Disaster that is Fukushima still gathering pace
The greatest enemy of nuclear power development is uncertainty. The Fukushima nuclear plant in north eastern Japan has worked over time to intensify the uncertainty surrounding how they work and what happens when then go wrong.
Today, a month on from the tsunami which devastated every level of the plant’s “fail safe” safety systems, the Japanese nuclear authorities have finally escalated the plants disintegration as a power producing entity to level 7. That is the very highest level that a nuclear power generating disaster can be rated. The rating is based on the potential harm the disaster may have on human health.
The Japanese authorities go on to bask in the claim that whilst this now puts Fukushima on the same health threat level as Chernobyl, Fukushima has only produced “around a tenth of the radiation that escaped from the former Soviet plant”. When I went to school the phrase “around a tenth” was regarded as scientifically vague. I don’t suppose it is regarded as any more exact today.
Even whilst I was in the area around Fukushima three and a half weeks ago, the nuclear operators seemed vague, indistinct, even unwilling to admit what was actually happening. Today I feel more forgiving, I suspect they simply did not KNOW, and still do not KNOW.
The exclusion zone is being expanded. Three communities beyond even twenty miles are to be evacuated this week…two more inside the zone have been told to pack up today. Twenty one workers at the plant have now exceeded the radiation levels any man is supposed to be able to tolerate without serious life threatening consequences.
Read more: Fukushima crisis is ‘serious blow’ to nuclear power
The disaster that is Fukushima is still gathering pace, even according to Japan’s regulatory authority. The attempts to stabilise the radioactive iodine-131 and caesium 137 leaking furiously fromthe plant, are being held back by the rising levels of radioactivity right across the plant, which is now rapidly filling with “highly radioactive” cooling water.
So, this was an old 1970s plant subjected to wholly unpredictable events. It is somehow unique and for some reason would not happen here. The UK doesn’t have tsunamis etc. But if the unknowns are so considerably unknown; and the fail safes so considerably unsafe; and the authorities are so incapable of telling the truth (whether deliberately or not) what are the implications for nuclear trust here, in a time when we apparently need to build many new nuclear plants?
In Pictures – Fukushima nuclear crisis worsens
Click on the image to see more photos from Fukushima
Related posts:
- Fukushima’s unknown unknowns
- Japan: how will Fukushima crisis affect world’s nuclear future?
- Five days in Japan: loss and the invisible threat
- Japan: loss of life, devastation of homes, unimaginable grief
- Earthquake: Japan’s difference over Haiti
There are 28 comments on this post
Calculators are now in use Jon but you can’t assess radiation escape in uncontrolled circumstances to the nearest round-about tenth with little detection devices . The variability in concentration must be vast.
From my perspective I can see the escalation of thyroid problems in the future.We actually do use radio active iodine to treat these problems.
If so much radiation is to be present in the seas in generations to come , because of the continuing use of radio active material, one wonders how it will effect genetics and if this darwinian process we are all subject to..forgive me Adam and Eveists..will produce a more resilient type of creature.It may be the fodder of futuristic science fiction , but hey! ho! change is something reliably predictable. The mutability of our universe can be predicted more easily than the present escape of caesium and radio active iodine.
the authorities are so incapable of telling the truth (whether deliberately or not).
That statement Jon is the most telling of the whole blog.It is a fact that “our representatives” hide from us anything they do not wish us to know for whatever reason.Be it on banks, illegal wars, dodgy dossiers,the common market,the current voting referendum.Now on power supplies.Is Nuclear too dangerous?In Japan it is certainly not as dangerous as earthquakes or tsunamis.I have not yet heard of a death associated with the nuclear disaster,though no doubt in the future were it in this country we would hear of multiple compensation claims by unscrupulous lawyers.
Is there an alternative to nuclear?We are told that that wind power is only producing about 1/20 th of its predicted capability.We are told a lot of nonsense on global warming,so coal power is no longer acceptable.Perhaps as the environmentalists would have it, it is time to turn the lights out.I remember the three day week when the unions forced the lights out. Perhaps we should go back to the 50′s and parafin lamps.They were certainly as good as the current energy saving lamps.
