Decoding Japan's Nuclear Crisis: What You Need to Know Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

The situation is constantly changing.  IAEA Director General Amano cautioned earlier today, “It is very important to bear in mind that we are dealing with a situation that is constantly developing.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists is posting smart, timely updates on their blog, All Things Nuclear.

Blogs of War has a nuclear crisis monitor that streams the latest tweets on #Fukushima
#Radiation #Nuclear #TEPCO and #IAEA.

It’s bad, but it’s no Chernobyl.  David Hoffman points out, “The terrible sequence of events in Japan — massive earthquake, and then a tsunami — make the nuclear crisis different from Chernobyl in 1986. The Chernobyl accident was not a consequence of a natural disaster, but happened at the hands of people. The design of the reactor was such that it lacked a protective containment; once it exploded, radioactive debris was ejected into the air. So far, at least, the Japan nuclear crisis does not appear to have reached this level of danger.”

Sharon Squassoni at CSIS also breaks it down: “This is not a Chernobyl. The International Atomic Energy Agency has rated Japan’s nuclear emergency “4” on the International Nuclear Events Scale (INES), which runs from 1 to 7. Three Mile Island was rated a 5; Chernobyl was rated a 7. Chernobyl has been the most severe accident yet. The nuclear chain reaction there could not be controlled for a variety of reasons (including the reactor’s design), and the lack of a containment structure around the reactor meant widespread radioactive contamination. The situation in Japan is much more like Three Mile Island, where a partial core meltdown occurred because of loss of coolant.” [For what it’s worth, the French are now suggesting that the Japan crisis might be a five or six. Again, this is a fluid situation.] 

Christine Russell explores the Three Mile Island comparison here.

Don’t know your cooling system from your containment vessel?  For those who don’t speak wonk, read this overview on Nuclear Energy 101. 

Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund has also been dominating the airwaves and doing a great job of explaining the metrics of a meltdown.

Jeffrey Lewis has a good overview of the latest IAEA report, which he may or may not have written while wearing pants.

Carnegie’s James Acton has also made the rounds and is surprisingly easy to understand, especially for a physicist.   

Harvard's Matt Bunn lays out six take-aways for lessons learned so far.

The experts have you covered. The conversation will inevitably turn to what the Japan crisis means for nuclear power writ large.  There is a lot of good information on the pros and cons of nuclear power.  Here are a few of the best:

Sharon Squassoni’s report on the so-called “nuclear renaissance” continues to be one of the best reports on the risks and questions associated with nuclear power.

CFR’s Nuclear Energy Guide has everything you need to know—and much more—about nuclear power. 

Charles Ferguson looks at where Japan might go from here.

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Let's not forget that of the reactors at Fukushima Daichi-I the oldest was commissioned in 1970 (40 years ago!), and was planned for decommissioning this year anyway - hence the willingness to write off the reactor by circulating seawater and boric acid (neutron poison). So these reactors have worked without serious incident for nearly 4 decades!

According to Wikipedia, Unit 1 (the most seriously damaged, it appears) was designed to withstand 0.18g of peak ground acceleration. As it happens, this correlates to something like a 9.2 magnitude earthquake, giving enough tolerance to protect the integrity of the reactor in this case. Of course the logarithmic nature of the scale means that a 9.2 quake is significantly more powerful than the 8.9 quake in Japan.

For example, the quake which triggered the 2004 Tsunami that devastated Sumatra was a 9.2 magnitude quake, and this means it had roughly 4 times the energy of the earthquake in Japan.

This suggests to me that the Japanese government used laudable caution in their design and construction.

In any case, Fukushima-Daichi I's Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) were planned to be replaced by a newer Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) design with enhanced safety features.

This article does raise a number of important questions though: should Japan have more electricity production contingencies for the temporary periods in which nuclear stations must be checked and restarted after emergency SCRAMing (which could be filled partially by renewable energy)?

Elsewhere it has been questioned whether placing such a large and concentrated facility on the east coast of Japan was such a wise idea, considering its greater vulnerability to extreme tectonic activity.

I would say that the communication from the government has been hazy and sometimes conflicting (not laudable), which means that the abundance of caution so far can be misinterpreted as a panicked response by those with an axe to grind.

As far as we know the reactor has been SCRAMed (i.e. shut down) successfully, and therefore the temperature in the reactor is slowly falling. There is evidence of partial melt-down (caesium traces), but the container vessel has not been compromised (although the reactor hall was destroyed by a hydrogen explosion).

I understand fears that the Japanese government will attempt to downplay the risks here, especially in the wake of huge a natural disaster, but it is also important not to get too carried away. Or for Friends of the Earth types to take advantage of this extreme case to bash nuclear energy generally.

If a nuclear reactor can be shown to withstand such extreme conditions with only minor localised radiation and containment, then this should reinforce confidence in safe nuclear power in slightly less volatile regions! (I live next to two nuclear reactors, so I promise i'm no NIMBY).

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