GE faces federal lawsuit over Fukushima nuclear disaster

As reported by the Boston Business Journal, Japanese survivors of the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe have filed suit against General Electric. They are seeking $500 million in damages.

As Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, reported at the March 11, 2013 Helen Caldicott event in New York City marking the second anniversary of the beginning of the nuclear catastrophe, reactor vendor General Electric and subcontractor EBASCO in the United States bear major responsibility for the disaster. GE's Mark I Boiling Water Reactor design was and is a disaster waiting to happen, due to its too small, too weak containment structure. Many tens of feet of land elevation at Fukushima Daiiichi were removed, to bring the reactors closer to the ocean, for less expensive cooling water supply (but the seaside pumps were wiped out by the March 11, 2011 tsunami, which then swamped the site).

$500 million in damages may sound like a lot to many people. But consider that some economic analysts have predicted that the full cost accounting recovery from Fukushima Daiichi could surmount $600 billion (with a B -- three orders of magnitude higher than $500 million!).