Pure GARBAGE!!
I read this book years ago when it first came out since I lived in suburban Detroit.
I am now a nuclear physicist and know that this book is GARBAGE. We came NO WHERE
near losing Detroit. A previous reviewer is just plain wrong to say that if a
little bit melts the rest is not far behind, and there goes Detroit. Nuclear reactors
can NOT explode; and Fermi 1 contained ALL radioactivity. Detroit was NEVER in any
danger.
About the ONLY Voice on This Subject
As another reviewer notes, there was almost NO public attention paid to the incident at Fermi 1. Yes, Mr Fuller takes somewhat of a 'cautionary tone' - but it is hardly 'shrill' or 'anti-corporation', mostly just very informative.
I grew up 40 miles from Monroe and was a child when this occurred. Our farm was downwind of the site, and for over a decade the University of Michigan maintained a 'clinic' in our town to 'monitor childhood development' as part of an 'on-going study'. My folks never knew why they were asked to participate until I sent them a copy of this book. How would that make YOU feel as a parent???
As another reviewer touched on, the fast breeder high pressure sodium plants have been 'upgraded' and most all other/new plants are an entirely different type of reactor altogether. I'm afraid folks missed Mr Fuller's real point - people are people and we ALL make mistakes at one time or another, and ANY mistake with nuclear material is simply ONE too many. Nuclear generated power currently represents less than 20% of energy consumed in the US - is that REALLY worth turning Detroit or Corpus Christi into Chernobyl?
A Fabulously Informative Book
I really don't understand why so many people gave this a low rating, don't they care about ceasing to exist? Don't they care if all future generations are degraded genetically because we keep allowing our big bloated corporations to rule us, to control us, to make life and death decisions about us without telling us the truth about what they are doing to our environment, our food and our water? This book is a good expose of how corporations (although it's not written specifically to slam corporations) will screw things up if allowed to decide how to earn money no matter what the risks to others. One other reviewer mentioned how no one heard of this until this book came out, good point, it apparently was covered up quite well, until this writer investigated and exposed the story. This should be required reading for all science majors & all business majors!
We almost lost . . . a secret.
Granted the book is a bit sensational - then again I lived in Detroit at that time and you can bet I would have been hyper-ventilating had I known the China Syndrome was potentiating less than 60 miles away.
Here's the key point: if this was such an itty-bitty bang why was it NEVER mentioned until this book was published?
Rancho Seco, Celilo Village, the Hanford site, 3-mile Island, the USS Thresher -- all nuclear events that blew up in the press for days or weeks - yet NEVER CALLED FORTH A SINGLE MENTION OF FERMI #1.
Sounds like a cover-up to me - and the casual mention that 'a little bit of the core melted' is no small matter - if a little melts, a lot is not far behind and Bang! There goes Detroit!
Worth a read? Yeah. Worth paying attention to the neighborhood, too.
Worth Reading...
As someone that can see the steam towers of Fermi 2 from my driveway, I was very interested in this book. Although it is very outdated and quite biased, it did turn me on to some reactor accidents I hadn't heard of and gave me a little more history of the area I live in. The accident at Fermi 1 was actually pretty small and the plant still runs (actually visited it 5 years ago). A good place to start if you are interested in this kind of thing and the book sells pretty cheap so it is worth the small amount of money.
(7 reviews)
