Fukushima is one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, and still continues as TEPCO, the plant owner wallows in panic, and the authorities are indecisive about whether it needs to act. From the beginning of the incident, I was concerned that a nuclear meltdown might be occurring, and said so in my blog. I had trouble interpreting explosions at the site as anything but cladding melt, which creates explosive hydrogen. At the same time, the plant owner (TEPCO) attempted to minimize the severity of the incident, and nuclear experts worldwide chided those of us who expressed concern. [all-right-its-time-to-stop-the-fukushima-hysteria ; http://thediplomat.com/a-new-japan/2011/04/12/how-bad-is-the-fukushima-crisis/ .
Although the explosions at Fukushima have long stopped, it is still an ongoing disaster.
Initially Fukushima was ranked below Three Mile Island in 1979 (in which a reactor core was damaged, but from which very little radiation was released). But making a long story short, it was not possible to lie indefinitely. It's now understood that very significant amounts of radiation were in fact released; they had to evacuate the area for miles around the plant, and the accident is in fact on the scale of Chernobyl, and in some ways it might be worse.
As of August 2013, it has been realized that radiation has continued to leak from the site into the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO has basically kept quiet about the situation for the past two years, realizing that it's a huge enough problem that they really can't do much about it without help, and the Japanese government has also been content to tolerate the issue. But it has not gone away, and recent revelations have again caused worldwide alarm for the situation.
As a reminder, the nuclear industry promised that this entire event was not going to happen. Nuclear power was said to be absolutely safe, so much so that a rational person could not help but support it. Nuclear meltdowns could not, not happen (except maybe in a reactor built by a communist country such as the USSR).
I am very put off by commentary that whines that the press is not giving the nuclear industry a fair shake in its reporting of the incident. To be sure there are some wild articles in the literature that are filled with gross inaccuracies. But the salient point is that the Fukushima disaster goes way, way beyond anything that the nuclear industry was willing to consider as a likely scenario. We have to deal with the situation first, and resolving the whining can wait.
This is not business as usual. Thus far the Japanese government has affixed blame to the reactor operators, TEPCO. However, affixing blame does not solve the problem. Likewise, allowing TEPCO to go bankrupt would not stop the radiation leaks to the environment. By now it is all too obvious to the Village Elliot that the fix can not be left to TEPCO, because the size of the disaster dwarfs what they are capable of handling. The twin objectives of stopping the exposure of the environment and remaining viable as a company are not compatible.
Instead, in my opinion the Japanese government needs to stop what they are doing, allocate however many billion dollars are required and fix the damn reactor and fix it now. If they can't afford it, or need technical help, they need to make an international appeal. Yes, it's against Japanese custom to confront this sort of situation directly, and they dislike asking for outside help as well. But customs be hanged, this is no time to worry about saving face. There are lives at stake, and action is needed now. Some 400,000 barrels per day of contaminated water are leaking into the Pacific ocean.
What does "contaminated" mean? Of course there are different levels, but in this case the contamination results from flowing water over damaged fuel rods, which allow fission fragments to dissolve in the water. This is much more serious than the puffs of steam which are occasionally released from nuclear installations, which result in no significant exposure to anyone. This is not just steam.
What do standards mean? Commentators angrily denounce standards (some say they are way too high, others say they are way too low). The idea of setting standards, whether for radiation or air pollution or other factors affecting the health of the public, is to set the standards at a point that the public is not going to suffer health effects if exposure is kept below the standards. If the standards are exceeded, that is a cause for alarm though not necessarily a guarantee that harm will occur. The standards reflect the collected wisdom of thousands of professionals over a 70 year period. Hence if the radiation is over the standards, some sort of action is needed.
The recent issue is that radioactive material is being transported via groundwater into the nearby Pacific ocean at an unknown rate. But it is no doubt accumulating in seafood. As of 2012, Buesseler reports that 40% of the fish near Fukushima are above the permissible radioactivity standards for cesium (note: Buesseler remind us all that all animals are naturally radioactive to a small degree, and that the cesium radioactivity is smaller than the natural level. But the Village Elliot goes back to the point that the standards were set for a reason, and thus the government is correct to ban fishing in these areas. Part of the logic is that if we are measuring elevated levels of radiation, there may be some other fish that have contamination that are even higher, so it is prudent to ban consumption of fish when they get a low level of radiation). Buesseler also indicates that the presence of cesium levels in the fish provides evidence that cesium has been continuously leaking into the ocean, and that it was not halted, despite announcements to the contrary by the Japanese government. This is a very serious point, as the government did report that radiation leaks had been stopped, only to backtrack. If you or I did that, we would be considered to be vile liars.
[Ken O. Buesseler, Fishing for Answers off Fukushima, Science 338, 480 (2012)].
[ Japan nuclear crisis: Fukushima radiation leak stopped, By Danielle Demetriou, the Telegraph, in Tokyo 6:40AM BST 06 Apr 2011, Fukushima-radiation-leak-stopped].
It is simply inconceivable that the world can tolerate the radioactive contamination of the food supply in the ocean, particularly since the transfer of radionuclides to the ocean is not stopping and may be accelerating. This has to be stopped, and it has to be stopped now.
What is to be done at Fukushima? Attempts to encase the reactors in cement have apparently not worked. Now they are thinking of ways to drill underneath the complex and freeze the ground underneath. That may sound crazy, and is no doubt horrifically expensive, but that is the type of difficult undertaking that needs to be a national priority--or even a global priority. No more saving face, its necessary to have full and open disclosures and to get this problem solved in order to save lives.
POSTSCRIPT
No comments:
Post a Comment