Schools such as this one in Fukushima City are a high priority for clean-up efforts
Image: REUTERS/N. HAYASHI/GREENPEACE
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Tatsuhiko Kodama began his 27 July testimony to Japan's parliament with what he knew. In a firm, clear voice, he said that the Radioisotope Center of the University of Tokyo, which he heads, had detected elevated radiation levels in the days following the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. But when it came to what wasn't known, he became angry. "There is no definite report from the Tokyo Electric Power Company or the government as to exactly how much radioactive material has been released from Fukushima!" he shouted.
Kodama's impassioned speech was posted on YouTube in late July and has received nearly 600,000 views, transforming him into one of Japan's most visible critics of the government. But he is not alone. Almost six months after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the meltdowns, other researchers say that crucial data for understanding the crisis are still missing, and funding snags and bureaucracy are hampering efforts to collect more. Some researchers warn that, without better coordination, clean-up efforts will be delayed, and the opportunity to measure the effects of the worst nuclear accident in decades could be lost. Kodama and a handful of Japanese scientists have become so frustrated that they are beginning grassroots campaigns to collect information and speed the clean-up.
Since the crisis began, the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japanese government have churned out reams of radiation measurements, but only recently has a full picture of Fukushima's fallout begun to emerge. On 30 August, the science ministry released a map showing contamination over a 100-kilometer radius around the plant. The survey of 2,200 locations shows a roughly 35-kilometer-long strip northwest of the plant where levels of caesium-137 contamination seem to exceed 1,000 kilobecquerels per square metre. (After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, areas with more than 1,480 kilobecquerels per square metre were permanently evacuated by the Soviet authorities. In Japan, the high-radiation strip extends beyond the original forced evacuation zone, but falls within a larger 'planned evacuation zone' that has not yet been completely cleared.)
Exposure estimates
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has also published new estimates of the total radiation released in the accident, based on models that combine measurements with what is known about the damage to the reactors. The latest figures, reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency in June, suggest that the total airborne release of caesium-137 amounts to 17% of the release from Chernobyl (see map). The government estimates that the total radiation released is 7.7 × 1017 becquerels, 5–6% of the total from Chernobyl.
Yet "there are still more questions than definite answers", says Gerald Kirchner, a physicist at Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection in Berlin. High radiation levels make it impossible to directly measure damage to the melted reactor cores. Perhaps the greatest uncertainty is exactly how much radiation was released in the first ten days after the accident, when power outages hampered measurements. Those data, combined with meteorological information, would allow scientists to model the plume and make better predictions about human exposure, Kirchner says.
Several measurements suggest that some evacuees received an unusually high dose. Five days after the crisis began, Shinji Tokonami, a radiation health expert at Hirosaki University, and his colleagues drove several hundred kilometres from Hirosaki to Fukushima City, taking radiation measurements along the way. The results indicate that evacuees from Namie, a town some 9 kilometres north of the plant, received at least 68 millisieverts of radiation as they fled, more than three times the government's annual limit (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep00087).
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24 Comments
Add CommentWere these reactors housed in any kind of containment structure?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep, luckily, the containment structure probably wasn't damaged in the hydrogen explosions caused by the overheating reactors, but the used fuel pools probably were. The fear now is that some of the reactors have already melted down through the floor of the containment structure or are in the process of slowly melting through right now. Since the radiation levels are so high in the reactor buildings, it's difficult to tell what is going on in there exactly. The continued emission of radioactive particles after the hydrogen explosions HAS to be coming from some kind of breach in the spent fuel pools or a few of the reactor containment structures.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only thing that scares me more than the health effects and cost of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster is that China is building 50 - 60 cheap knock-offs of this SAME reactor design. If the Japanese had a disaster of this magnitude, I don't even want to know what a Chinese nuclear disaster would look like given their much lower safety standards and regard for human life.
Sault is one the worst examples of the low information greenie. Knows nothing but loves to spew.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe current main Chinese reactor the CP-1000 is a pressured water reactor based on a modernized seventies design French reactor. The Fukushima units were ancient fifties design GE boiling water units destroyed by corrupt officials allowing inadequate protection to backup power.
The only thing in common is that both use nuke power.The Chinese are now building advanced GenIII+ units EPR and AP-1000 and are incorporating safety design features in new units.
Not a single person died from the Fukushima reactor accident while thousands died in natural gas and refinery fires and dam bursts. The forever toxic pollution emitted by the refinery fire will kill thousands.
Folks in Ramsar,Iran have peak yearly doses of 260 mSv far higher than anything outside the Fukushima plant itself but have a lower incidence of cancer than average. Other studies have found the same results in folks that lived in radiation environments as high as 900 mSV per annum. The US average is under 3.
