The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has commissioned the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study on the implications of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe for US reactor operations. In fact, it is the NRC that should be coming under investigation as a “captured regulator” of this increasingly dangerous industry. .
The most important lesson of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe is that in the event of a severe accident, once fuel damage in the reactor core occurs there is a very high likelihood that the accident will proceed to catastrophic containment failure with widespread radioactive contamination to the environment. Yet the NRC and the nuclear industry have explicitly disregarded this critical lesson in post-Fukushima Orders and industry actions. Read the comments of Beyond Nuclear to the National Academy of Sciences newly formed study panel that regard dangerous half measures for venting the unreliable Fukushima-designed GE Mark I and Mark II Boiling Water Reactors here in the United States.