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Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

Top Nuclear Watchdog Forced Out by Industry

Author:     Lewis Beale
Source:     Reader Supported News
Publication Date:     19 April 15
 Link: Top Nuclear Watchdog Forced Out by Industry
Stephan:   Nuclear power, bastard child of the Cold War is just fine until it's not, and when its not the problem can quickly escalate beyond the human ability to deal with it — Fukushima tells that tale very convincingly. And then there is the issue of the nuclear waste which no one knows what to do with and which, in theory, must be maintained in a stable state for, well no one is really sure, but potentially 200,000 years. Since human recorded history only dates back to the Fourth Millennium BCE, roughly 6,000 years, you can see the problem.
Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Credit: AP

Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Credit: AP

Gregory Jaczko was chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission when Japan’s Fukushima power plant suffered a major meltdown in 2013. An advocate of tightening safety controls at America’s aging nuclear facilities after the Fukushima disaster, Jaczko soon discovered that despite his concerns, the influence of profit-hungry corporations over the NRC was affecting its ability to adequately police the industry—and putting the public in danger.

“When I served as chairman [of the NRC], there appeared to be commissioners who were more interested in industry conditions, that the NRC’s job was to protect the industry from the staff of the NRC,” Jaczko told The Daily Beast. “A lot of times, they said the staff was being too aggressive.”

Jaczko’s concerns, and his eventual ouster from the NRC, are part of a larger story told in Indian Point, a new documentary screening this week and next at the Tribeca Film Festival. Named after the electricity-generating […]

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1 Comment

  1. steve hovland on Tuesday, April 21, 2015 at 5:59 am

    There will be another significant accident at a US nuke plant, All of the plants in the US reached their design life years ago.