Five days after a huge earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, nuclear regulatory agency came before Congress bearing the good news of America: don't worryIt cannot happen here. In the aftermath of the disaster in Japanese, Germany officials moved quickly to close old plants for inspection and implement new plants of licences on China hold. But Gregory Jaczko, the President of the nuclear regulatory Commission, reassured legislators that nothing in the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi justified any immediate change in US nuclear plants. Indeed, 10 days after the earthquake in Japan, NRC extended the licence of the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor age of 40 years - a twin of virtual of Fukushima - for another two decades. The renewal of the licence has been granted even if the reactor cooling tower was literally falling down, and the plant on several occasions had a leak of radioactive liquid.
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Perhaps Jaczko tent simply prevent a panic on a large scale on the dangers of U.S. nuclear plants. After all, there are now 104 reactors scattered across the country, generating 20 per cent of American power. Each of them have been designed in the 1960s and 1970s and are almost the end of their life expectancy. But there was a problem with the testimony of Jaczko, according to Dave Lochbaum, Senior Advisor to the Union of Concerned Scientists: key elements of what the Chief NRC said Congress were "a baldfaced lie."
This article appears in the edition of May 12, 2011, of Rolling Stone magazine. The issue is now available on newsstands and will appear in the archive online April 29.
Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, says that the Jaczko knows full well that what the NRC calls "defence in depth" reactors at the U.S. has been seriously compromised over the years. In some places, fuel spent highly radioactive is stored in what amounts to swimming pools located next to the reactors. In other places, changes in the reactor cooling systems have made the most vulnerable to a collapse of the base if something goes wrong. A few weeks before Fukushima, Lochbaum a report circulated widely pointed out risky performance of NRC, describing 14 serious "near-miss" events at nuclear plants last year only. The Indian Point reactor just north of the city of New York, federal inspectors discovered a containment system of the water that had been leaking for 16 years.
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As head of the NRC, Jaczko is the top cop on the beat nuclear, the guy responsible for maintaining the fleet of the nation of aging nukes running safely. A Democrat baldness, age 40 with large ears and a Professor of physics, brilliant air high school, Jaczko oversees an agency of 4,000 with a budget of $ 1 billion. But the NRC has long served as little more than a dog lap industry nuclear, eager to crack down against unsafe reactors. "The Agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear industry, said Victor Gilinsky, who served in the commission in the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979.". Even President Obama denounced the NRC during the 2008 campaign, calling it a "moribund agency which must be overhauled and became a captive of the industries it regulates.
In the years ahead, nuclear experts warn, the consequences of inaction of the Agency could be disastrous. "NRC has developed constantly the benefits of the industry over the public safety," said Arnie Gundersen, a former leader of turned nuclear whistleblower. "Therefore, we have Fukushimas of a dozen of waiting to happen in America."
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