I’m not comforted by this Stratfor analysis of the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan. It looks like we could have had a perfect storm situation, and now there has been a meltdown of the nuclear fuel combined with destruction of the containment facility. Radiation is probably leaking from the plant and there is a possibility that nothing can be done about it.
At this point, events in Japan bear many similarities to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Reports indicate that up to 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) of the reactor fuel was exposed. The reactor fuel appears to have at least partially melted, and the subsequent explosion has shattered the walls and roof of the containment vessel — and likely the remaining useful parts of the control and coolant systems.
And so now the question is simple: Did the floor of the containment vessel crack? If not, the situation can still be salvaged by somehow re-containing the nuclear core. But if the floor has cracked, it is highly likely that the melting fuel will burn through the floor of the containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before but has always been the nightmare scenario for a nuclear power event — in this scenario, containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible.
You may remember a post I did about how Germany is paying €130,000 a year for radioactive boar. That’s because radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is absorbed out of the ground and into the mushrooms that wild boar eat. The result is that many of the boars in Europe are unsafe to eat and the government compensates hunters for their contaminated meat so that they are not tempted to sell it to unsuspecting customers.
Germany is a good distance from Chernobyl. It’s over 850 miles from Chernobyl to Munich.
Radiation exposure for the average individual is 620 millirems per year, split about evenly between manmade and natural sources. The firefighters who served at the Chernobyl plant were exposed to between 80,000 and 1.6 million millirems. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that exposure to 375,000 to 500,000 millirems would be sufficient to cause death within three months for half of those exposed. A 30-kilometer-radius (19 miles) no-go zone remains at Chernobyl to this day. Japan’s troubled reactor site is about 300 kilometers from Tokyo.
Because of its design, I don’t think the Japanese reactor is likely to release as much radiation as we saw at Chernobyl, but it is still looking rather grim. It’s terrible that Japan, of all places, has to deal with the threat of radiation poisoning and environmental damage…again.
It’s been a hell of a year so far, hasn’t it?
Let us count the ways…
Naaaahhhh…nevermind. Do it yourself.
Cain’t wait fer th’big full moon!!!
Maybe the 2012ers aren’t so far off after all.
What?
C’mon…you mean to say the thought hasn’t crossed your mind?
It has mine.
Bet on it.
AG
well, that means we;ll make it through this year. Whaddya worried about?
I am not worried, Booman. I get up every morning, say essentially the same prayer (“Today is a good day to die.”) and go about my business.
Unworried and undisturbed.
My business?
Really?
To wake up/shake up others.
Why?
It’s genetic, I think.
Plus I do not believe that evolution is through with us.
I was walking down a midtown street in NYC during the rough early ’70s…and it was rough here then, believe it…with an old-time jazz musician who had seen it all.
Twice.
We walked past a street guy who had curled up in foetal position on a grating outside of a parking garage, looking for a little heat. He was passed-out drunk with the pint bottle of cheap whiskey still in his hand. My friend walked over to him, gave him a pretty good kick, said “Get up, motherfucker!!! New York ain’t through with you yet!!!” and then continued on down the street.
Like dat.
AG
So a very, very long time ago I was involved in high school debate the year that the topic was national energy policy. As a subscriber to Scientific American I had fully bought into the nuclear-energy-is-completely-safe meme. I remember vividly the articles about how nuclear plants could withstand the largest possible earthquakes and even having a 747 crash into them.
Yeah, right.
In my defense, I gained my senses before I was old enough to vote.
Yeah, an earthquake or a 747 but not an earthquake and a tsunami.
Yes, it’s better blow up every mountain in WV than to have one nuclear power plant, right? Better to cover the entire desert with solar power mirrors, thus devastating cacti and other desert ecosystems? Better to make ethanol with corn, thus raising the cost of food for everyone.
No energy system is without costs.
Agreed.
Look, of course nuclear isn’t 100% failsafe, but with Generation III (and soon to be Generation IV and V) reactors, the risks are so minimal that it’s worth it. I weigh the cost analysis of degrading our oceans with increased CO2; the cost of killing our environment from leaking mercury and other harmful gases; the health care costs from having shitty air and smog; and the costs we don’t yet know with what will be a climate crisis.
