Station Blackout: Inside the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and Recovery - Paperback

by Charles Casto (Author)

Japan was rocked by a powerful earthquake and within an hour inundated by a devastating tsunami, on March 11, 2011. Three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima power plant experienced core meltdowns, resulting in the catastrophic release of radiation into the ground, air, and water. In Station Blackout, Chuck Casto shares his first-hand account, as the foremost authority on responding to nuclear disasters, of how he led the team that faced the challenges of Fukushima. A lifetime of working in the nuclear industry prepared him to manage an extreme crisis, lessons that apply to any crisis situation.

On March 11, 2011, fifty minutes after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit eastern Japan, a tsunami 45-feet high engulfed the nuclear power plant known as Fukushima Daiichi, knocking out electrical power and all the reactors' safety systems. Three reactor cores experienced meltdowns in the first three days, leading to an unimaginable nuclear disaster. The person the Tokyo Electric Power Company called for help was Dr. Chuck Casto. In Station Blackout, Chuck Casto, the foremost authority on responding to nuclear disasters, shares his first-hand account of how he led the collaborative team of Japanese and American experts that faced the challenges of Fukushima. A lifetime of working in the nuclear industry prepared him to manage an extreme crisis, lessons that apply to any crisis situation.

Author Biography

Dr. Charles (Chuck) Casto, president of Casto Group Consulting, helps great companies in the areas of corporate performance, operations, engineering, plant support, and regulatory conformance. A career nuclear safety and regulatory professional, he has thirty-eight years of experience in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the commercial nuclear power industry, and the U.S. Air Force. He was a member of the Senior Executive Service at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), where he last held the position of Regional Administrator, Region III. He was awarded as a Distinguished Executive in 2012, by President Obama.
Chuck served for 11 months as the Director for Site Operations in Japan during the Fukushima nuclear plant accident. He participated in an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) mission in Japan to help reestablish their regulatory body after the Fukushima accident and helped to establish criteria to restart shutdown nuclear plants in Japan. He has completed three International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) missions including to Slovenia to review their regulatory programs another on an expert team that reviewed the destruction of 32 reactor fuel bundles at the PAKS reactor in Hungary.
His strong history of mentorship and leadership development success is evidenced in his service on a Congressional Fellowship as a Legislative Assistant to a U.S. Senator where he succeeded in developing energy policy issues for the Senator. He has been asked on numerous occasions to resolve many highly complicated policy issues for clients and Congress.

• Specialties: Educational and Business Consultations
• Cobb County School System Blue Ribbon Education Committee - Chair and member
• Cobb County School System Facilities and Technology Committee - Chair and member
• Cobb County Government Citizens Oversight Committee - Appointee
• State of Georgia, Department of Early Childhood Education and Learning - Consultant
• Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Examiner