Obviously, the message of Tatsuhiko Kodama is difficulty in quantifying the extent of radiation and its impact due to the natural migration of water and air emissions - closing the barn door after the horses are gone. The other clear message is the slow response or the desire for conservative assessment of the mass balance and accounting for material loss. It makes one wonder if this is corporate defensive behavior or an attempt at empirical understanding of what really happened.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those familiar with environmental issues, physics has a way of prevailing in the long run, and there are clear ways to gain a suitable assessment. Attempting exaggerate or understate the mass lost to the environment or the long term impact is fodder for media.
However, frustration at how information is slow in being released is likely warranted.
Regardless, this event has changed how the world views this technology and how difficult it is to give any credence to assessments at this early date. It was and remains a serious problem, and despite the protests of these units being antique, something similar could happen again.
The CPR1000 is still a GenII(+?) reactor just like the units at Fukushima. It doesn't have all the safety features that Gen III, III+ and IV have since those are more expensive. They are transitioning to building a few AP1000s, but the majority under construction right now are CPR1000. The safety features that the CPR1000 lacks include some technologies that could have prevented the Fukushima multiple meltdown disaster. Let's just hope the Chinese don't cut corners on these reactors like they're prone to do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are many incorrect information in this report, but the one which really cannot be accepted is that "...only recently has a full picture of Fukushima's fallout begun to emerge. On 30 August, the science ministry released a map...", suggesting once again that only at the end August information on the radiation levels in large areas were released. There have been an enormous amount of data released about the radiation situation in Fukushima and all over Japan. One could simply look up at the MEXT website and find, for example, the results of monitoring (performed jointly with DOE), released on 6 May. But there are a lot of data which were available much earlier the that. If one would bother to look up for information, perhaps one could find some.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNonsense, it would have been very easy to prevent the accident at Fukushima Diachi to the 3 BWR's, even some of the original designers, way back in the 50's, said they should have had steam (from the BWR core) powered emergency pumps, and common practice in the USA is to have H2 ignitors and automatic venting to prevent H2 buildup. The idiotic Japanese regulator wouldn't let them vent the H2 without going through electric powered scrubbers to remove any radioisotopes, so they just let it build up. Simpleminded spark ignitors, would have ignited even low levels of H2 as they formed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd since they thought designing for a 500 yr tsunami was unnecessary, they didn't bother locating their Diesel Generators, fuel and all electrical switchgear well above the 500 yr event. Very simple, cheap modifications that could've been made, and still could to any BWR/PWR that doesn't already have them. Virtually all do - nowadays. The rest can easily add those features.
And 800 workers at the coastal Nuclear Power plants lives were saved by being in the plants at the time of the earthquake & tsunami. If they had been in a NG power plant, in the same area, they would have been washed away & killed or burnt to death.
Note that the GenII Candu's are walkaway stable. Pull all the power, electromagnets release control rods which drop into the core, stopping criticality. Natural heat convection is sufficient to maintain coolant and heat loss from core decay, indefinitely.
Funny how everyone dumps on TEPCO for not planning for the 500 yr tsunami, with the Diachii reactors(though the newer Diannii reactors withstood higher tsunami waves) - but NOBODY, not sault, not the idiotic Japanese PM, not any of the press, not EVEN ONE GREENPEACE Type, cares two cents about how the Japanese Emergency Management Agency ALSO didn't prepare for the 500 yr tsunami. So about 15,000 - that's 15 THOUSAND PERSONS DIED NEEDLESSLY when they went to Tsunami Safe Zones - that were NOT SUFFICIENTLY HIGH. And in Western USA and Canada, NOBODY is significantly preparing for the 500 yr Cascadia Zone 9.5 earthquake/tsunami/volcanic eruptions that will make the Japanese one look like a bad rainy day.
The real story on the Fukushima Nuclear cleanup:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/24/987836/-Were-the-Japanese-Engineers-Who-Built-Fukushima-Incompetent
What I have trouble with is the fact that the Japanese government and TEPCO are still being accepted by organizations like Scientific American as unquestioned authorities. They have already admitted to a tremendous string of lies. Remember in the first days of the crisis, as the nuke plants were exploding, they had the bald faced audacity to claim that "no radiation has been released" and that the containment structures were still working.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey have also now admitted that, even as they were painting a picture of heroic workers "frantically working to prevent a melt down," they already knew that full "melt throughs" or China-syndrome style melt downs had already occurred.
Too much of the press and media, like Scientific American, are simply accepting the Japanese government and TEPCO at their words, buying wholesale the idea, "OK, we were lying to you before, but now we're telling the truth." The real truth is that they are still lying about the situation every day, and only admitting to their lies after they have been proven wrong by groups like Greenpeace or the network of private citizens who have been monitoring radiation all around Japan.
