Nuclear Engineer Asks How Could Five Barriers Fail at Fukushima

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 Sunday, February 1, 2015 - 03:26 Updated 8 years ago Special to HNN Provided Courtesy Fairewinds Associates
During the 1960s when the American Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards debated containment structures, some members argued for the need to make stronger containments. Regrettably, a majority of the members believed that the emergency core cooling systems were adequate, so more than 50 years ago the Advisory Committee ignored its minority members and pushed ahead without rigorous failure-proof containment structures and systems. The Nuclear Regulatory Committee made the decision not to require stronger containments. Japan followed the American lead.


In our most recent video, Fairewinds’ chief nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen introduces us to the containment structures deemed adequate and strong enough by the NRC to protect civilians from nuclear meltdown. How could five radiation barriers fail at Fukushima Daiichi? Using the childhood game of dominoes, each domino represents a failed radiation barrier and like the game when a domino falls all others follow. Nuclear containment risk is nuclear power’s fifth domino. Nuclear site failures are not a game and public safety is not something to play with- so why does the NRC act like a group of kids putting us all at RISK?