ISIS Report 11/04/11
Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold
Fukushima is just one among many
similar disasters waiting to happen worldwide;
governments and regulators have
systematically downplayed the risks and
hidden the real costs of nuclear power; there
is no place for nuclear in a truly green
energy portfolio; furthermore, there is a lot
we can do to put the nuclear genie back into
the bottle Dr.
Mae-Wan Ho
There will be a sale of artworks in aid
of the victim of the Fukushima earthquake/tsunamic/nuclear
disaster in a newly launched website www.ISISArt.org,
an initiative inspired by our much acclaimed
celebrating ISIS event, which took place 26-27
March 2011. A report of the event will also
be available on the new website. NCHANGED
Nuclear crisis following earthquake &
tsunami
On Friday 11 March 2011, Japan was hit by
a magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a
gigantic tsunami. The official toll by 6
April was 12 468 dead, and more than 15 000
missing [1], hundreds of thousands lost their
homes, millions are still either without
electricity or affected by shortages of
electricity [2]; and most worrying of all, a
nuclear disaster with no end in sight. The
earthquake and tsunami were unstoppable, but
was the nuclear disaster waiting to happen,
and could it have been avoided?
It started with the earthquake, which
damaged the power grid, cutting off the
electricity needed to run the cooling system
of the nuclear reactors in the Fukushima
Daiichi station located in the town of Okuma
in the Futaba District of Fukushima
Prefecture on the east coast of Japan, 210
kilometres north of Tokyo. The station
consists of six boiling water reactors
designed by General Electric with a combined
power of 4.7GW [3], and is one of the 25
largest nuclear power plants in the world.
On that day, reactor units 1, 2, and 3
were operating, but units 4, 5, and 6 had
already shut down for routine inspection.
When the earthquake struck, units 1, 2 and 3
shut down automatically, and electricity
generation stopped. Normally the plant could
use external electrical supply, which is
essential for powering the cooling and
control systems after shutdown, as
substantial heat would still be generated by
the fuel rods; but the earthquake had damaged
the power grid. Emergency diesel generators
started but stopped abruptly less than an
hour later. The plant was protected by a sea
wall designed to withstand a tsunami of 5.7
metres, but the tsunami rose to a height of
over 10 metres, topping the sea wall and
flooding the generator building. Further
emergency power was supplied by batteries to
last about eight hours.
The earthquake struck at 05:46 (GMT);
Japans prime minister Naoto Kan
declared a nuclear emergency at 10:30. By
midday, people living within 1.3 miles of the
power station were evacuated [4]. At 19:30, a
government spokesman admitted the possibility
of radioactive material leaking from the
reactor vessel. An hour later, engineers were
forced to vent steam from reactor 1 to
relieve pressure, which resulted in
radioactive material leaking out.
At 07:37 the next day, an explosion
destroyed the concrete building housing
reactor 1. Japans Chief Cabinet
Secretary Yukio Edano insisted the reactor
core was intact. At 12:22, officials
announced they were to flood the reactor with
seawater to reduce the risk of overheating.
Late that night, it was revealed that the
cooling system of another reactor had failed.
Next morning, Mr. Edano told a press
conference that an explosion was possible at
reactor 3, but again assured that there
would be no significant impact on human
health.
More than 200 000 people were evacuated
from the area around the Fukushima plant late
that afternoon. Japanese officials
confirmed that 22 people had suffered
radiation contamination. The reactor 3
building exploded at 02:00, 14 March; again
officials insisted the reactor core was
intact. Two hours later, officials admitted
that more than 190 people had been exposed to
radiation. At 13:30, the government warned of
a third explosion, and later admitting that
the fuel rods were melting in all three
reactors. Despite that, Cabinet Secretary
Noriyuki Shikata stated: We have no
evidence of harmful radiation exposure.
The explosion tore through reactor 2 at 23:00.
