



I was ready to answer to GMAX137 but I think you summarized pretty well pdObq what would have been my answer.



There are a lot of information in this documentary and I'm sure that there are documents behind to support what the guys interviewed in the documentary are saying. Most were "insiders" at this time with responsabilities in various organisations, and that's the force of the film. They are talking freely because they are much older, or even very old, and no more implied in the business! Also the film is not one based on sensationalism after the Fukushima accident, this documentary is from 1992, so its interest is just being rediscovered in light with the Fukushima disaster.



The dates mentioned in the video seem to pretty well correlate with the possibility that at the date of building Fukushima plant was started to be built in 1967, so at this date, based on some of the dates mentionned in Adam CURTIS site (1966), the discussions between american regulators and GE about redesign demands and flaws of the primary design, already occurred, but as you said it is very probable that the japanese weren't informed of that (the Hanauer document is from a later date, September 1972, so one year after the start of reactor N°1 at Fukushima).



So yes, it can be said with some reason that it has "probably" been kept secret at this date to Japanese buyers.



Something else to mention to explain what the documentary is showing very well -the fact that in this era, some countries were rushing in a race to be the first, and that safety was NOT AT ALL the primary concern- is that, in addition to the "make money" reason, there was as second reason why these leading countries wanted to build a profitable civil nuclear industry: the race they were involved in was also a military one, and as i mentionned already in some previous posts, they needed PLUTONIUM in larger quantities for the bombs and missiles... And one way to get it was through civil reactors, where PU is a byproduct of the nuclear fission in used cores. This is a know fact that civil nuclear birth happened as a close brother of military nuclear.



All of this old history is resurging with the Fukushima disaster, which scares a little bit the nuclear industry IMO...



It very premature to know IF there will be a juridic battle on this, it depends closely of the behind the screen relations that are currently taking place between governments and various interests. Personally i would be very surprised if this would happen, but we'll see. Don't forget that Tepco is or will be in a short future almost nationalized (and at least very dependent of state funding...) so the game will be decided at high level with strategical things on the table.