Book Review: Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster

With four years of hindsight to guide them, the authors begin their narrative on that now historic day of March 11, 2011, with a blow-by-blow reenactment of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). Their story arc includes many perspectives ranging from that of heroic plant superintendent Masao Yoshida, who fought valiantly to save the plant while accommodating the constant inquiries of his prime minister, Naoto Kan, to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory (NRC) Commissioner Gregory Jaczko and his boots-on-the-ground subordinates Charles Miller and Jim Trapp, who were attempting to ascertain the situation in the face of Japanese secrecy and intransigence. In the later chapters, the book moves away from the historical account into a discourse contending that a Fukushima-type disaster is possible in the United States, largely due to the effects of regulatory capture of the NRC by the nuclear industry and the manner in which nuclear power self-polices, often taking what are considered expedient steps to head off onerous regulations that the NRC might impose.