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On the Brink of Meltdown: The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
The devastating Japanese quake and its outcome could generate a political tsunami here in the United States.
In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to occur in Japan in recorded history, 5,800 residents living within five miles of six reactors at the Fukushima nuclear station have been advised to evacuate and people living within 15 miles of the plant are advised to remain indoors.
This October 2008 photo shows the Fukushima No. 1 power plant of Tokyo Electric Power Co. at Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan. Japan's top government spokesman says the country has issued a state of emergency at the nuclear power plant after its cooling system failed. (AP Photo)
Plant operators haven't been able to cool down the core of one reactor containing enormous amounts of radioactivity because of failed back-up diesel generators required for the emergency cooling. In a race against time, the power company and the Japanese military are flying in nine emergency generators. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that the U.S. Air Force has provided cooling water for the troubled reactor. Complicating matters, Japan's Meteorological Agency has declared the area to be at high risk of being hit by a tsunami.
The plant was operating at full power when the quake hit and even though control rods were automatically inserted to halt the nuclear reaction, the reactor core remains very hot. Even with a fully functioning emergency core cooling system, it would take several hours for the reactor core to cool and stabilize. If emergency cooling isn't restored, the risks of a core melt, and release of radioactivity into the environment is significantly increased. Also, it's not clear if piping and electrically distribution systems inside the plant have been damaged. If so, that would interfere with reactor cooling.
A senior U.S. nuclear power technician tells me the window of time before serious problems arise is between 12 and 24 hours.
Early on, Japanese nuclear officials provided reassurances that no radiation had been released. However, because the reactor remains at a very high temperature, radiation levels are rising on the turbine building – forcing to plant operators to vent radioactive steam into the environment.
The devastating Japanese quake and its outcome could generate a political tsunami here in the United States. For instance, it may become impossible for the owners of the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon reactors to extend their operating.
These two California reactors are sitting in high seismic risk zones near earthquake faults. Each is designed to withstand a quake as great as 7.5 on the Richter scale. According to many seismologists, the probability of a major earthquake in the California coastal zone in the foreseeable future is a near certainty. The U.S. Geological Survey reports the largest registering 8.3 on the Richter scale devastated San Francisco in 1906.
"There have been tremblers felt at U.S. plants over the past several years, but nothing approaching the need for emergency action," Scott Burnell, a spokesman at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Reuters.
As the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe approaches next month, Japan's earthquake serve as a reminder that the risks of nuclear power, when things go seriously wrong. The Chernobyl accident required nearly a million emergency responders and cleanup workers. More than 100,000 residents from 187 settlements were permanently evacuated because of radioactive contamination. And area an equal to half of the State of New Jersey was rendered uninhabitable.
Fortunately, U.S. and Japanese reactors have extra measures of protection that were lacking at Chernobyl, such as a secondary concrete containment structure over the reactor vessel to prevent escape of radioactivity. In 1979, the containment structure at the Three Mile Island reactor did prevent the escape of a catastrophic amount of radioactivity after the core melted. But people living nearby were exposed to higher levels of radiation from the accident and deliberate venting to stabilize the reactor. With one hour, the multi-billion dollar investment in that plant went down the drain.
Meanwhile, let's hope that the core of the Japanese reactor can be cooled in time. We shouldn't need yet another major nuclear power accident to wake up the public and decision-makers to the fact that there are better and much safer ways to make electricity.
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32 Comments so far
Show AllBest guess based on Three Mile Island's chronology, the superheated steam has already escaped. That would be called a Loss of Coolant Accident. If this is similar to Three Mile Island, a Mother Jones Magazine estimate of perhaps 50,000 extra casualties (spread out over time and distance) would equally apply to the Fukushima disaster. I have no idea why the U.S. Air Force would bring in extra cooling water unless the original cooling water has already escaped and the city water pipes were broken by the quake.
Remember that nuclear plant operators have never in recorded history told the truth to the public about a major disaster in progress.
True PaulK.
Disinformation is the preferred method whenever a nuclear accident happens. It is usually followed by some truth but includes a lie about the dangers involved. I don't know how Japan will handle the disinformation. I am sure it will be creative.
Yeah, there is already a book out.
"Zen and the Art of Nuclear Coverups."
Assuming that it is a TMI-style accident and that the loss of coolant or a loss of coolant is into the atmosphere, the casualties should be in a spreading dispersal pattern very close to and then downwind of the plant.
Anyone in that downwind trail should leave immediately without awaiting heartfelt confessions on the part of the Japanese government or officials running the plant. The pattern in every single similar event--Bhopal, BP in the Gulf or at Exxon Valdez, TMI, Chernobyl and others--involves PR moves that sacrifice public lives to reduce financial losses.
