Tuesday, March 27, 2012

NRC to National Labs Last Year Who Wanted to Help With Fukushima Radiation Analysis: "Knock It Off"

From Enformable (2/28/2012) quoting from the official transcript of NRC's meeting (audio file) on March 12, 2012, from page 161 (emphasis is mine):

MR. SHARON: This is Brian Sharon. Quick question, well, not question, but I’ve gotten a couple of emails here today, from some of the National Labs, and they’re all — there are a couple of them chomping a the bit, you know, saying, “Ghee, can we help? Ghee, can we go calculate this,” with the codes and all that stuff.

I keep telling them, “No, you don’t know the scenario,” but you know, somebody might want to call DOE and tell them to tell their labs to cool it, because the last thing we want is the labs going off, talking to the press, talking about consequences and all sorts of other stuff, because you know, they’re chomping at the bit, to do something, and I’m not sure, Eliot, maybe you’ve got a point of contact up there at DOE?

MR. BRENNER: I’ll send a note to their Press Secretary, asking him, through his chain, to reach out, down to the labs and tell them to back off. If we’ve got other chains, we might as well –

MALE PARTICIPANT: If I could chime in on that? On the Deputy’s call yesterday, I was on with the Chairman, and Pete Lyons was one of the principals at DOE. Lyons may be a good source to contact at DOE.

MR. JOHNSON: This is Mike Johnson. My other thought was, it may be just to cut to the chase, just to pass the same, to call the lab directors and say, “Knock it off,” or whatever messages we want to get to them.

There are a number of ways we can do this.

So, I agree, Brian, we’ve got to do it soon.

MR. McDERMOTT: Okay, we’ll take that action from headquarters.

In this particular transcript, there is also a mention of GE engineers who were present at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant when the earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11, 2011. See my previous post here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

nyuk

vastman said...

Disgusting...the rot that is infesting our regulatory agencies these days makes me want to puke...

Anonymous said...

“No, you don’t know the scenario,”

That would be the Major Nuclear Disaster scenario?

"talking about consequences and all sorts of other stuff"

That would be consequences like thousands of people evacuated from an area that they will NEVER be able to return to and the increase in cases of leukemia and tumors.

No, they didn't need help with that. All fixed.

Florian said...

disgusting... and shocking. -.- :|

Anonymous said...

Fukushima : APPEAL OF HASHIZUME BUN, A-BOMB SURVIVOR OF HIROSHIMA

http://ameblo.jp/hibakushaglobal/entry-10902685850.html


accuracy : Hashizume Bun, the 80-year-old author of "The Day the Sun Fell: I was 14 years old in Hiroshima",was less than 1.5 kilometers from the hypocenter of the explosion.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8582161-japans-nuclear-crisis-haunts-hiroshima-survivors

Anonymous said...

"the last thing we want is the labs going off, talking to the press, talking about consequences and all sorts of other stuff"

This is very common in the nuclear industry as a whole, if you can't say something nice, say nothing. In a world that wanted to really know the truth all scientific inquiries would be welcomed and looked at objectively because it's science, if it can't stand up to peer review it will be discredited. But when a whole industry and a major means of defense hinges on the truth the "truth" needs to be strictly controlled. Just the fact that the powers that be want qualified scientist to "knock it off" and keep consequences to themselves point to the probability of major "unknown" problems. If these "unknown" problems were to become public knowledge it would destroy the plausible deniability claims the people in charge of promoting this technology thrive on.

I say "unknown" problems because the people in charge know about lots of these problems but they don't want them becoming common knowledge and they work tirelessly to cloud the issue. It's easier and cheaper to squelch a few noisy scientists careers than to actually address the problems in a meaningful manner.

Back when we had a free press stories like this could be front page news but eventually the corporate world got wise bad news is bad for business and bought up most news outlets now the bad news is limited to celebrities and politics you don't find many hard hitting investigative reporters or stories focused on industry or corporations anymore.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous 12:03: Couldn't agree more with you about the press not doing the job they are supposed to be doing. Just the more credit has to go to laprimavera for his blog and the tireless effort and the hard work he puts into it keeping us all informed.

In my thoughts, I thank you daily, laprimavera!!

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