At 01:00, 15 March, the Japanese
government confirmed that there was damage to
the structure of reactor 2. Mr Edano stated:
We have not recorded any sudden jump in
radiation indicators. An hour and a
half later, Mr. Edano confirmed that reactor
4 building was on fire, releasing more
radiation. At 02:40, Prime Minister Naoto Kan
warned of danger from more leaks and told the
140 000 people living within 19 miles of
Fukushima Daiichi to stay indoors, saying:
The [radioactivity] levels seem very
high, and there is still a high risk of more
radiation coming out. Mr. Edano added:
Now we are talking about levels that
can damage human health.
Within the week, the nuclear accidents
were upgraded from level four to five, on par
with the Three Mile Island, and exceeded only
by Chernobyl in 1986 [3]. Two days later (19
March), Managing Director of Tokyo Electric
Power Company (TEPCO) that owned the power
plant, Akio Komiri, wept as government
officials acknowledged that the radiation
spewing from the over-heated reactors and
spent-fuel storage ponds was enough to kill
people [5]. Mr. Edano admitted that
the unprecedented scale of the
earthquake and tsunami had not been
anticipated under their disaster
management contingency plans.
Meanwhile, workers at the devastated plant
continued with their heroic battle to prevent
a complete meltdown, which, some fear could
be another Chernobyl. The spent fuel storage
pond at Reactor No. 4 had boiled dry.
Military trunks sprayed the reactors with
tonnes of water for a second day. Engineers
tried to get the cooling pumps working again
after laying a new power line from the main
grid. They admitted that burying the reactors
under sand and concrete, as in Chernobyl, may
be the only option to stop a catastrophic
release of radiation.
Some experts warned that even concrete
burial was not without risk.
Anatomy of the unfolding nuclear disaster
The Fukushima Daiichi reactors use U-235
fission to generate electricity for TEPCO (see
box). Reactor No. 3 runs on mixed oxide (MOX)
fuel, in which uranium is mixed with other
fissile materials such as plutonium from
spent reactor fuel or from decommissioned
nuclear weapons [6].
How Nuclear Power Works::
Matter is made of atoms. An atom
is the smallest unit of a chemical
element. It consists of a core nucleus
containing elementary particles protons
and neutrons, surrounded by electrons
on the outside. Each proton carries a
positive charge, which is balanced by
the negative charge of each of the
electrons, so that the atom is
electrically neutral on the whole.
Neutrons do not carry any electric
charge.
The elements are identified by
their atomic number - the
number of protons, the same as the
number of electrons - and atomic
mass - the total number of
protons and neutrons - the mass of
electrons are very much smaller and
therefore neglected in the atomic
mass. The simplest element is
hydrogen; it consists of a single
proton and a single electron, and is
represented as H with atomic number 1
and atomic mass1. Helium is the next
simplest element with 2 protons and 2
neutrons, and is represented as He,
with atomic number 2 and atomic mass
4. There are currently 118 elements
identified.
Most elements exist as isotopes:
different forms of the element that
have the same number of protons but
different numbers of neutrons. Thus,
hydrogen has two other isotopes, and
unusually are given names of their
own, deuterium (with one neutron,
atomic mass 2) and tritium (with two
neutrons, atomic mass 3). The element
uranium has an atomic number of 92,
with 92 protons in its nucleus, and
between 141 and 146 neutrons, giving
rise to six isotopes, identified by
their atomic mass; the most common
are U-238 (with 146 neutrons) and U-235
(with 143 neutrons). U-235 is unique
in being the only naturally fissile
isotope (i.e., capable of splitting).
The protons and neutrons in the
atomic nucleus are held together by strong
forces, which overcome the
electromagnetic repulsion between the
positively charged protons.
Strong forces act only at very close
range; beyond that, weak forces
due to electromagnetic interactions
take over, so like charges repel and
opposite charges attract.
Nuclear power comes from the
immense amount of heat energy
released during nuclear
fission of U-235 inside
a nuclear reactor [7] (see Energy
Strategies in Global Warming: Is
Nuclear Energy the Answer? SiS
27). The nucleus of U-235, on
being struck by a slow (relatively
low energy) neutron, splits into two
more or less equal halves, and at the
same time, throws off two or three
new neutrons (the number ejected
depends on how the U-235 atom splits),
which could be captured by other U-235
nuclei, setting off a chain reaction.