”the authorities are so incapable of telling the truth (whether deliberately or not).” – It s deliberate all right . Every figure we get has been so twisted and massaged as to be near useless – as u say whether it be unemploymnet figures , war casualities – whatever -they are well nigh useless . Are we not worse in whatever country we live to put up with these ” people ”- even elect them – when many should by any justice be in prision – for a long long time .
Though any radiation leak is unacceptable the reactor did survive a massive earthquake and tsumami far greater than those it was designed to.
As for the radiation being leaked iodine has a relatively short half life (around 8 days) even that of caesium (~30 years) is short when compared to that of uranium meaning that when the leak is stopped the radiation levels will fall back to normal a lot faster than those at Chernobyl.
When compared to energy production from fossil fuels nuclear power is far safer. And the long term consequence of using fossil fuels, global warming, will cause far more suffering and deaths than those caused by nuclear power.
Of course, I’m not saying that nuclear power is perfect- I’d far prefer a world where we produced energy through renewable sources.
The key word being “apparently.”
Jon, does the UK and anywhere else for that matter, really need to have built any in the first place?
Ignoring for a moment the debate over the validity of the C02/man made climate change issue (which is being used by the nuclear industry to rationalise it’s enforced burdening of uncertainty on everyone) and accepting that climate change is absolutely real, then even so, “…under no circumstances can nuclear power be considered to be a solution to climate change” http://goo.gl/wuztH
Trust here in Japan, where even the stoical are questioning, is being lost daily http://goo.gl/Ulw9g.
Trust isn’t one sided. It’s a dialogue, a relationship where each side listens to the other.
If Fukushima has anything to teach the people of the UK, it is that nuclear power, born from the industry of war, is proactively, willingly and profoundly deaf.
We have only 2 options:
1. No nuclear plants whatsoever, ever.
2. Build them and live with the risk that something, inevitably, WILL go wrong.
If we opt for (1), where are we going to get our energy from? The green alternatives are in their infancy and hideously expensive – cost/benefit is at present ridiculous.
Opting for (2) seems, sadly, the only realistic way forward IF we have to maintain our current level of dependency e.g. for heating – fossil fuels running out etc.
But that means mortgaging the future, & it will be our descendants, like the Japanese now, who’ll have to pay the price of any mistakes we make.
I can’t honestly see any Government investing massively in green energy research ( especially as the ConDems have already slashed the Carbon Trust’s funding), nor being able to persuade people to use less – they’ve already had to bow to the petrol-price lobby, so they would never consider limiting/rationing people’s home-energy usage, except passively, by allowing fuel companies carte blanche on pricing. Imagine the outcry there would be!
It looks to me to be a no-brainer if you’re a politician – choose nuclear power & play down the risks.
Yes ok – there are risks to Nuclear – . How many has it killed in the time it has been in use compared to motor cars . By much of the logic here – motor cars should be banned – they are far more dangerous – and Alcohol should defitely banned – it has killed millions -. So face Reality , there are risks to crossing the road – and many die that way – a simple task – yet fatal to many . At the moment or in forseable future – there is no alternative to Nuclear – nor never will be – unless some new Energy source is found . The Renewables will only give a small percentage .
Re fossil fuels running out – yes sometime – but NO-ONE knows when – only that they will be used for a long long time .
(Worth re-reading the excellent additional reporting on the C4 news blog, as recommended above. Missed it back in March when posted.)
I’m with Walt Patterson, Jeremy Leggett, and all who stress energy efficiency – which includes using less – and renewables. We have to challenge the politically convenient myth that we ‘need’ nuclear ‘to keep the lights on’ if we’re not to put mankind’s future in the hands of the short-sighted. ‘We need nuclear so you can power your X-Box and other video games’ – and the internet, of course – wouldn’t carry the same message of necessity.
BBC R4′ ‘Crossing continents’ – always worth listening to – had a programme only last week in which it was revealed that it would take two nuclear reactors to power the current stand-by demands of the German population. That’s an indication of our level of electricity wastage. Two reactors! An astonishing statistic. Even you, Adrian, would agree that we should live within our means financially, so why not in the case of energy?
