Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing - the Mark 1 was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.Questions persisted for decades about the ability of the Mark 1 to handle the immense pressures that would result if the reactor lost cooling power, and today that design is being put to the ultimate test in Japan.
Five of the six reactors at the Fukshima Dalichi plant, which has been wracked since Friday's earthquake with explosions and radiation leaks, are Mark 1s.The situation on the ground at the Fukushima Daiichi plant is so fluid, and the details of what is unfolding are so murky, that it may be days or even weeks before anyone knows how the Mark 1 containment system performed in the face of a devastating combination of natural disasters.
But the ability of the containment to withstand the events that have cascaded from what nuclear experts call a "station blackout" - where the loss of power has crippled the reactor's cooling system - will be a crucial question as policy makers re-examine the safety issues that surround nuclear power, and specifically the continued use of what is now one of the oldest types of nuclear reactors still operating.
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