Dr. Norman C. Rasmussen, 75, Expert on Nuclear Power Risk, Dies

[Michael Pollak <mpollak@xxxxxxxxx>]

[This just seems like a monument to cognitive dissonance to me.  This guy
invented a way of appraising nuclear risk.  A mere four years later, it
was proved spectacularly wrong.  The result: cook and rerun the numbers
until in retrospect they come out perfect.  Then give him an award for his
"contributions to nuclear safety."  And title his obituary "Expert on
Nuclear Power Risk."  Expert on risk?  He was the expert on how not to
estimate risk.]

[Even under his original, in retrospect absurdly sanguine estimate, if
there were 500 reactors in the world -- and there are currently 440 --
you'd be expecting one core meltdown on average every 40 years.  And this
Rasmussen and the industry considered a warrant for expansion so that
they'd happen more often than that!]

[Meanwhile under the revised estimate, which was cooked to account for
3-Mile Island, you'd now be expecting one every 2 years -- which is
obviously just as completely untrue as the original estimate. Which seems
to indicate that not only were revised figures shamelessly cooked to fit
one case for which we knew the answer, but the method itself is a complete
and utter fraud, since it's never given anything even close to the right
answer yet.] [Tellingly, both he industry continued to advocate nuclear
power even under the new figure, which would have testified to certifiable
madness if they actually believed it.]

[For this he received the Enrico Fermi award, one of the oldest and most
honored awards in the nation (sez MIT of itself).  And goes to his grave
hailed as an expert on estimating risk.  Because fault tree analysis must
be true.  Because otherwise we'd have to admit the existence of radical
uncertainty.]

[If Nero was alive today, he wouldn't name a horse a counsul.  He'd
appoint him an expert. And everybody would listen respectfully.]

New York Times
July 28, 2003

Dr. Norman C. Rasmussen, 75, Expert on Nuclear Power Risk, Dies

   By MATTHEW L. WALD

   N orman C. Rasmussen, a former professor of nuclear engineering at
   the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who pioneered a
   technique for measuring risk at nuclear power plants, died on July
   18 at a nursing home in Concord, Mass. He was 75.

   The cause was complications from Parkinson's disease, his son,
   Neil E. Rasmussen, said.

   In 1975 Dr. Rasmussen oversaw the production of a landmark report,
   the 21-volume Reactor Safety Study, sponsored by the Atomic Energy
   Commission, a precursor of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The
   report predicted that in power reactors in this country, a core
   damage accident would occur only once in every 20,000 years of
   operation, with one reactor running for one year counting as a
   year of operating experience.

   But after the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island 2 reactor
   in Pennsylvania in 1979, when the nuclear industry in this country
   had fewer than 500 years of operating experience, a new study
   ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reassessed the risk
   and estimated it at one meltdown per 1,000 years of reactor
   operation.

   The commission disavowed some of the findings of the Rasmussen
   study. But it continued to embrace his technique, now known as
   probabilistic risk assessment, which involved drawing up a "fault
   tree" to trace how problems can spread through a plant when a
   piece of equipment fails. Among the problems with the Rasmussen
   study were that it overlooked some risks, like fires, and that it
   was based on reactor designs that did not include the Three Mile
   Island type.

   Dr. Rasmussen was a professor of nuclear engineering at M.I.T.
   from 1958 until 1994, and was in charge of the institute's nuclear
   engineering department from 1975 to 1981. In 1985, the government
   presented him with the Enrico Fermi Award for his "pioneering
   contributions to nuclear energy in the development of
   probabilistic risk assessment techniques that have provided new
   insights and led to new developments in nuclear power plant
   safety."

   Born in Harrisburg, Pa., Dr. Rasmussen served in the Navy from
   June 1945 to August 1946 and graduated from Gettysburg College in
   1950. He received a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T. in 1956.

   In addition to his son, of Concord, Mass., survivors include a
   daughter, Arlene R. Soule, of Littleton, N.H.; five brothers,
   Frederick, of Moorestown, N.J., Howard, of Charlotte, N.C.,
   Holger, of Penn Valley, Calif., John, of Columbus, Ohio, and
   David, of Clarksville, Va.; and four grandchildren.

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