Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake large enough to knock the earth from its axis sent a massive tsunami speeding toward the Japanese coast and the aging and vulnerable Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors. Over the following weeks, the world watched in horror as a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe: fail-safes failed, cooling systems shut down, nuclear rods melted. In the first definitive account of the Fukushima disaster, two leading experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists, David Lochbaum and Edwin Lyman, team up with journalist Susan Q. Stranahan, the lead reporter of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning coverage of the Three Mile Island accident, to tell this harrowing story. Fukushima combines a fast-paced, riveting account of the tsunami and the nuclear emergency it created with an explanation of the science and technology behind the meltdown as it unfolded in real time. Bolstered by photographs, explanatory diagrams, and a comprehensive glossary, the narrative also extends to other severe nuclear accidents to address both the terrifying question of whether it could happen elsewhere and how such a crisis can be averted in the future. The sources for this book include contemporaneous news accounts published in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere. Extensive use was made of information gathered by several investigations into the Fukushima Daiichi accident that were conducted by official Japanese panels, international industry associations, scientific groups, and the plant’s owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, as well as analyses by nuclear safety organizations, notably the Union of Concerned Scientists. Playing a major role in this book are transcripts maintained by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of conversations among NRC experts in the United States and in Japan. These transcripts, plus thousands of pages of NRC documents and e-mails related to the commission’s response during and after the accident, provide an inside view of the challenges and uncertainties facing those charged with protecting public health and safety. The book also draws on the long legislative and regulatory histories of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission. Public transcripts of meetings, written opinions, congressional hearings, and scientific reports were also incorporated. Книга «Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster» авторов Edwin Lyman, David Lochbaum, Susan Q. Stranahan оценена посетителями КнигоГид, и её читательский рейтинг составил 8.00 из 10.
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