Six thousand miles away on the other side of the globe today, the brave nation of Japan struggles to overcome a catastrophe. The death toll is horrific. The damage to the infrastructure of Japan and to the Japanese economy is incalculable. I am compelled to express admiration for the level headed bravery with which the Japanese people are facing this disaster. Invariably, when a power blackout occurs in one of our largest American cities, looting also occurs. Nothing of the sort has happened in Japan. We have something to learn from the Japanese.
Meanwhile, the media machine which makes its living speculating, inflating and inflaming is finding a receptive audience among many of us already primed by apocalyptic visions of 2012 and end times expectations. This morning we will attempt to inject some fact into the hysteria. First of all, despite the frequency with which the word “meltdown” is being used in the headlines, it is highly unlikely that a large release of radiation will occur.
The power plants at Fukushima are boiling water reactors and of a completely different design than the reactor made famous in the disaster at Chernobyl. The Fukushima reactors are fueled by uranium oxide encased in zircaloy, which is an alloy of zirconium and other metals designed for its high absorption of neutrons. These encasements are the fuel rods of the reactor and they can withstand a temperature of 3992 degrees F. before melting. The fuel rods are contained in a pressure vessel made of steel. The entire assembly of reactor hardware is positioned over a thick “core catcher” of graphite and concrete and enclosed in an air-tight third containment of very thick steel. The core catcher is designed and tested to completely contain a total meltdown of the fuel rods and the pressure vessel without releasing any of the nuclear fuel into the environment.
The explosions which have happened at Fukushima were not “atomic” explosions. The nuclear material in a boiling water reactor is simply incapable of producing the kind of explosion which happens in an atomic bomb. These were hydrogen explosions most likely caused by water heated to a temperature where its molecules separate into hydrogen and oxygen – a very explosive mixture.
Radiation has certainly been released into the environment outside the reactor, but it will not pose a danger to the west coast of America as has been speculated in some attempts to sell advertisements on websites. Radioactive cesium and iodine are produced as a byproduct of the nuclear reaction inside the fuel rods. When the fuel rods begin to melt, the cesium and iodine isotopes mix with water inside the pressure vessel and will be present in small amounts in any steam vented from the pressure vessel. Radiation is also produced outside the fuel rods when neutrons produced by the nuclear reaction interact with water or air inside the pressure vessel. When steam is released from the pressure vessel to avoid rupture, it contains N-16, an isotope of Nitrogen which becomes non-radioactive in seconds, and it contains small amounts of radioactive cesium and iodine which disperse to join the background radiation we all receive daily, due mostly to above ground nuclear testing done decades ago.
We will move now from fact to interpretation. Many of us are not big fans of nuclear power. Personally, I see it as a reluctant necessity in the long transition from fossil fuels to a solar based energy infrastructure. Up front, a nuclear power plant does much less damage to the environment than even the newest coal burning power plants. In fact, Scientific American reported in 2007 that “the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.” It is the highly toxic and dangerous spent nuclear fuel that must be transported across long distances and stored for thousands of years which becomes a growing problem for a short-sighted species living on a geologically active planet.
Those of us looking for signs of the end of time will have to look elsewhere than the horrible disaster being faced by the Japanese people. More to the point, there are some for whom every disaster, every earthquake, every hurricane is a sign of impending doom; this, despite the lack of any reliable evidence that there is a definitive increase in any of the normal processes of a dynamic planet.
The thing that has changed, the essential factor in any “disaster equation,” is the number of people living on this earth. We are crowding every corner of the globe, along fault lines, in flood plains, in coastal areas susceptible to hurricanes and tsunamis. When there were fewer of us, we could choose to occupy areas less susceptible to danger. Hundreds of millions of the poor have no choice and no mobility. Those of us who do have a choice, choose for short term convenience or gratification and then act as if we have been personally offended when the earth does what it has always done.
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Updated 3/18/11:
In the four days since this was posted some new information has come to light, but the conclusion is still the same: The US has little cause for worry, even in a "worst case" scenario.
The Japanese, however, have every cause for concern: thousands of spent fuel rods stored in close proximity to partially melted cores and at risk of burning to release contaminants directly into the atmosphere - and the possibility that at least two of the thick containment walls have been cracked by multiple explosions. The fuel rods in reactor 3 also contain Plutonium, which is much more toxic than Uranium based fuel. An increasingly likely option will be to bury the plant in sand and concrete, as was done at Chernobyl. Power for pumps should be restored to at least two reactors within the next 24 hours. The situation is grave, but not desperate, and it is improving.
________________________________________________________________________
Updated 3/18/11:
In the four days since this was posted some new information has come to light, but the conclusion is still the same: The US has little cause for worry, even in a "worst case" scenario.
The Japanese, however, have every cause for concern: thousands of spent fuel rods stored in close proximity to partially melted cores and at risk of burning to release contaminants directly into the atmosphere - and the possibility that at least two of the thick containment walls have been cracked by multiple explosions. The fuel rods in reactor 3 also contain Plutonium, which is much more toxic than Uranium based fuel. An increasingly likely option will be to bury the plant in sand and concrete, as was done at Chernobyl. Power for pumps should be restored to at least two reactors within the next 24 hours. The situation is grave, but not desperate, and it is improving.