This article should have been accompanied by a chronological list of the lies we have been told and a disclaimer that Scientific American had not verified any of TEPCO or the Japanese government's claims.
Japan is the nuclear country least likely to develop nuclear weapons, yet still the civil technology is clouded in secrecy. This points to the fatal weakness of nuclear power. The lies and secrecy surrounding it means it will never be trusted and never be safe. This will slow its deployment so much that it won't be a suitable solution to climate change and investment in renewable power will have to step up to fill this gap.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeans no such thing. Safest and cheapest form of power there is. Not a person killed in its 60 year history.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt must be really hard for not so renewable proponents who seem to revere James Hansen as the world's foremost environmental scientist, founder of 350.org, arrestee at the White House tar sands protests and Greenie Superstar but don't seem to listen when he tells them to get off the Green Koolaid - that Clean and green zero environmental footprint nuclear at 3 cents a kwh is our only in time economically possible solution - that we don't have forever to wait for silly not so renewable energy scams.
Greenie global warming Deniers like Justine, Suzuki and Andrew here don't seem to believe Hansen when he tells them that science is showing we could hit a civilization ending climate crisis within the decade.
Here's Greenie Superstar James Hansen setting the record straight for those who think we have forever to wait for silly wind/solar energy scams to actually work aka drinking the green koolaid..
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/05/hansen-energy-kool-aid/#more-4888
James Hansen was the originator of the Gaia hypothesis, a nice theory, but 350.org was founded by Bill McKibben.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is interesting that renewables are already receiving more investment and putting on more capacity than nuclear power in the last few years. I am not sure what 3c/kw excludes, but that won't pay for the clean up in Fukushima let alone the exclusion zones and economic and social disruption. If you or James Hansen can convince either Japanese or Americans to invest in nuclear power, good luck. In the mean time, yes a civilisation defining crisis will be upon us. Take another look at the smart grid and maybe renewables are not so silly after all.
Being exposed to ambient radiation is a completely different animal then inhaling and ingesting radioactive particles. I think. If true then using comparative exposures to infer safety for individuals exposed to ambient verses internal radiation sources is an inappropriate comparison.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're missing the point. Whatever the case, three nuclear reactors melted down and now we have massive releases of radiation. Even if this disaster COULD have been easily prevented, it WASN'T. This is compounded by the fact that the Chinese value safety much less than the Japanese and their safety precautions will have NOWHERE near the effectiveness of even Japan's failed reactor safety protocol. AND don't forget that the CPR1000 reactor that makes up the majority of Chinese reactor construction is still GENII technology AND the "made in China" label doesn't foster a lot of confidence in the quality of an item's design or assembly if you know what I mean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Not a person killed in its 60 year history."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWRONG! Since we're still piling up the bodycount from Chernobyl, this is just blatant ignorance of reality.
"Safest and cheapest form of power there is."
I've seen so many divergent figures for the cost of nuclear power that I'm just a little skeptical about this "too cheap to meter" claim.
sethdayal writes like a nuke salesman, sidestepping reality in favor of profit. So is Obama, who's been funded by the Exelor corporation all along. He's a shill. His declaration that people in the weather-paths of Fukushima don't need iodine may wind up killing quite a few. But that's what Exelor has been paying him to do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm no nuke expert. I'm lucky to have a brother who is -- 30 years of it, the developer of the silicone stuff that effectively neutralizes low-level wastes. His recognition of the situation from the moment the first reactor popped its cork has matched all the news that our various medias have dragged their feet to admit all along. We're in deeper trouble than this article, with its overly smooth-browed approach, admits.
The bickering about the Chinese reactors going up is academic and stupid. We're dealing with an immense dishonesty here, warnings going unheeded, and discouraged by cheap shills sidestepping the reality of the matter.
All I'm trying to say is that if Japan's nuclear safety protocols utterly failed, then it's a good bet that China's will as well over the 60 - 80 year lifespan of these plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an aside, if you look at the funds President Obama has received over his career, Exelor (or are you trying to say Exelon?) is a small contributor to his campaigns. The only reason he wants to expand nuclear power is bacause that's the only way to get even just a few Republicans to agree to support clean energy as well.
This "cheap, safe, nobody has died" crap is redacted propaganda from the nuclear industry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStart adding up the cost of the Fukushima clean up and one quickly realizes nuclear power is the most expensive energy there is. The radiation released will be killing and deforming babies for the next 4 billion plus years. Ask the deformed baby's mother a million years from now, (if we don't go extinct from this cheap energy) if she thinks nuclear power is cheap.
"Atoms for Peace," what a sick joke coming our way.
The people studied in A CITY in northern Iran were no doubt people whose families had lived in that area for generations. Thus, they would have developed biological tolerances for radiation that would have been transmitted epigenetically, across generations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese Iranian people who had been epigenetically prompted to have higher levels of cell repair or immunity to radiological damage, these people are NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NORMAL POPULATION.
