| CONFESSIONS OF A ROGUE NUCLEAR REGULATOR Gregory B. Jaczko New York: Simon & Schuster, January 2019 |
Rating: 3.0 Fair |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-4767-5576-2 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-4767-5576-0 | 196pp. | HC | $26.00 | |
| Page 20: | "Before the Fukushima accident, there were many nuclear professionals in the United States and Japan who believed there would never be another significant nuclear accident. Unfortunately, they were wrong, and for a very simple reason: no one can design a safety system that will work perfectly. Reactor design is inherently unsafe because a nuclear plant's power—if left unchecked—is sufficient to cause a massive release of radiation." |
| It sounds like the good doctor Jaczko demands absolute safety, and because he can't get it has given up on nuclear power completely. The statement I highlight is simply balderdash, because no reactor design (not even Windscale or Chernobyl) leaves the reactor power "unchecked." (The slam against nuclear professionals is bogus as well.) |
| Page 37: | "The corrosion made the surface of the metal look like popcorn—not a difficult sign to miss. Indeed the signs of boric acid corrosion are so unmissable..." |
| Unwanted negative: S/B "a difficult sign to miss". |
| Page 58: | "Realistically forecasting the complex, long-term behavior of spent nuclear fuel in underground facilities is scientifically impossible." |
| I call Clarke's First Law. (And while Dr. Jaczko is a scientist, he is neither distinguished nor elderly.) |
| Page 77: | "Ironically, many nuclear power facilities do not use the electricity they produce to power their own safety systems." |
| Nothing ironic about it: They have to use independent power sources, for the reactor produces no power when it is shut down. |
| Page 3: | "Each of the reactors at the Fukushima site is housed in a protective shell, called a drywell, made of thick steel. [***]It is responsible for adsorbing the pressure that comes from steam produced by the intense heat of the reactor." |
| Word choice: S/B "containing". A substance can be adsorbed on the surface of a vessel; pressure cannot. |
| Page 86: | "As we continued to discuss this situation, additional analysis showed impacts at distances of thirty or forty miles. I asked whether one of those was a better number to use, and the answer was it didn't matter. All three indicated extreme hazard." |
| Inasmuch as previous simulations showed excessive radiation "out to at least fifty miles from the reactor," asking whether smaller distances would be better makes no sense. |
| Page 94: | "Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma asked each of my commissioner colleagues if they had been informed of my declaration to use emergency powers. (I had not, it should be noted, been using my emergency powers.)" |
| So I guess he did declare emergency powers at some point, though nowhere in the book does he explicitly say so. |
| Page 102: | "We would soon learn, though, that the predictions of the nuclear industry and regulators and other government officials about the release of radiation were either quickly done and imprecise or slowly done and more precise. Neither option allowed for making the best decisions." |
| It's not clear what kind of predictions he's asking for here — nor why, as the Fukushima crisis proceeded, he wouldn't go with the best available data at any given moment. |
| Page 110: | "Imagine leaning against a pile of sandbags heaped on a surface less than half the width of a balance beam." |
| Was this really how narrow the surface on which the sandbags protecting Fort Calhoun had to be stacked? |
| Page 112: | "Part of the answer is that the nuclear industry simply insists that severe accidents are not possible." |
| Unjustified slam of the nuclear industry |
| Page 171: | "Inside a power plant, nuclear fission starts with neutrons from some outside source bombarding the uranium atoms in the fuel pins." |
| Wrong! I mean, "that has been found not to be the case." |
| Page 175: | "But unlike the Hindenburg crash that ended the pursuit of hydrogen power, this did not seal the fate of nuclear technology." |
| Counterfactual: it wasn't the pursuit of hydrogen power that the 1937 crash of the zeppelin Hindenburg ended, but the pursuit of passenger travel in hydrogen-filled dirigibles. |
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