However, U-235 comprises about 0.7
percent at most of naturally
occurring uranium, and so the chance
for getting a sustained chain
reaction is very small. To get a
sustained chain reaction for a
nuclear reactor, U-235 has to be
enriched to 3-4 percent. For nuclear
weapons, enrichment to at least 90
percent is required [6].
The bulk of naturally occurring
uranium is U-238, which is not
fissile. However, on capturing a fast
(high energy) neutron, U-238
undergoes transmutation into the next
element plutonium, which is fissile.
Thus, plutonium can be bred from
uranium fuel in a reactor [7].
Most nuclear reactors, including
those at Japans Fukushima
Daiichi generating station, rely on
harnessing the heat from nuclear
fission to boil water into steam, in
order to drive steam turbines and
generate electricity [6-8].
The enriched uranium is formed
into inch-long pellets and stacked
into long rods collected together
into bundles. The bundles are
submerged in water inside a pressure
vessel. To prevent overheating,
control rods made of materials that
absorb neutrons, such as cadmium,
boron or hafnium, are inserted into
the uranium bundle. By raising or
lowering the control rods, the rate
of the nuclear reaction and hence the
rate of heat production can be
controlled. The uranium bundle heats
the water and turns it into steam.
The steam drives a turbine to produce
power. In some nuclear power plants,
the steam from the reactor goes
through a secondary, intermediate
heat exchanger to convert another
body of water to steam to drives the
turbine, so the radioactive water/steam
(immediately next to the fuel rods)
never contacts the turbine.
A concrete liner typically
encloses the reactors pressure
vessel and acts as a radiation shield.
That liner, in turn, is enclosed
within a much larger steel
containment vessel, which also houses
the equipment plant workers use to
refuel and maintain the reactor. The
steel containment vessel serves as a
barrier (primary containment) to
prevent leakage of any radioactive
gases or fluids from the plant (see
Figure 1). Finally, an outer concrete
building protects the steel
containment vessel. This concrete
structure (secondary containment) is
designed to be strong enough to
withstand earthquakes or a crashing
jet airliner. These secondary
containment structures are necessary
to prevent the escape of radiation/radioactive
steam in the event of an accident.
The absence of secondary containment
structures in Russian nuclear power
plants allowed radioactive material
to escape in Chernobyl.
Figure 1 Fukushima
reactor, makanaka.files.wordpress.com
|
The pellets of uranium fuel are
contained in fuel rods made of an alloy of
zirconium. There are thousands of these fuel
rods inside a reactor's innermost chamber,
the pressure vessel (see box). Water inside
the pressure vessel cools the fuel rods
preventing overheating, and also creates the
steam to drive the turbines.
The pressure chamber is encased in a
protective steel shell called the primary
containment vessel. Around the base of the
primary containment vessel is a doughnut-shaped
structure called the torus that serves a
safety function [9]. If pressure
becomes too high in the pressure vessel,
steam can be vented into the torus through a
series of relief valves. The primary
containment vessel and the torus are in turn
encased by the secondary containment building,
a large box of steel and concrete. This
building also houses a storage pool where
spent nuclear fuel is kept in cold,
circulating water. The water keeps the
radioactive spent fuel from overheating and
melting, and also prevents radiation going
into the atmosphere.
When the earthquake struck offshore on
Friday 11 March, the Fukushima Daiichi plant
was not badly damaged, and its emergency
shutdown procedures went into effect. The
control rods were inserted among the fuel
rods to stop the fission reaction.
But even though the fission reaction came
to a halt, the radioactive by-products of
past fission reactions continued to generate
heat, so it is essential for cooling systems
to continue working to prevent overheating
and potential meltdown.
Explosion at reactor 1 building
It happened first in reactor 1 where
intense heat inside the pressure vessel
evaporated too much water, exposing the
zirconium alloy fuel rods to steam and other
gases, which caused reactions that produced
hydrogen gas. As pressures in the inner
chamber reached dangerously high levels,
steam (containing some radioactive elements)
was vented first into the primary containment
vessel, and then into the secondary
containment building. But the hydrogen gas
appeared to have reacted with oxygen in the
secondary containment structure, causing an
explosion that ripped the roof off the
building on Saturday. While this explosion
did release some radioactive material,
experts believed it did not damage the
primary containment vessel [9, 3], but they
were wrong (see later).