If you're there, you're next. If you can get out a map and imagine where smoke would go if the entire plant were a fire, you have some idea what the dispersal pattern looks like. Move.
Hey, we just got our old VT Nuke re-licensed for 20 more years on Thursday. Come vacation in Vermont - The company says it is real safe only leaking Tritium into the river.
Go Vermont!
Norman Rockwell is now going to save on electricity by glowing in the dark.
All of Japan is at risk for earthquakes which is why they should have never considere building nuclear power plants at all. It's insane I tell you !
Oh, come on folks, nuclear power is safer than ever before, there's nothing to worry about, just move along, shut the hell up and do not dare to raise any objections. Sure, nuke energy is clean if you omit the mining and refining of nuclear fuel, if you ignore all the accidents that occur every year (worldwide), accidents that could have become serious if someone forgets to cross every t and dot every i. And then there's all that lovely nuclear waste that keeps building up. Nuclear energy is totally dependent on tax dollars to exist for subsidies, for start up funds, for insurance back ups and for clean up when there is a big disaster, corporate welfare at its worst. Greece has no nuclear power plants for the very reason that it is concerned about earthquakes. Several other European countries have committed to renewable energy and are either phasing out nuke plants or have already banned their construction. I await the nuclear troll who seems to show up whenever there is any discussion about nuke power.
Didn't McCain say something to the effect that if it's safe enough to power a submarine it's safe enough as a reliable power source? We shall see.
Found it -- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=axF9MBjUF_L0
McCain looks like he has a boomer in his jaw now. No wonder he defends those subs so much.
The pro nuclear people will say this "proves" that it's safe by virtue of the fact that the world didn't blow up or melt down.
I kinda hope your right, since a melt down is still quite possible.
or that it was a bunch of Japanese, not smart, divinely elected Americans . . .
"We shouldn't need yet another major nuclear power accident to wake up the public and decision-makers to the fact that there are better and much safer ways to make electricity."
Um, what are these safer ways to make electricity? Coal? Oil? Cold Fusion? Covering the whole ocean with solar collectors? Geothermal? Just steal it from the neighbors? What?
Damn, man, just come out and say it already.(In voice of Dr 'Bones' McCoy)
Current best practices: non-photovoltaic solar, 5 cents per kwh, wind, 4.5 cents per kwh. You're paying about 13 cents per kwh last I heard.
I've seen one company claim that 2.5 cents per kwh is possible with a certain wind power innovation.
I think non-photovoltaic solar can be driven to 2 cents per kwh, and my method is patent-pending.
The real money is in staying away from electricity and going straight to heat generation, which means you don't have to deal with a monopoly that might find a way to use its monopoly power to suck profit out of you. Oh wait, we're talking about nuclear power on this post, aren't we. The monopoly makes the profit and someone a short distance away gets thyroid cancer someday and dies alone.
The cost of producing power is only one aspect of any energy policy. I still have to be shown quantitatively that solar and wind combined can serve not merely the 350 million USAns but every person on this Earth. I also would like to see a realistic budget to achieve this and would not mind to demand that the funds be taken from the military in every country. Well, PaulK, roughly how much is needed to make the USA fully solar and wind? The time has come that we, who advocate renewable place a full plan on the table, one that the public understands and will support and that is more than idealistic talk and comparison of kwh prices.
Scotty is hiding the dilitium crystals from us. It's time to call in Mr. Spock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i29oXQHh-U4
Here is a 12-minute video CBS 60 minutes did on "Cold Fusion":
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4967330n
"Cold Fusion" has been definitely demonstrated to have been a pseudo-scientific hoax. So-called "quantum tunneling" can be eliminated because it cannot happen at the temperature of the hoax if at any lower temprature. When I was a graduate student I worked in a laboratory where research into "hot fusion" was conducted. If anyone had suggested that the light atomic nuclei could penetrate one another at room temperature we would have called for an ambulance.
Many of us have been anti-nuke for going on a long time, and I hope that this day, the pro-nukers will be right once more, and the safety systems will hold together once again. This is one issue to which I am not attached to being right.
But, I dread the day they (and I?) run out of luck, and safety systems are overwhelmed by multiple demands and another level of danger is added to an already dire situation. It's not if, but when.
I fear that day is approaching soon and with the suddenness of an earthquake and tsunami.
Tokyo Power is crapping their pants right now. Not because a meltdown is eminent, but because preventing a meltdown without their primary cooling systems could require them to trash their expensive core and fuel.
"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that the U.S. Air Force has provided cooling water for the troubled reactor."