It’s not a question of keeping the lights on, but turning them and other electrically powered appliances off when not in use, and questioning how we use energy.
The late Sir Fred Hoyle wrote a book: “Energy or Extinction? the case for nuclear power”. (2nd ed. 1979.)
He was pro-nuclear and he calculated that to meet all its energy needs the UK would need 200 nuclear power stations! Now the technology has moved on since then and demand may have changed, but not a lot, so you might not need 200 but even if it is now less than 200 where do you put them?
I am baffled as to why our Government is still continuing down the MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE and DANGEROUS route of building yet more Uranium / Plutonium reactors without regard to any developments now taking place right under their very noses, developments that have now come over some major hurdles entirely unscathed. I talk, of course, about Andrea Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer, now at the University of Bologna and being readied for COMMERCIAL production, having already passed some major hurdles put up by reputable scientists and skeptics alike, who are now, by and large, giving it a cautious thumbs up. So, with such developments now maturing(including those from Blacklight Power, which have been tested by Purdue University, the university Neil Armstrong went to), why is it that our Government remains fixated on (Carbon Belching) Business As Usual Fossil Fuels, (10,000 year) Fission threats and Land grabbing NIMBY-unfriendly “Renewable” Farms? Is our Government really working toward the Common Good, or is it just waiting for our economy to crumble and our society to die? Do we really have to wait until our land is ruined before the Government admits that there may have been another way…
Over the past few weeks we have become a bit more informed. We do not care what the authorities are prepared to tell us about the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi. We have alternative internet media such as USTREAM and VIDEONEWS.
Of course, we knew it was level 7. Only the authorities have been slow to acknowledge the facts.They know. They surely know about different scenarios.
Why don’t to cover Hideaki Koide of Nuclear Safety Research Group, Kyoto University. Koide is a key person. He is sharp, informed, critical, defiant, never got promoted.
Got his name wrong. He is Hiroaki Koide.
Mr Snow,
You wrote:
“So, this was an old 1970s plant subjected to wholly unpredictable events. It is somehow unique and for some reason would not happen here. The UK doesn’t have tsunamis etc.”
The Chernobyl area does not have tsunamis either and neither does Three Mile Island. What they do have, as do all nuclear power plants, is the possibility of component failure and human error which were certainly factors in the Tree MileIsland incident. Chernobyl seemed to be along the lines of ‘lets try this and see what happens – oops’ combined with poor training.
If you look at all of the nuclear incidents great or small over the years then these two factors probably feature in all or most of them.
One of the big questions for a small island nation such as Britain is surely where do we evacuate to in the event of a serious nuclear incident in the UK?
Sadly then, those of us who have been very worried from the start of this disaster appear to be right, tho’ it doesn’t help to have it confirmed. If anything, the problem is worse than I feared. Grim news!
Have you heard anything but grim news these last years ??. suits the Politicins and their bosses down to ground .
The photo of the fire, what is supposed to be of? The implication seems to be that it’s of a burning reactor building, but I’m having a lot of trouble matching the visible configuration to that of aerial photos of Fukushima (e.g. the high-res ones at cryptome.org). E.g. it shows sea to the left and coast to the right, with long building on the right. But at Fukushima the turbine halls are *between* the reactor buildings and the sea.
Indeed, I’m having trouble finding anything in the Fukushima Dai-1 photos that matches the photo in this article.
It was filmed “from a remote-controlled helicopter” according to C4 News tonight – that’s if the photo above was taken from the piece of footage shown.
I thought it was potentially disastrous from the outset and am not surprised at all it’s ended up at level 7. I notice you mrenioned they were ‘vague’,and not admitting. I thought they might be stunned, by everything that happened there plus Fukushima damage. They didn’t appear to be covering up, more just uncertain. It’s frustrated me that international nuclear experts haven’t been working together from the start to try to resolve this, the way it has escalated while the world watched is incredible. I am afraid it will get worse.
Alternatives to nuclear are obviously essential.
Perhaps the costing of solar energy needs to be examined and made more widely available and affordable.
