What Japan is now trying to avoid is a complete loss of power to the cooling systems at its Fukushima nuclear power plant. This would lead to a loss-of-coolant or meltdown accident -- a disaster which could have catastrophic impacts on Japan and much of the world.
Radioactive material is used in a nuclear plant as a heat source -- to boil water and produce steam that turns a turbine that generates electricity. Huge amounts of radioactive material are made to go through a chain reaction, a process in which atomic particles bombard the nuclei of atoms, causing them to break up and generate heat.
But to keep the nuclear reaction in check -- to prevent the material from overheating -- vast amounts of coolant are required -- up to a million gallons of water a minute in the most common nuclear plants that have been built ("light water" reactors). That is why nuclear plants are sited along rivers and bays, to use the water as coolant.
If the water which cools the reactor "core" -- its 200,000 to 300,000 pounds of radioactive fuel load -- stops flowing, the "emergency core cooling system" must send water in. If it fails, a loss-of-coolant or meltdown accident can occur.
In such an accident, the core of nuclear fuel, which in less than a minute can reach 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, burns through the cement bottom of the nuclear plant and bores into the earth. This is what U.S. nuclear scientists have dubbed the "China syndrome" -- based on a nuclear plant on their side of the planet undergoing an accident seemingly sending its white-hot core in the direction of China.
In fact, the radioactive core doesn't -- in any location -- go to China but it descends to the water table underlying a plant. Then, in a violent reaction, molten core and cold water combine, creating steam explosions and releasing a plume of radioactive poisons.
The problem at Fukushima Diachi nuclear facility is that one of its six reactors lost all its power as a result of the earthquake. Back-up diesel generators didn't work, so battery power became necessary to keep coolant water flowing. If the battery power is depleted and electric power is not otherwise restored, a loss-of-coolant accident or meltdown would ensue.
"The emergency shutdown has been conducted but the process of cooling down the reaction is currently not going as planned," explained Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, according to CNN.
Thus, Japan declared a state of "atomic power emergency" and people living within three kilometers of the Fukushima facility were advised to evacuate.
In fact, if the coolant flow is not maintained and a loss-of-coolant accident with a "breach of containment" occurs, people way beyond three kilometers around Fukushima would be impacted. The radioactive releases in the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident affected the entire northern hemisphere, as a book published last year by the New York Academy of Sciences documents. And Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, authored by Dr. Alexey Yablokov, Dr. Vassily Nesterenko and Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, finds that medical records between 1986, the year of the accident, and 2004 reflect 985,000 deaths as a result of the radioactivity released. Most of the deaths were in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, but others were spread through the many other countries the radiation from Chernobyl struck.
Where the radioactivity spreads after a nuclear plant meltdown is largely a function of where winds take the radioactivity and of the rain that causes it to fall out.
There are numerous lessons to be learned from the situation now underway in Japan including why a nation situated on a string of volcanic islands would build nuclear power plants, vulnerable as they are to earthquakes. Of course, Japan is not alone on this score: in the U.S., the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility in California was built less than three miles from the Hosgri earthquake fault.
Nuclear power plants are, in fact, life-threatening wherever they are -- they represent the most dangerous way to boil water ever devised.
Wind, solar and geothermal energy and other forms of safe, clean power would not cause massive deadly damage because of an earthquake.
Fukushima, Japan Nuclear Facility Declares State Of Emergency
Snap Analysis: Japan quake may push up gas demand
Quake starts fire in Japan nuclear plant
No sign of radiation leak at Japan nuclear plants
Fuel oil timespreads up after earthquake shuts Japan nuclear plants
No nuclear plant radiation leak after quake: Japan PM
IAEA REPORTS ALL JAPANESE NUCLEAR STATION CURRENTLY SAFE
Hundreds dead, widespread destruction in Japan after massive earthquake and ...
