Legal Commentary

Why I am not worried about Japan?s nuclear reactors

By David Kopel

That?s the title of a post on the Morgsatlarge, reprinting a letter from Dr. Josef Oehman of MIT. According to his web page, his main research interest is ?risk management in the value chain, with a special focus on lean product development.? Although he?s a business professor and not a nuclear scientist, his father worked in the German nuclear power industry, and the post provides a detailed and persuasive (at least to me) explanation of how the endangered Japanese nuclear power plants work, and why their multiple backup systems  ensure that there will be neither an explosion nor a catastophic release of radiation. The American cable TV channels, by the way, seem to be taking a much more sober approach than they did yesterday, when Wolf Blitzer was irresponsibly raising fear of ?another Chernobyl.?

A shorter article by William Tucker in Monday?s Wall Street Journal covers some of the same ground.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on March 14, 2011 (boomark / email).