GE Scientist Quit Over Troubled Reactor’s Design

Scientist Dale Bridenbaugh and two colleagues at General Electric quit their jobs in the 1970s to express their concern about the company’s Mark 1 nuclear reactor — the design of the troubled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

As Newsmax reported earlier, there are 23 GE Mark 1 nuclear reactors operating in the United States.

“The problems we identified in 1975 were that, in doing the design of the containment, they did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant," Bridenbaugh told ABC News.

"The impact loads the containment would receive by this very rapid release of energy could tear the containment apart and create an uncontrolled release."

Bridenbaugh said GE eventually addressed the design flaws in the Mark 1 reactors with a series of retrofits. But he added that “the Mark 1 is still a little more susceptible to an accident that would result in a loss of containment.”