed by the radiation from any U.S. nuclear energy facility.
- Gregory Jaczko’s call for a 50-mile evacuation zone around the Fukushima plant during the Japan accident was proven to be unnecessary and put people at risk.
- The NRC has determined there is no scientific basis for expanding the 10-mile-radius Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) around U.S. nuclear power plants.
- The U.S. and Japanese nuclear energy industries are profoundly different in their approaches to nuclear safety with the U.S. industry effectively being decades ahead in levels of physical protection, regulatory control, safety culture and security.
- While Gundersen likes to tout his experience as a "licensed reactor operator," others who have taken a closer look at his background have concluded he's engaged in puffing up his resume. And when he's challenged to show his work, he comes up empty.
Comments
Gregory Jaczko will not be lonely in that rogues' gallery! However, only TEPCO will be called to account. The company may deserve blame for many things, but not the FUD nor the panic.
SteveP
Fukushima merely served to highlight various existing design flaws, shortcomings, and inadequacies at older nuclear plants. Also consider that plants like Vermont Yankee, San Onofre, Keewaunee, are being shut down for economic reasons - when it became too expensive to fix all the compromised systems that are needed to keep the plants operating safely!
It would be a wise decision to shutdown all N-plants that have been in operation prior to the early '80s; both the NRC and the industry knows this as an absolute fact but keep coddling each through self-serving hypocrisy. The next accident will certainly precipitate the demise of the nuclear industry.
The Fukushima disaster demonstrates the old adage: "You may fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."
The luck ran out for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. The nuclear managers and engineers played craps with the risk of unintended consequences, TEPCO and their nuclear programs leadership crapped out.
There were known engineering short comings which should have been corrected years prior to the disaster. Deceit will not change the failures of TEPCO at Fukushima-Daiichi. We can only hope and pray that the NRC and you folks in the NEI who are nuclear program managers and nuclear engineers will not fall into the same traps.
Learn the lessons and stop with the intentional, irrational propaganda; it serves no purpose except to cause folks who are concerned about human factors reliability to be more concerned and demand that nuclear power be shuddered all across our nation.
I'm not saying you do not have a right to your opinions and a right to express those opinions. I am saying you are being watched closely and there is a valid concern about your judgment. Particularly when engineers attempt to place blame on those who are critical of your deceit.
You might take a few moments and consider the facts above and these facts: 1) The disaster at Fukushima occurred due to a lack of oversight; 2) poor corrective action program implementation; 3) a failure to insure the seawall was the appropriate height and 4) all access points were water tight. 5) Greg Jaczko, Peter Bradford, nor Arnie Gunderson created the failures which led to the disaster.
You are creating a reason to not trust your judgment in your ridiculous bashing. A lack of sound judgment is a demonstrated personal reliability failure.
Garry Morgan
Economics, not fearmongering, is the greatest threat to nuclear energy.
Unfortunately, fearmongering is the cause of the economics. Where nuclear power is uneconomical, it is uneconomical due to arbitrary regulatory interference in an industry that when the first plant opened was far safer and environmentally sound than the industry it supplanted.
Worst -- as you can witness -- the media often featured tsunami damage in conjunction with stories on Fukushima, almost(?) insinuating that the reactors somehow caused the havoc!
Re: Victor said..."Unfortunately, fearmongering is the cause of the economics."
Amen Victor. If the chemical and oil and gas industries were subject to regs strict and demanding as those on nuclear power they simply couldn't afford to be business in the U.S. Yet which has historically killed far more people and vaporized whole neighborhoods?
Blogger Garry said...
"The luck ran out for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. The nuclear managers and engineers played craps with the risk of unintended consequences, TEPCO and their nuclear programs leadership crapped out."
Let me tell you something, mister, because this is semi-personal to me. There are hundreds of widows and families in the southern U.S. alone -- not to even mention immediate burnt-out and whacked neighborhoods -- who wish their lost oil/gas/coal worker loved ones worked in an industry whose most major accident was as "deadly" as happened at Fukushima. Leave the FUD at home.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Yes, such as Vermont Yankee being ruthlessly discriminated against for power contracts and shut out of "fuel diversity" payments which were given to OIL-FIRED PLANTS. If VY got a share of the diversity pot commensurate with its share of the state's total generation, it would be wildly profitable.
Nuclear power is disadvantaged by government policy, and nothing else.
"The luck ran out for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility."
This is true. But unlike the (relatively small) chemical plant in West, TX or the town of Lac Megantic, nobody outside the plant was killed or even hurt. Those people were lucky... until government screwed up (again) with its panicked evacuation orders.
I don't think anyone here is disputing you on the fact that TEPCO and in some part the Japanese regulator is partly to blame for the Fukushima meltdowns.
"5)Greg Jaczko, Peter Bradford, nor Arnie Gunderson created the failures which led to the disaster."
True, but they are using it for their own nefarious ends in order to defraud more people of their money, political influence and what not. Jaczko actually made it worse during the events, actions that actually cost lives which he has not been held accountable for.
Now, why did Jaczko have such poor judgement in this situation? It does not matter if he ha advisors feeding him false data or what not, he was still the chairman of the NRC! His actions speaks volumes about his incompetency (or worse!).