The average, normal person lives under conditions of normal radiation and therefore would be extremely vulnerable if suddenly exposed to a significantly higher level of "background" ionizing radiation.
Now let us turn to Fukushima: By June, radioactive contamination could be detected in the urine of residents still living within the Fukushima prefecture, ranging and residents were still living in Fukushima City despite spreading soil contamination and readings far exceeding levels used by the Soviets to mandate compulsory resettlements after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The children of Fukushima prefecture have in fact been poisoned. The tragically named Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation took samples from 10 elementary through high-school children. Analysis ran by an independent French research organization detected cesium-134, of up to 1.13 becquerels per liter in their urine. The un-named organization stated that children living 60 kilometers from the plan suffer from internal radiation exposure.
“Fukushima Residents' Urine Now Radioactive,” Japan Times (2011, June 27): http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110627a2.html.
“Japan Groups Alarmed By Radioactive Soil,” AFP (2011, June 5): http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ivr747xKaxw9RGq5zMSDO-On_WRQ?docId=CNG.62875ee35cc28aa30725ee1bfd4cfbde.111.
“Radiation Detected in Fukushima Children’s Urine,” NHK (2011, June 30): http://www3nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_35.html.
further reading
YABLOKOV, Alexey, V.,NESTERENKO Vassily B., & NESTERENKO, Alexey V. (20). Chernobyl: consequences of the catasthrope for the people and the environment. http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf
Effects of the Chernobyl Catastrophe-Literature Review-
Alex Rosen Heinrich-Heine University
Düsseldorf, Germany
January of 2006
http://www.ippnw.org/pdf/chernobyl-lit-review-effects-of.pdf
http://rense.gsradio.net:8080/rense/special/rense_Shimatsu_090511.mp3
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA great report from someone in the know.
They lost Honshu. The die off has started and will only get worse as time goes by. They are the new guinea pigs and they know it. They are also kamikaze, and they are burning their radioactive waste to take out as many of us as possible. They want to share their blessings.
In Japan, as in other countries, there is a logical chain of "cause - result". There is an analysis of the causes and consequences (results) for different countries. Portions of analysts are published online in blogs of konsyltacii.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDears!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy did not you notice the most important thing?
Dangerous object - the atomic power station "Fukushima-1" - was built in the wrong place.
Possible consequences of the nuclear power plant construction in this area could have been foreseen before the construction of a nuclear power plant "Fukushima-1".
NPP "Fukushima-1" is located on the outer side of the island of Honshu. Outer side of the island of Honshu is more susceptible to the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis, than the inner side of the island, which is directed towards the mainland. Furthermore, among the 6852 islands the Japanese archipelago is a place that is more safer for the construction of such dangerous objects. Prior to the accident at the nuclear power plant "Fukushima-1" 54 nuclear reactors in Japan generated up to 30% of the country's electricity. Now in Japan works about 12 nuclear reactors of the existing 54.
In addition, Japan may have a variant of the supply of electricity without the risk of global catastrophe and more environmentally acceptable. Because the earthquake and tsunami in Japan can be repeated.
What thinks about this occasion the Japanese government?
Japan is the nuclear country least likely to develop nuclear weapons, yet still the civil technology is clouded in secrecy. This points to the fatal weakness of nuclear power. The lies and secrecy surrounding it means it will never be trusted and never be safe. This will slow its deployment so much that it won't be a suitable solution to climate change and investment in renewable power will have to step up to fill this gap.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear energy is safe in the hands of countries like Japan. But what about North Korea and the bad guys like Syria?
Question:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAround 1988 the Oyster Creek nuclear plant which is basically very similar to the GE plant at Fukushima had a ESSF project to add an Expanded Safety System Facilty. This would have added a higher level of safety. Originally many thought this was required to update this plant to make it more current. That plant dod not have the siemically designed ductwork that supplied the control room like the later plants being constructed in the 80's. Interesting that just before construction started the NRC released the operating utility from the need to add the ESSF. Does anyone know why and has it ever been added. The project had a lot of new safety designs on the electical side also and seemed like a good idea. Category I was a big deal in the 80's but the older plants lacked the newer CAT I designs for HVAC system , etc that were very important to the overall operation of the plant during certian events. Just wondering why these were not incorporated on " Fail Safe Systems" that should be at the core of this industry ???
Imreally interested in where you Nuke Lovers get your info?Try reading the Nuke Industries own Rag sheet-even they cant keep a straight face blowing their BS out of their &^%$# and they admit quit a few deaths related to exploding reactor in Chernobyl and thousands of children with Thyroid cancers directly caused it.So...http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/features/chernobyl-15/cherno-faq.shtml
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