For the record, the number of people who died, directly as a result of the Chernobyl accident is less than 50. Most were first responsders. It is a gross exaggeration to claim hundreds of thousands of people died from the accident. Inflated estimates of long-term deaths have been rejected by the United Nations agency that studied health effects of the accident.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/shooting-for-the-sun/8268/
Also the most expensive. Nuclear power infrastructure is not cost-free, and even though the power source is tantalizingly small, the overall physical footprint of containment and security perimeter makes these facilities enormous.
I feel for the Japanese people impacted by this. They made decisions that at the time were economically and environmentally sound, given the likely very biased arguments made at the time of construction. They absolutely should not double down on stupid and rebuild this as if nothing happened.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gavin-d-j-harper/japan-quake-critical-flaw_b_834478.html
Live & Learn ;-)
Anyone who has read this book and is still pro-nuclear is also pro-disease, pro-deformity, and pro-death.
Pro-nukers who have not read this book are afraid to read it because they can't handle having their misshapen world view rocked cleanly off of its imaginary foundations.
Pro-nukers, I challenge you -read it if you dare.
Download it at
http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Annals/Detail.aspx?cid=f3f3bd16-51ba-4d7b-a086-753f44b3bfc1
Click “Full Text”, then click on “View Annals TOC free.”
I do not believe that the IAEA, a nuclear watchdog organization, and/or the WHO had any incentive whatsoever to skew their findings which are so at odds with appears in this book.
I used to have a knee-jerk reaction against nuclear energy, but after listening to speeches explaining it by James Lovelock and Hans Blix, and visiting countries like India and China, where it is impossible to breathe the air (but quite possible to see it) I began to understand the need for it. Sure, it would be wonderful if solar panels and windmills could supply all of the world's energy needs but they cannot. I also believe in catastrophic climate change and the role of fossil fuels in it.
Also, people who understand physics and chemistry know that there is a difference between "carbon emissions" and "carbon footprint". Nuclear energy has the highest carbon footprint any non-fossil alternative energy. To say that nuclear energy will help reduce the over-all CO2 emissions caused by energy production is an admission of extraordinary ignorance about nuclear power.
Unfortunately, because of general scientific illiteracy in this country, it is possible for many people to become the unwitting intellectual victims of the pro-nuclear propaganda and the outright lies of the nuclear industry.
Familiarize yourself with the latest technology so that you can leave behind the outdated idea about using nuclear death as a power source.Did you know that there are now solar cells that generate electricity under cloud cover and IN THE DARK? That there are rooftop solar panel and micro windturbines, and efficient storage batteries?
No nukes, no coal, no kidding.
"Once there is an uncontrollable heating up, the nuclear fuel undergoes a metamorphosis into the gaseous phase. Since we are talking about metals and solid items, they turn into particles that are capable of traveling great distances. They can wander thousands of kilometers."
If these gases are indeed emitted into the atmosphere in large quantities, the wind regime could carry them all the way to China, South Korea, and eastern Russia, or in the other direction, toward Hawaii and the west coast of the United States. The likelihood of this happening, though, is not high.
Experts are now positing two possible scenarios. This first scenario is a disaster on the scale of Chernobyl, where the reactor core melted and enormous quantities of radioactive fallout were discharged into the air before being propelled by the wind and harming civilians living at a relatively great distance from the reactor. Because the core melted, the steel and concrete seal, which was meant to protect the core and prevent dangerous material from being emitted into the air, could not withstand the pressure and collapsed. As a result, thousands of people were killed, though the exact number of deaths remains unknown to this day.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/japan-nuclear-blast-could-be-more-deadly-than-chernobyl-experts-fear-1.348809
March 13, 2011
“We cannot confirm this because it is in the reactor,” he continued. “But we are dealing with it under that assumption. We are also dealing with the No.3 reactor based on the assumption that it is a possibility."
A nuclear reactor core meltdown occurs when fuel rods in the reactor’s core overheat and begin to melt. The rods are filled with uranium oxide ceramic pellets wrapped in zirconium cladding. It is possible for that molten material to get so hot that it could melt through the primary steel confinement shell – and then, even through the floor of the reactor building, US experts say.