Nuclear is the only alternative that we have to make up the energy difference in coal. I’m designing wind turbines. They’re great, and I think eventually we won’t need nuclear. However, wind power simply isn’t enough right now. For now, it’s either go nuclear, or kill the planet and a huge host of species with it whilst creating humanitarian catastrophes all over the world.
One problem… Japan actually has regulations, which they’ll never institute here because some billionaire’s fee-fees might get hurt.
Sorry, I wasn’t thorough in my response.
My point was that the safety of reactors was overstated by the scientific “experts”, who were just a little too gung-ho about nuclear to assess it — um — scientifically. And, unfortunately, that kind of overstatement helps erode public confidence in science in general, which makes it harder for people like climate scientists to get their point across.
Not that there should never be any nuclear reactors. Every energy source is going to have some sort of negative impacts when used en masse. Hydro, for example, has caused all sorts of environmental problems on over-dammed rivers.
Having said that much the biggest problem with nuclear continues to be disposal of the waste. The second biggest problem is that there aren’t good contingency plans for the once-every-50-years kind of disaster that this event may portend. Given those two situations, while nuclear electricity is preferable to coal and probably to a project like China’s Three Rivers Dam, it’s pretty low on the list of preferred energy sources.
And Booman, earthquake + tsunami is a predictable combination — one triggers the other. So it’s not like this one was hit by two Acts of God at once. This nuclear plant was built near the shore in the Pacific Ring of fire and wasn’t able to withstand a major earthquake with a nearby offshore epicenter. That is foreseeable.
Yucca Mountain. This entire situation is ridiculous. Reid and the other Nevadans have very irresponsibly politicized this. The Yucca Mountain choice was done carefully, and is a very good option.
In Sweden, communities have begged for the nuclear repository. That’s because it means one thing: Good jobs for a long long time. The repository can be designed to store for a long time, and the material can be packaged in a manner to allow handling. Keyword: CERAMIC MATRIX.
The green lunatics and the NIMBYs have made this entirely ridiculous. We now have a large number of unsafe, environmentally hazardous repositories. We need one, well-designed, environmentally safe repository. We can find one, and will do so.
We just need to do it in a way which keeps the politicians away from the decision.
Ah — so similar to all those articles in the Scientific American in the 1970s. The absolute CERTAINTY that this is completely safe. Dismissing opponents as “lunatics” and NIMBYs.
But my point was actually more economic — when the long term costs of nuclear waste storage are considered the economics of nuclear power become a real problem. But, like with CO2 build-up, those costs are born by future generations, so what the hell, let’s do it now and let them worry about it.
You are not reading carefully. I did not say “absolute certainty”.
The amazing thing is that we would store in Yucca Mountain, and then we would continue to monitor. The anti-nuke folks assume somehow that we will become idiots, just put the material in there, and seal the mountain. That would not happen.
Shit happens. No one can deny it. How’d you like to live near a coal slurry pool, like the one that collapsed and contaminated 5000 acres in WV or thereabouts? Any thoughts on that?
There is no power technology without costs. that includes solar, which is entirely inadequate for our power needs, and wind, which has a serious issue of being big in areas where we don’t need it.
See also this link:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/uk-japan-quake-experts-idUKTRE72B1KP20110312?pageNumber=1
It’s not going to be another Chernobyl, and this is with an 8.9 earthquake, tsunamis, and massive amounts of aftershocks.
This is not Chernobyl. The Japanese are not the shoddy Soviets. I’m not real happy about the situation, but thus far it appears to be most likely a hydrogen leak from the containment vessal to the outer building, and not a melt-down.
The situation is serious, but not a disaster yet.
That’s what I was going to say. There has not in fact been a meltdown.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/archives/2011/0312/world/expert-chernobyl-style-meltdown-unlikely-in-japa
n-496991.html
An earthquake, a tsunami and then over 50 aftershocks over 5.0, half a dozen of which are over 6.
There is no more prepared country in the world than Japan but mother nature is beating them to the dirt.
Meanwhile, Khadafi is rushing to take advantage of the cameras turning away. Thankfully (and too late) the Arab Union has voted to approve of a No Fly Zone this morning.
Well should have USGS before I wrote that. This morning the tally has raised to over 100 overshocks over 5 and a dozen over 6! The aftershocks alone would have brought most cities to their knees!