U.S. DOE’s Response to the Fukushima Daiichi Reactor Accident

Abstract

The Fukushima Daiichi response posed a plethora of scientific questions to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) radiological emergency response community. As concerns arose for decision makers, DOE leveraged a community of scientists well versed in the tenets of emergency situations to provide answers to time-sensitive questions from different parts of the world. A chronology of the scientific Q and A that occurred is presented along with descriptions of the challenges that were faced and how new methods were employed throughout the course of the response.