Dr. Derek Muller is the narrator for the PBS special - Uranium - Twisting the Dragons Tail - Part 1. 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the most profound change in the history of human enterprise on Earth. The unleashing of the elemental force within uranium. The unleashing of the Dragon.
The video presents a journey with host physicist Dr. Derek Muller. He addresses counter-intuitive concepts in science, and he has been featured in Scientific American, and other publications. He has a passion for detail, a physicist knowledge and a nose for a good story. He packed a suit and tie, and hiking boots. He needs both where he visited. Down mine shafts and across arid deserts. Into quiet libraries and ivy covered towers and the vast silence of a city abandoned as a result of the worst nuclear accident in history.
The major criticism is that Muller mixes the use of uranium in a bomb with that used in nuclear power plants. The fear inherent in the former is related to the latter, especially when Chernobyl is introduced and explored in great detail without emphasizing that this plant was a combined uranium-plutonium plant designed for making nuclear weapons during the Cold War as well as for generating electricity for the local population. It was a Soviet cover-up for making plutonium for the bombs of the Soviet era. The design was used, although criticized by the western allies during period, to compete with the west during the Cold War.
Muller used his radiation detector throughout the program. In Fukushima, the radiation was very low in the vacant towns visited. They have not moved back into their towns because of their fear of radiation not because radiation is present. He finally admits that, luckily, no one died or has exhibited radiation sickness during the initial clean-up or since. This was just another industrial accident, this time caused by tsunamis. Japan is turning their nuclear power plants back on, one at a time.
Be sure to watch Part II as well.
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