She's taking orders from the "masters of the universe" who need to hijack the people's institutions (e.g. US governement) to rescue their societal control schemes gone-awry (energy sources tightly controlled by them)
Can we put to rest this line of Clinton's? Her spokesperson clearly misspoke. The only "coolant" in a reactor is water. There's no "special coolant" the U.S. could "send" them. She was probably trying to convey that we were ready to help, but this article should fix that misstatement. I asked my friends over at Nuclear Information Resources Service about that confusing statement and they concurred, the only coolant is water. They said, "What it means is that Hillary needed a technical advisor."
Perhaps Clinton, Obama, Gates, and other top-echelon members of the present maladministration could donate their blood for this purpose.
I'm certain that even a minute amount of that supercooled plasma would have the same effect on reactor mechanisms as moving them to the planet Neptune.
Here in the plume shadow of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant built on an earthquake fault, where by law nuclear plant damage is capped in California at $250,000 max per residence, the news of this massive Japanese quake isn't joke fodder.
There is enough nuclear waste standing in an open area above ground at Diablo to create a deadly bowling alley arena, even if there is no plant meltdown. But, hey, that "China Sindrome" was just a movie that had a brief notoriety and then disappeared from the shelves.
Obama, bless him, is in the pockets of the nuke industry in Illinois, New York State, and nationally, for that matter. By the way, Big Nuke got the technology paid by taxpayers who footed bill for the A-Bomb and never had a chance to make it a public property. That is always the story.
I paid for all these nuclear plants and all I got was an evacuation map and two thyroid pills in my medicine cabinet from my nuclear neighbor, Pacific Gas and Electric, which has Senator Feinstein and President Obama watching the corporate backs. The re-licensing and extension of the old technology is practically a foregone conclusion, as implied in Obama's state-of-the union message about out-competing China without making anything. Current advice from Japanese government: "Stay indoors, shut your doors and windows." Oh, yeah, also"Shut your mouths."
I heard about it this morning, too, TJ. Went to the RT news video and saw the "collapse". No doubt in my mind either (and I'm just some chick) that was a blast with resulting shockwave.
As for anyone evacuating downwind (from another poster) I would say it is already too late to leave and they, the Japanese people, should be the "sacrifical lambs" that get that thing contained, if it is still possible. That is how the Russians handled the dirty work of Chernobyl. They are dead already. Of course, the environmental contamination is spreading. Yes, it is getting diluted but that only means slow death for the rest of us rather than the quick burn of concentrated radioactive exposure.
The only "reasoning" I can see for nuclear energy is the reduction of hydrocarbons and the slowing of climate change. Otherwise, it is nasty as can be, especially when placed on tectonic plate fault lines...WTF?
MY VIEW?!?
We are toast.
Less nuclear energy=more hydraulic frascturing=more tar sand oil extraction...
Poison, death, destruction.
The only glimpse of human species survival I have is drastic reduction of population. Looks like it is on its way. Enjoy the view.
No revolution will happen on the "renewable energy front" in our nation until we who hold that nuclear reactors are intrinsically dangerous have convinced the overwhelming majority of our citizens with correct, reasonable, and rational information and arguments that this is not only the direction energy must take but that it must be done soon. Disseminating snipes and fear and calling others nuclear trolls are hallmarks of weakness.
Soon after nuclear fission was discovered eminent scientists and progressive people believed that fission-based reactors could provide all the electricity mankind would ever need. Throughout history new discoveries have always been looked for possible technological applications. The first thing we must do is stop demonizing the pro-nuclear's because they can point at France which is providing most of its electricity from nuclear without any major mishap thus far. We must admit that nuclear is potentially capable of delivering electricity to all of mankind but that the risks outweigh the benefits.
We must soon abandon the pie-in-the-sky approach of merely stating that solar and/or wind are safer than nuclear. The following is needed:
1. Estimate of the world's need for electricity for the next two generations.
2. Demonstrate quantitatively that renewable sources will absolutely be able to provide that need.
3. Rough estimate of the cost including costs for intensive research.
4. Rough time-table.
Regrettably I am not the expert who can answer any of these issues. I wish I could.
Only if we place before our nation a comprehensive plan will we ever be able to "win the hearts and minds" for renewable. At this time I observe mainly pissing at the other side which may be "feel good" but achieves nothing.
It would be interesting to review the licensing process for the nuclear plants in California. Did the Atomic Power Commission request a higher construction standard than withstanding a 7.5 earthquake? Did the owners exert any pressure to promote a lower standard? Why would there be a lower construction standard anyplace in the country than the ability to withstand a 9.0 or even a 10. standard?
A very detailed analysis of the licensing process for the Diablo Canyon reactor can be found at http://a4nr.org/?p=376