NEI Nuclear Notes

A couple of days ago, I said I’d bring you a longer account of NRC Commissioner George Apostolakis’ presentation – a notably frank and forthright presentation - at the Bipartisan Policy Center . Well, as politicians like to say, Promise kept. This is original reporting: NRC Commissioner George Apostolakis criticized Japan’s preparedness at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility in his presentation at a recent forum on responses to the accident. Speaking at a seminar on lessons learned at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., Apostolakis said, “It turns out [the event in Japan] was not unthinkable, and it was not unforeseen either. This is the kind of secret that everybody thinks but nobody wants to say in public.” Apostolakis said that there were 10 earthquakes around the world in the last 10 years accompanied by tsunamis that Japanese regulators did not consider. “If anyone did calculations about tsunami in the United States and ignored this,” he said, “the N...

Over at the BBC, Fiona Fox has a stern talking to with her colleagues in the press – British, primarily - over their handling of events at Fukushima Daiichi: One tabloid's Japan coverage was typical. Under the title "Japan's Horror: Battle to Stop Nuclear Meltdown", the double-page spread included three articles by different reporters on the nuclear threat: "Now Food's Nuked", "Dangers Might Get a Lot Worse" and "Despair of Victims in Nuke Zone". The only piece about the earthquake itself was the story of a Brit who had a miraculous escape. But when the first excitement passed and outlets started talking to  scientists and engineers in the nuclear field and academia, a different story began to emerge: As with all good scientists and academics, there were differences of emphasis and differences of opinion, but I think a fair reading of the consensus would go something like this: This was a very, very serious situat...