“Underscoring the seriousness of the situation, the Fukushima prefecture government Sunday widened its mandatory evacuation zone to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) around both nuclear plants – ordering an additional 80,000 people to leave in addition to 62,000 residents who had already left, Japanese press reports said. Up to 450,000 residents could be evacuated overall, Kyodo News reported.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0313/Japan-now-assumes-possibility-of-a-meltdown-at-troubled-reactors
Wind, solar, tidal, bio-mass, geo-thermal are all viable and clean alternatives, especially tidal, to the highly dangerous, cancer-causing, water/air polluting, destructive industries in favor now, that are poisoning/despoiling our planet and children’s future; the difference is who supports the old means of power-production and their ability through campaign-contributions to buy influence, legislation and financial incentives/tax breaks & support. As a nation our future depends on new clean methods of power production, not the dangerous/polluting (but well-connected) industries now in command of our legislative/funding/tax-incentive processes.
http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/private/nuclear_subsidies1.pdf
http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/630-31/main.php
The industry "spokes-people" commenting here either have a personal agenda of disinformation & diversion from truth, or are paid to calm public fears of the horrible reality of the potentials for nuclear accidents, as we are witnessing.
Three Mile Island DID cause increased cancer & deaths; with leukemia rates up 600-700%: "a landmark study on the 1979 Three Mile Island radiation release has found that people near the nuclear reactor are suffering from extremely high rates of cancer". http://www.albionmonitor.com/9703a/3milecancer.html
The aging dangerous plant near me, Indian Point is leaking radioactive water into a huge pool underground, into the groundwater & Hudson River.
http://www.ipsecinfo.org/Leak_Sept_2005.htm
I guess, as Lincoln said, “it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than speak and remove all doubt”.
Anything but facing reality.
There are reasonable explanations for some of the health studies cited in the book. For example, women in the Ukraine and Belarus may have miscarried because of excessive drinking, a real problem in that area. Couples seeking to adopt children from that area are warned of the possibility of fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects. More cancer than elsewhere? What about environmental pollution caused from burning coal and oil? Excessive drinking and smoking? Or just the fact that some cancers have been on the rise worldwide?
The eminent scientist and one of the founders of the green movement, James Lovelock, believes that nuclear power is "the only" viable answer to the world's energy and climate problems. He states categorically that the dangers have been overblown.
Why does no one talk about the years and years of reactor safety? Why do we not fret so much about mining disasters (and the heath of miners), oil spills, natural gas disasters? Why are we not talking about the fire at the oil refinery in Japan that is spewing black toxic smoke into the atmosphere?
What we have to do is turn a portion of all the waste of agriculture into charcoal and bury it. Consider
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/24/biochar-earth-c02
Nuclear power has critical unsolved problems: Accidents, Terrorism, Waste and Proliferation.
The effects of nuclear accidents is so catastrophic and long lasting that having even one accidents completely wipes away even a century of safety.
Finally, we don't need nukes. Rooftop solar pv, Offshore wind and Waste Bio Char bio fuels can supply all the world energy needs, cheaper, safer, cleaner, forever and ready for installation now to 100% in 15 years.
Keep in mind that this man was one of the FOUNDERS of the green movement.
http://www.ecolo.org/media/articles/articles.in.english/love-indep-24-05-04.htm Try that one.
As for your claims about other energy sources, would you mind posting some kind of reference for your claims? I'm an engineering student. One of my engineering professors jokes about wind power constantly. Solar power in its current state is expensive and inefficient. I think we certainly should pursue it, but I don't think it will solve our problems an certainly not in within 15 years. Even if it could supply enough power, it can't do it during the night and if you're familiar with the energy grid, we can't store it. There are some methods for storing excess energy from the power grid, but they're grossly insufficient for the task. Most of your statements seem either overly optimistic or awful generalizations. As I said in another comment, we need to get off fossil fuels now. If you simply look at the math, we don't have time to wait for ideal and possibly bogus solutions. If you consider yourself an environmentalist, you are only hurting the cause by making unqualified statements and posting unrelated links.