Explosion at reactor 3 building
A similar chain of events tore the roof
off the building housing reactor 3 on Monday
morning. There, the operators resorted to
pumping seawater into the pressure chamber to
cool it, but were not able to prevent the
explosion. TEPCOofficials initially said that
the No. 3 primary containment vessel was
intact. But on Wednesday (16 March), white
steam issued from building No. 3, raising
fears that the primary containment vessel had
cracked due to the explosion and was
releasing radioactive steam. Even if the
primary containment vessels were intact in
these two reactors, the extremely high
temperatures in the reactors may have melted
parts of the zirconium alloy fuel rods, and
some of the uranium pellets. Melted uranium
could drip down to collect at the bottom of
the pressure chamber. If enough of it gathers
there, it could begin to eat through the
chamber walls and then the primary
containment vessel, resulting in the worst-case
scenario commonly referred to as a complete
meltdown [9].
There is also a danger of the fuel
collecting and momentarily re-igniting a self-sustaining
chain reaction.
Plant operators continued to pump seawater
through reactors 1 and 3 in an effort to keep
them cool and avert further explosions. The
corrosive salt water has effectively rendered
the reactors unfit for future use.
On 17 March, new problems arose at the No.
3 reactor site, this time at the spent fuel
pool. It appeared that the pool had heated up,
causing some of its water to evaporate away
and possibly exposing the spent fuel rods to
the air. That could cause the nuclear fuel
inside to begin melting, increasing the
amount of radiation emitted.
That morning, two helicopters flew over
the building to dump water on building No. 3.
Later that day, police trucks used water
cannons to send jets of water into the
building, with limited success. Finally the
Japanese military sent its own water-spraying
trucks to blast 30 tons of water into
building No. 3 in 30 minutes. A day later,
seven trucks repeated the water-spraying
operation, blasting 45 tons of water into
building No. 3.
Spikes of radiation made the situation
increasingly dangerous for workers in the
plants shielded control rooms and
difficult for outside personnel to approach
the site.
Reactor No. 2 explosion more serious
The accident in the No. 2 reactor building
occurred during the morning of 15 March, and
was regarded more serious than the two prior
explosions because it was the first blast
involving a primary containment vessel.
The operators were trying, with limited
success, to pump seawater into the pressure
chamber. According to reports, the vents
intended to release steam and relieve
pressure were stuck closed, and the high
pressure inside the chamber prevented the
injection of seawater. As the water level in
the chamber stayed obstinately low, the fuel
rods were thought to be fully exposed to the
air for six and a half hours. Commenting on
the crisis in the No. 2 reactor, TEPCO said
it could not deny the possibility that
the fuel rods were melting.
The blast in reactor building No. 2 was
thought to involve the torus, when operators
were venting steam into it to relieve
pressure in the pressure chamber. The
hydrogen exploded within the torus, damaging
the primary containment chamber, so
radioactive contamination would be free to
escape.
TEPCO workers began trying to reconnect
the plant to the electrical grid. But as of
22 March, Reactors 1, 2 and 3 were still
without core cooling systems, and the fuel
rods were thought to be partially or fully
exposed [3].
Spent fuel at reactors No. 4, 5, and
6
These three reactors were offline at the
time of the earthquake, but soon become
another source of concern. Fires broke out in
reactor building No. 4 on 15 and 16 March,
and TEPCO officials warned that fires are
possible in the other two buildings.
In these three buildings, spent fuel is
stored in water-filled tanks and kept cool.
In reactor building No. 4, the water
temperature was reported to have risen from
40 to 84 C, suggesting that the fuel rods
overheated, causing the zirconium alloy
cladding to partially melt and react with
water or steam to produce hydrogen gas that
could have sparked a blast. According to
reports, the actual substance burning in
building No. 4 was lubricating oil used in
machinery near the storage pool.
