Excerpts
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): So -- and the amount of radiation out there is how much worse than what was thought?
JAMES ACTON, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: It appears to be -- you know, NISA has increased their estimate by about a factor of two. I think that's largely a reflection of how difficult it is to estimate the amount of radiation being released from the plant. I mean, this is a very, very difficult calculation. And it is a calculation, actually, rather than a measurement.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, how do you account for the difference in what we were told in March, when this happened, with what we're learning now? Is it that it's just been harder to get to the bottom of what happened, or do you think the information was deliberately withheld?
JAMES ACTON: I think the main reason is the -- is the astonishing difficulty of understanding what is going on inside reactors under these extreme circumstances.
You know, there's intense radiation inside these reactors by design. So, you can't just kind of pop the lid in and have a look inside. So, a lot of the new information we have been seeing is the Japanese utility, TEPCO, the regulator, NISA, finding out more information, better computer models.
There clearly needs to be an investigation to find out whether information was withheld deliberately. But I think the -- almost -- I mean, the main reason is the utility and the operators themselves are getting new information for it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How much does it matter that we either had erroneous or incomplete information in the early weeks?
JAMES ACTON: In any major disaster -- and this was an enormous disaster -- you're never going to have perfect communication.
Information that you believe to be true is going to turn out not to be true. And that's the nature of the crisis. I think the crucial thing is that communication is honest, that it's done in good faith, that information that -- you only say what you know to be true.
And I think the key question is whether information was withheld and whether everything that was said was known to be true at the time.
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JAMES ACTON: This accident was a failure of regulation, rather than a failure of operation. This plant was simply not designed to withstand the size of the earthquake, and particularly the size of the tsunami that hit it.
So, I think the key question this asks about, you know, the future safety of this particular plant, of nuclear plants in Japan, indeed, around the world, is whether the size of hazards that might befall them has been correctly predicted.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And how close do you think we are now to knowing all that there is to be known about what has happened here?
JAMES ACTON: Oh, probably quite a long way.
I mean, for instance, with Three Mile Island, it was only -- I believe it was five years after the accident when the lid of the reactor was finally opened. A huge amount of new information, the extent of the fuel melting, was discovered.
We know a lot more about this accident than we did three months ago. But I have no doubt that the investigation which has just started in Japan and future investigations in the weeks and the months and the years ahead are going to discover more information that is simply not known or knowable at the moment.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, for you, again, what are the main questions that you have that are -- remain unanswered?
JAMES ACTON: I think the first question relates to, you know, this issue of regulation.
Were the -- was the Japanese government systemically failing to predict the size of hazards at reactors correctly? I think there's questions about emergency preparedness. Was -- emergency management is incredibly difficult at the best of times, but did the Japanese government do basically a good job under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, or were there serious errors that can and should have been avoided?
Was information deliberately withheld, or was knowingly incorrect information put forward? I think those are the key questions for me at this stage.
Now, lets see just how much Republicans want to limit regulation, and funding of our nuclear regulation agency, in the "name" of deficit reduction.
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