WaPo: US gov’t emails reveal serious discussion of setting off explosives at Fukushima reactor

Published: February 6th, 2012 at 11:29 pm ET
By ENENews
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Title: Messages show conflict within NRC after Japan earthquake and tsunami
Source: The Washington Post
Author: Steven Mufson
Date: Monday, February 6, 7:39 PM

[...] a trove of e-mails posted on the NRC’s Web site [...]

“This may get really ugly in the next few days,” said one NRC official later in the day after a report that Tokyo Electric Power Co. was venting gas from a containment building. [...]

Famous physicist Richard Garwin, one of [an ad hoc group of scientists assembled by Energy Secretary Steven Chu], proposed setting off a controlled “shaped” explosion to break through the concrete shield around the primary steel containment structure to allow cooling water to be applied from the outside. One NRC scientist called the idea “madness.” [...]

“Now we are seriously discussing using shaped charges in the vicinity of the head — madness,” [Dana Powers, a senior NRC scientist] wrote. [...]

Read the report here

Published: February 6th, 2012 at 11:29 pm ET
By ENENews
Email Article Email Article
28 comments





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