When this documentary premiered, less than a year had passed since a devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami had crippled Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. FRONTLINE correspondent Miles O’Brien examined the implications of the Fukushima accident for U.S. nuclear safety and asked how this disaster could affect the future of nuclear energy around the world. (Aired 2012)
This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: http://www.pbs.org/donate​.
In “Nuclear Aftershocks,†O’Brien traveled to three continents to explore the revived debate about the safety of nuclear power, the options for alternative energy sources, and questions about whether a disaster like the one at Fukushima could happen in the United States. In particular, he visited one emergent battleground: the controversial relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York, located on a fault line some 35 miles from Manhattan, in the most densely populated region in the U.S. Were there lessons to be learned from the disaster in Japan?
Explore additional reporting in connection with “Nuclear Aftershocks” on our website:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/nuclear-aftershocks/?
#Documentary #Nuclear #NuclearEnergy
Subscribe on YouTube: http://bit.ly/1BycsJW​
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontlinepbs​
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frontlinepbs​
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frontline
FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.
CHAPTERS:
Prologue: After Fukushima, is America prepared for nuclear disaster? – 00:00
New York’s aging Indian Point, near Manhattan, up for relicensing – 01:04
2011 earthquake & tsunami take down Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant – 04:33
Photos, footage inside Fukushima Daiichi show meltdown damage – 11:39
Warnings in a rice paddy: ancient poem recounts Jogan tsunami – 15:23
What did Fukushima operator TEPCO know & what did it do wrong? – 18:07
Japanese public worries about fallout, radiation, cancer, contamination – 23:00
With Chernobyl in mind, Germany shuts down nuclear reactors – 28:49
Can solar, wind & other renewable energy replace nuclear power? – 32:00
Nuclear Regulatory Commission monitors U.S. plants – 37:35
Located on a fault line, could Indian Point weather an earthquake? – 43:20
Fukushima, 1 year later: cold shutdown & generations evacuated – 49:52
Credits – 51:59
You can’t scream I want clean energy and then demonize nuclear just because you drive an electric car that’s was powered by electricity that came from a coal plant
At the time when most media were telling people that the reactors had not exploded a lone voice in Austin Texas was trying to warn the world.
Alex Jones was right again.
Perhaps technology will come up with better options but rightnow nuclear power is the best we got.
Nuclear power will never be 100% safe using fossil fuel never has been either though.
But nuclear born human gene mutation is so cool. Imagine people in Times Square with tails and scaly skin😢
Bet none of the green thumbs are using alternative power sources either. Just like Al Gore telling people to use less energy when he uses the same amount as 30 households. How about you FIRST!
Do people realize a mask ain’t gonna do jack at stopping radiation?!☢ï¸
What a shame. Fear and ignorance reigns, where ignorant and stupid people didnt design for contingencies that yhey were WARNED ABOUT. Nuclear energy should be the ONLY way we generate electricity. The French have been doing it for decades without even one incident!!! Fools.
I think the risk is extremely low. And the more we learn the less likely these accidents become. Nuclear energy is required to power the future. Wind turbines are not the answer. Solar is not the answer. For now it's the best we have and I think in 50 years we will have more nuclear reactors not less
They had a 9+ earthquake and a massive tsunami and if the diesel generators were placed better there would have been 0 damage to the reactors
The pure amount of fake comments under these videos is unbelievable.
They should of said some bright engineer decided to put the back up generator engines under ground so they would flood with sea water in a tsunami
We want a clean energy source, but forget some basic things about thermodynamics and just plain physics. Only nothing lasts forever, and the Human species has this belief in perpetual energy without ANY CHANGE AT ALL to the environment. When something burns, it creates ash. In a natural ecosystem, that natural by-product goes back into the ground as part of the life process. But what about putting nuclear waste back into the ground? The irony of radiation is that once we have removed it from the ground, we cannot put it back, because it poisons the entire ground. I wish I could accept the low "0.2%" risk, but that is why everyone started to clamor for more safety after the Fukushima incident. There would not be such a dire conversation about nuclear safety if multiple nations were not dependent on it to run their industrial economies. The problem lies in that the 21st Century is eroding away the 20th Century with every passing day. The problem is not just the waste produced from nuclear energy, the problem is what can nations rely on after it has run its course?
Germany is a ridiculous country obsessed with political correctness. Modern engineering and technology can ensure that nuclear power is both safe and manageable. Efficient, small-scale reactors already exist. I dislike how, in general, PBS seems quite biased towards the scientifically discredited climate change narrative. This documentary could have been just great without it.
Regarding base electricity, fusion is the future of base electricity; meanwhile, fission nuclear power and coal will continue to be used for this purpose in all industrialised nations until fusion power stations are operational. Germany is in dire need of common-sense politics. In fact, I would say most of Europe is in need of common sense politics today.
More scare tactics. There are no USA plants subject to tsunamis.
cool Frontline but I prefer the emissions from energy generation in my LUNGS AND ATMOSPHERE! where it is safe and CANNOT HURT ME
The truth behind all of this is America 😂we are known to have the technology advantage to multiple weather and we needed test humans to test a nuclear melt down on in a populated area and these people have already been tested on i mean look at the big shiny balloons we dropped on them that turned them into shadows on the ground 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
At the very core of these disasters…
Chernobyl, Fukushima.
You have companies who cut corners, and they refused to make crucial improvements.
Then you have nature taking its course.
And karma comes around.
Nuclear energy is honestly quite safe.
There are many worldwide that have been fine since day one.
Build it right the first time.
Listen to any cautions and learn from the past.
Plain and simple
So basically by design the reversed the logical order as to where to store the generators and the pools. Had the generators been installed not in the basements but where the pools had been installed (higher in the reactor building) they wouldn't have been flooded and they would have been able to save the situation. Same with the pools, had they been installed in the basements they wouldn't have been so difficult to refill, if anything the tsunami water would have refilled them.
Best documentary, ever seen. We dont have this in germany. Tanks for sharing on YT
Climate morons want their cake and eat it too.
The plane flight to Japan gave this reporter 50% as much radiation as he'd have received at the Fukushima site without a radiation suit… now add on the plane flight back and he received the same amount of radiation! The Fukushima site failed due to major design flaws… none of which PBS bothers to mention because they're too focused on blaming nuclear power as a whole!
LOL “it’s not cutting edge… it’s old!†Immediately shows a Westinghouse generator ! Yeah I’d say it’s pretty damn old. Unfortunately so many of our public utilities are. We don’t upgrade them until the point of failure . If that!
Indian Point has since been closed.
Germany shutting down those reacttors was such a mistake
We are destroying the earth. We have to stop polluting the water and air. Unfortunately, people love their cars, the love to fly out for vacations. We are using things that is dangerous for us in the future. It will take hundreds of years to clean it up.
People are stupid…….. they want nuclear power shut down. What is their plan to replace it? How are they going to charge their electric cars or their phones or all the other crap that they need power for?
Bunch of hippies!