The fires in building No. 4 had gone out,
but not before it had drastically, though
temporarily, increased radiation levels
around the reactor.
On 17 March, Unit 6 was reported to have
diesel-generated power and this was to be
used to power pumps in unit 5 to supply more
water. Preparations were made to inject water
into the reactor pressure vessel once mains
power could be restored to the plant, as
water levels in the reactors were said to be
falling. It was estimated that grid power
might be restored on 20 March through cables
laid from a new temporary supply being
constructed at units 1 and 2. But this was
still not accomplished by 29 March (see below).
On 18 March reactor water levels remained
around 2 m above the top of fuel rods. On 19
March emergency cooling was reestablished for
Units 5 and 6. On 20 March NISA (Nuclear and
Industrial Safety Agency) announced that both
reactors had been returned to a condition of
cold shutdown. External
power was partially restored to unit 5 via
transformers at unit 6 on 21 March. As of 22
March, the spent fuel at reactors 5 and 6
remained undamaged [3].
Situation remains very
serious
The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi
plant remains very serious to
this day, according to IAEA update.
On 29 March, IAEA reported [10]
contaminated water found in trenches close to
the turbine buildings of Units 1 to 3. Dose
rates at the surface of this water were 0.4
millisieverts/hour for Unit 1 and over 1000
millisieverts/hour for Unit 2 as of 26 March.
A sievert is a dose of ionising x-ray or
gamma radiation absorbed in body tissue equal
to 1 joule per kilogram of body tissue. The
average individual background radiation dose
is 0.23µSv/hr (0.00023mSv/hr); 0.17µSv/hr
for Australians, 0.34µSv/hr for Americans.
The Fukushima level of >1 000
millisieverts/h is thus 4-5 million times the
background. The Nuclear Safety Commission of
Japan said the higher activity in the water
discovered in the Unit 2 turbine building may
be caused by the water that has been in
contact with molten fuel rods and
directly released into the
turbine building. In other words, a partial
meltdown may have occurred. Measurements
could not be carried out at Unit 3 because of
the presence of debris.
Fresh water has been continuously injected
into the Reactor Pressure Vessels (RPVs) of
Units 1, 2 and 3. From 29 March at Unit 1,
the pumping of fresh water through the feed-water
line will no longer be performed by fire
trucks but by electrical pumps with a diesel
generator. The switch to the use of such
pumps has already been made in Units 2 and 3.
At Unit 3, the fresh water is being injected
through the fire extinguisher line.
Fresh water was to be pumped into the
spent fuel pool of Unit 4.
Spreading contamination hazardous to
health
Radioactive fission products have been
spreading from Fukushima. The radioactive
isotopes of greatest concern to health are
Iodine-131 (I-131) and cesium-137 (Cs-137) [11].
I-131 has a half-life of 8 days (half of it
will have decayed after 8 days). Therefore,
it is most hazardous immediately following an
accident. It also tends to vaporize and
spread easily through the air. Iodine in the
human body is taken up and concentrated by
the thyroid, where it can lead to thyroid
cancer in later life. Children exposed to I-131
are more likely than adults to get cancer
later in life. To guard against absorption of
I-131, people are advised to take potassium
iodine pills proactively to saturate the
thyroid with non-radioactive iodine so it is
not able to absorb any iodine-131.
Cs-137 has a half-life of about 30 years,
and will take more than a century to decay to
a safe level. Within the body, Cs-137
substitutes for potassium, the major
inorganic ions existing in high
concentrations inside cells. Cesium-137
is passed up the food chain, and can cause
many different types of cancer.
On 28 March, deposit of iodine-131 was
detected in 12 prefectures and cesium-137 in
9 prefectures of Japan [10]. The highest
levels were found in the prefecture of
Fukushima with 23000 becquerel per square
metre for iodine-131 and 790 becquerel per
square metre for caesium-137. (A becquerel is
a unit of radioactivity defined as 1 nuclear
transformation per second. There is an
average of about 50 becquerel per cubic metre
of air inside a home from radon.)