I wonder what would be the outcome if all homes were fitted with solar panels over the next twenty years? Perhaps the input to the national grid from unused power would provide much of our energy needs?
It would be greener and not subject to international price fluctuations over oil and gas provision.
The problem is that solar energy (in the most general sense, i.e. direct capture via photo-voltaics, and indirect via wind energy capture) may not be sufficient to meet our needs. While the amount of energy that reaches the earth from the Sun is massive, we might not be able to use that much of it. A recent study, reported on by New Scientist (http://bit.ly/dYjmuQ), suggests that the amount of energy we can take out of the atmosphere without affecting its dynamics noticably, may well be significantly *less* than our current energy needs.
IEEE Spectrum also recently reported on wind farm sustainability, and noted that global wind speeds have noticeably decreased over the last couple of decades. Exactly why isn’t clear.
The big picture though is this: There may not be any ‘green’ energy source available on earth. Even solar/wind potentially could cause significant climate change (though, this isn’t consensus yet), and they certainly require *lots* of space. It could be we have no choice but to choose from a bad bunch. Nuclear power needs to be evaluated objectively in that context.
‘Nuclear power needs to be evaluated objectively in that context’ – Paul Jakma, above. Here’s one sensible attempt to do so:
bit.ly/hM3R49
What you, like so many others fail to do, Paul, is evaluate objectively our energy use. As above, two nuclear reactors to power Germany’s stand-by (wastage) has led to German citizens taking energy usage seriously. Yours above doesn’t question this. You refer only to ‘needs’ without making any distinction between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’.
Paul is quite right ,no matter what kind of gloss that you try to put on it , the so called green energies of solar, wind and wave come nowhere near providing for even basic requirements in a modern 1st world country. I see little mention of hydropower , but with our rainfall and rivers i wonder if there is not a potential there , but i believe at this moment in time the two real alternatives are coal and nuclear,like it or not
Note that the large reservoirs for hydro-power are associated with increased geological stress and hence seismic activity. In areas where there are already strong tectonic stresses present, a reservoir conceivably could be the trigger for a large earthquake. The Szechuan earthquake is thought to perhaps have been triggered by the filing of a new reservoir. This has been reported in a few places over the years, and New Scientist recently had an article on it.
NB: I am not advocating for or against any specific technology, I was asking *for* objective evaluation of the costs and risks. It seems there may be no energy source within reach that doesn’t have significant downsides.
Sorry, Paul and Adrian, but neither of you addresses the issue of energy usage, with distinction between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. This is fundamental to an assessment of energy generation.
Needs and wants MEG? Do we need street lighting , neon lighting.What about electic lighting to homes.We could go back to parafin lamps and the battery driven radio .Do away with tv.In reality they are all wants rather than needs, yet no sane government is going to suggest doing away with them.If the current green energies can only supply less than 30% of our current usage, even cutting down on the wants will make no difference.
Meg,
I tend to assume our energy usage will not decrease significantly over the next hundred years. Indeed, I would assume it will increase further significantly. Even if the developed western world managed to cut usage through efficiency savings, there are literally billions of people in the developing world who desire a more comfortable life and whose energy usage will increase as they try attain it, even if the increase is to a lower level.
I’m not sure what your point is about “wants v needs”, you’d have to elaborate. Perhaps you’re suggesting we should tell western people to voluntarily give up many modern conveniences and comfort, and/or tell the developing world to largely forget about aspiring to having them. Personally, that sounds like politically impossible and unrealistic, and I note there doesn’t seem to be any nation relying on this strategy to meet CO2 targets.. (Savings through efficiency gains are another thing though, and might make a small but reasonable contribution to lowering usage growth rates).
If your point is something else, I look forward to reading it
.
For god’s sake, vote Green at all possible opportunities. No excuses. That’s the only party who make this a priority. If all the money that subsidises the nuclear industry went into Renewables, we could supply the UK with what it needs, safely.
Twittered by Jon this morning: ‘Shocking Reuters report on Fukushima nuclear clear-up in Japan and what happened once before: http://t.co/iTj3pkL'.
Shows the real and human cost of nuclear: disposable ‘foreign’ workers, including from US.