Based on measurements of I-131 and Cs-137
in soil sampled from 18 to 26 March in 9
municipalities at distances of 25 to 58 km
from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, the
total deposition of iodine-131 and cesium-137
has been calculated. The average total
deposition determined for iodine-131 range
from 0.2 to 25 Megabecquerel per square metre
and for cesium-137 from 0.02-3.7
Megabecquerel per square metre. The highest
values were found in a relatively small area
in the Northwest from the Fukushima Nuclear
Power Plant.
As of 28 March, the Japanese Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfares
recommendations for restrictions on intake of
drinking water based on I-131 concentration
remain in place only in four locations in the
prefecture of Fukushima. To date, no
recommendations for restrictions have been
made based on Cs-137. The Japanese limit for
the ingestion of drinking water by infants is
100 becquerels per litre.
Five soil samples, collected at distances
between 500 and 1000 metres from the exhaust
stack of Unit 1 and 2 of the Fukushima
Nuclear Power Plant on 21 and 22 March, were
analysed for plutonium-238 and for the sum of
plutonium-239 and plutonium-240.
Concentrations reported are similar to
those deposited in Japan as a result of the
testing of nuclear weapons.
As for food contamination, Japans
Health Ministry reported on 25 March that
tests have found levels of radioactive iodine
up to 17 to 20 times the legal limit in
samples of raw milk, spinach and two leaf
vegetables as far away as 75 miles from the
damaged nuclear plant [12]. Contamination was
also found on canola and chrysanthemum greens
in three more prefectures. Tainted milk
was found 20 miles from the nuclear plant,
spinach was collected from farms up to 75
miles south of the plant. Testing at some
locations also found levels of radioactive
caesium 4 times the legal limit.
According to the Los Angeles Times,TEPCO
revealed on 5 April that it had found I-131
at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a
seawater sample taken near the stricken
Fukushima plant, and government officials
instituted a health limit for radioactivity
in fish [13]. Other samples contained
radioactive caesium at 1.1 million times the
legal limit. On 4 April, Japanese officials
detected more than 4 000 becquerels of
racioactive iodine per kilogram in a fish
called sand lance caught less than 3 miles
offshore from the town of Kitaibaraki, about
50 miles south of Fukushima Kaiichi, the fish
also contained 447 becquerels of Cs-137.
On 5 April, Mr. Edano said the government
was imposing a standard of 2 000 becquerels
of radioactive iodine per kilogram of fish,
the same level it allows in vegetables.
For comparison, the European Unions
legal limit before Japans nuclear
crisis was 600 becquerels (cesium 134 and
cesium 137) per kilogram; but has since
jumped more than 20 fold to 12 500 becquerels
per kilogram [14].
All three reactors damaged and releasing
high levels of radioactivity
The IAEA update on 4 April 2011 [15]
stated that full off-site power from the grid
has been restored to temporary electric pumps
set up to supply water to cool the reactor
vessels 1, 2 and 3. It also revealed that all
three reactor vessels had been damaged, with
reactor 2 severely damaged.
Highly radioactive water was leaking from a
crack in the turbine building of reactor 2 to
the sea at 5 million times the legal limit (down
from high of 7.5 million times).
Meanwhile radioactive wastewater had been
accumulating in the reactor buildings, and
TEPCO had been given permission by the
Japanese Government to discharge 10 000
tonnes of low level contaminated water from
their radioactive waste treatment facility to
the sea. This is in order to make room for
storing highly contaminated water found in
the basement of Unit 2 turbine building.
A further 1 500 tonnes of low
level contaminated water will be discharged
from the pit under the drains of units 5 and
6 to prevent water leaking into the reactor
buildings and potentially damaging safety-related
equipment.
The level of contamination in the low
level permitted discharge is 100 times the
legal limit [2], in addition to the highly
radioactive leaks into the sea.
As a result of Tokyo
electrics desperate but failed efforts
to cool the reactors, they are about to
release perhaps an unprecedented amount of
radioactivity into the environment,
Shaun Burnie, a nuclear consultant to
Greenpeace Germany told the Guardian [2].
Officials say the situation is unlikely to
get under control for several months, and
independent analysts warn it might be years.
TEPCO reported success in plugging the
leak on 6 April, though there remains
uncertainty as to where the radioactive water
was leaking from [13]. Meanwhile, a new
threat has emerged [1].
Officials at TEPCO said a dangerous
hydrogen buildup is taking place at reactor 1
inside the reactor's containment vessel, a
sign that the reactor's core has been damaged,
and another explosion may result from the
hydrogen buildup. Engineers are injecting
nitrogen into the reactor to drive out oxygen.
Nuclear safety in the spotlight
The Fukushima disaster dominated a meeting
in Vienna of signatories to the Convention on
Nuclear Safety that was supposed to prevent a
repeat of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl [2].
I know you will agree with me that
the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi has enormous
implications for nuclear power and confronts
all of us with a major challenge,
Yukiya Amano, head of the IAEA, told the
participants, We cannot take a
business as usual approach.
It has been clear for some time now that
the business as usual approach is
inadequate (see [16] Close-up
on Nuclear Safety, SiS 40). A
detailed assessment of nuclear accidents and
malfunction carried out by Gordon Thompson of
the Institute for Resource and Security
Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology revealed a litany of design faults
in nuclear reactors that fail to protect the
public adequately against accidents and
malfunction due to human error, mechanical
hitches, or external events such as tornados
and earthquakes. In particular, there is no
protection against malevolent or terrorist
attacks. This applies to both existing
nuclear reactors and Generation
III reactors in the pipelines or under
construction. So in many ways, Fukushima was
a disaster waiting to happen. But it is by no
means alone.
In particular, Thompson condemned the
calculation of risk in risk assessment (which
applies to everything from nuclear power to
GMOs), in which risk = hazard x probability.
So however big the hazard, it can be reduced
to a very small acceptable risk if the
probability is close to zero; such as a
magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a giant
tsunami.
The Fukushima disaster has triggered a re-evaluation
of nuclear energy programmes worldwide [17].
Leak of water from Canadian Pickering Nuclear
Generating Station into Lake Ontario, 5 days
after Fukushima caused many Canadians to
question the safety of nuclear power plants.
In the United States, a New York Times
editorial called for Americans to
closely study their own plans for
coping with natural disasters. Mark Hibbs, a
senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowments Nuclear Policy Program, said
Fukushima was a wake-up call for anyone
who believed that, after 50 years of nuclear
power in this world, we have figure it out
and can go back to business as usual.
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez announced a
freeze on all nuclear power development
projects, including design of a nuclear power
plant contracted with Russia. China froze
nuclear plant approvals on 16 March.
The US Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
reported 14-near misses at US nuclear plants
in the past year alone [18]. The serious
lapses included engineers accidentally
switching off safety system, electrical
circuits failing and workers not knowing how
to activate the system to summon emergency
services. The UCS report released 18 March
2011 came as Obama ordered a comprehensive
review of US 104 active nuclear power
plants. The report says the review is much
needed, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
has a mixed safety record, catching some
problems but overlooking others, or allowing
them to be neglected.
UK Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said
Britain may back away from nuclear energy
because of safety fears and a potential rise
in costs after the Fukushima disaster [19].
Countries around the world are reviewing
their nuclear options [20]. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel announced a three-month review
of plans to continue operating her country's
17 nuclear power plants. Switzerland
suspended the approval process for three
nuclear power plants, so safety standards can
be reconsidered. And India has ordered safety
inspections for all of its nuclear plants.
Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard said
her country has plenty of alternative sources
of energy and does not need nuclear power.
The Japanese government has criticized
TEPCO for its handling of the nuclear
disaster, including giving confusing
radiation readings, being slow to admit the
seriousness of the situation, and in its
response. Many Japanese people no longer
trust the company [21].
The Wikileaks website released recent US
embassy cables expressing unease over all
the different nuclear power companies
operating in Japan, of which TEPCO is the
biggest. Taro Kono, a member of the Japanese
parliament, told US diplomats that these
firms were hiding the costs and safety
problems associated with nuclear energy.
That is no news (see [22] The
Real Cost of Nuclear Power, SiS 47
and [23] Nuclear
Industrys Financial and Safety
Nightmare, SiS 40, debunking the
UK governments estimates). A report
several years ago found that TEPCO falsified
nuclear safety data at least 200 times
between 2000 and 2007.
The Japanese government has attempted to
downplay the health hazard from the radiation
leaks, as have governments and regulators
worldwide. They have also been at pains to
minimize the deaths from past nuclear
disasters. The official number of deaths
attributed to Chernobyl by the IAEA is 4 000.
But senior Russian scientists documented
deaths and illnesses at least 100 times more
[24] (see Truth
about Chernobyl, SiS 47).
Fukushima the last nail in the coffin?
Fukushima should be the last nail in the
coffin for the nuclear industry, as so much
damning evidence has emerged indicating that
it is extremely uneconomical and unsafe as
well as highly unsustainable. Nuclear is not
a renewable energy. In terms of savings in
carbon emissions and energy, it is worse than
a gas-fired electricity generating plant when
available uranium ore falls below 0.02
percent, as it would in decades, just simply
keeping up with existing nuclear facilities [25]
(see The
Nuclear Black Hole, SiS 40).
There are other repercussions.
Japans nuclear disaster is toxic,
not just for the environment - in the huge
amounts of radioactive wastes spewed out into
the atmosphere, deposited on land, leaked,
and indeed flushed out into the sea - it is
also toxic for Tokyo Electric Power Company [21].
UKs Guardian newspaper reports
the company facing a financial meltdown while
its engineers are struggling to bring the
nuclear meltdown under control. TEPCOs
Nikkei stock index plummeted by 18 percent on
4 April to a 60 year low; the Japanese are
losing faith in their nuclear industry.
TEPCO faces hefty costs for replacement
power, construction of new generation
capacity in place of damaged plants, and
decommissioning at least 4 and possibly all 6
reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. It is also
liable for compensation to local businesses
and residents affected by the radiation leaks;
and lawsuits are likely. An analyst at Bank
of America Merrill Lynch estimated
compensation charges of over £74 bn if the
crisis continues for more than two years.
TEPCO is being propped up by the Bank of
Japan and other big Japanese Banks, and three
major financial institutions are lending 1.9
trillion yen to deal with the crisis.
Nevertheless, TEPCOs credit rating has
been downgraded by Moodys and Standard
& Poor. Moodys said: TEPCO
will remain highly leveraged and unprofitable
for an extended period of time and will face
substantial risk regarding nuclear liability.
TEPCOs finance is so intricately
bound up with the big banks that its demise
will definitely send shivers throughout the
worlds financial markets already knee-deep
in national debts and recession.
There is talk of nationalisation to
prevent loss of confidence in the world
markets.
Financial markets have already responded
with sharp falls. The stock prices of many
energy companies reliant on nuclear sources
dropped; while the one silver lining in this
unmitigated disaster is that renewable energy
companies rose in value dramatically by 15 to
20 percent [26]. It reaffirms the conclusions
of our special report [27] Green
Energies - 100% Renewable by 2050 that a
wide variety of affordable and truly green
energies - renewable, environmentally
friendly, healthy, safe, non-polluting and
sustainable are already available for
all nations to become energy self-sufficient
and 100 percent renewable within decades.
Policies and legisations that promote
innovations and internal market, and
decentralised, distributed small to micro-generation
are the key.
We have explicitly ruled out the nuclear
option, with a recommendation that existing
nuclear power stations should be
decommissioned at the end of their designated
life times. Uranium mining should cease and
clean-up should begin. At the same time,
weapons grade uranium should be consumed in
existing reactors in accordance with nuclear
disarmament. In addition, major public
investment should be directed towards making
safe toxic and radioactive nuclear wastes by
means of low energy nuclear transmutation (see
final chapter of our report [27], also [28]Transmutation,
The Alchemist Dream Come True and other
articles in the series, SiS 36; and [29]
LENRs
for Nuclear Waste Disposal, SiS 41)
for this new scientific development that is
still being ignored by the mainstream. There
is hope for putting the nuclear genie back
into the bottle.