This nuclear disaster was a series of equipment failures – nuclear meltdowns – releases of radioactive materials at the ‘Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant’.…
Eugene Robinson, author of “No Fail-Safe Option”, writes during the recent destruction of the Fukushima power plant, cautioning the use of nuclear power, and touching on the Chernobyl incident. He claims that the idea of nuclear energy, in spite of its benefits, is not worth the destruction and damage it could potentially cause.…
In Eugene Robinson’s article, “No Fail-Safe Option,” he addresses that nuclear power is beginning to look like a “bargain with the devil” (Robinson 226). Robinson, a journalist for The Washington Post, aims his article at the Chernobyl disaster and the unlikeliness of the Fukushima crisis ending with the same result. Even though Japanese engineers struggle to keep the catastrophe from escalating even higher, Robinson says we cannot ignore the fact that nuclear fission is “inherently and uniquely toxic technology” (226). He points out that the “most powerful earthquake in Japan’s recorded history” began a declining chain of events, starting with system…
The major difference is the difference of both reactor types. In Chernobyl disaster, the atomic pile caught fire. These atomic piles were created using graphite blocks for moderators. In this case, explosion was a disaster that resulted from the burned core of massive clouds of highly reactive fission by-products. This disaster caused to evacuate the nearby areas as a ghost town. There were many fatalities in Chernobyl accident.…
Last but not the least; nuclear power is hard to control when the accident happen. On the one hand, nuclear leakage, the highly radioactive material leaked. The radioactive material release to the air, soil and water, and attached to food. When people touch or eat these material, will have high rate get cancer. One the other hand, nuclear proliferation, radioactive dust will follow the wind to spread to the entire region. For…
On March 11, 2011, a tragedy struck Japan that will never be forgotten. Ocean ridges and mountain ranges below the surface of the ocean caused the waves created by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan. These two factors together caused a deathly Tsunami that Japan is still struggling to recover from. The earthquake and tsunami together killed 15,840 people and set off a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Six million households, more than 10% of the total in Japan, were without electricity. In Tokyo, rail service was suspended overnight, elevated highways were shut down and streets remained jammed as commuters who spent the night in shelters fought to get to their homes. To make matters worse, the terrifying natural disaster had sparked a human-caused crisis, as radiation leaks from crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Three of the plant 's six reactors overheated and their fuel melted down causing hydrogen explosions to blow the tops off three reactor buildings, which lead to a major leak of radiation at levels not seen since Chernobyl in 1986. The authorities hugely underestimated the risks tsunamis posted to the plant. Tokyo Electric had assumed that no wave would reach more than about 20 feet, but little did they know the tsunami would hit more than twice that height. Also, the workers left at Fukushima Daiichi had not been trained to handle multiple failures, causing them to panic. A communication breakdown meant that workers at the plant had no clear sense of what was happening (Tabuchi web). Japan had been scanning for radiation exposure by medical teams because of the risk when radioactive iodine enters the body and settle in the thyroid. Children are especially vulnerable. Thousands of citizens were forced into radiation screenings before they could get help at a shelter or even return to their homes. The Japan tsunami crisis not only destroyed one of Japan’s…
The Great East Japan Earthquake happened on March 11th, 2011. At the same time the Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant lost its emergency power. The earthquake and tsunami were natural disasters, but the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant can be considered as a man-made catastrophe. Thousands of evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture have been in chaos, not knowing when they can go back to the home and live there without fear of radiation exposure. After March 11th, many of them sued the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to the court, and more than 20 lawsuits have been filed. Evacuees from Fukushima ask them. “Are we, Japanese peoples ?”. The nuclear accident in Fukushima is human rights…
Over centuries humans have always continued to try and find new ways of converting one form of energy into one which humans can manipulate for their own use. One of the most recent forms of converting energy, which is gaining in popularity is nuclear energy. With 14 percent of the world using it today it is a viable alternative to burning fossil fuels. To give you a basic idea on how the process of converting energy works according to the Canadian Nuclear Association is as basic as, “splitting the uranium atom to generate the heat that is used to produce steam for the production of electricity”(www.cna.ca). However things do not always run so smoothly, and the leakage of the nuclear material could have devastating consequences to both the land and its inhabitants. One of the bigger well know events of this nature, came from the power plant Chernobyl. To put simply it is a plant that exploded releasing nuclear waste into the atmosphere. Although this is detrimental to the environment the significance behind this event is because of this accident, we have now learned from our mistakes and are taking more precautions so that history is not repeated. I will prove that history will not be repeated through some background knowledge of the plant, what happened during the meltdown and how it effected the land and inhabitants, and finally what insight we have gained from this event and its significance to history.…
Through the nuclear timeline there has been dozens of accidents that have cost several innocent lives. With examples such as the Chernobyl incident in 1986 that affected nearly five hundred…
On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake triggered an extremely severe nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, owned and operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). Before the accident, several experts and researchers had repeatedly pointed out the high possibility of tsunami levels reaching beyond the assumptions of TEPCO, as well as the possibility of severe accident in the case of such a tsunami, however TEPCO and the regulatory bodies (NISA) overlooked these warnings and did not take preventive measures against tsunami. Consequently, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was incapable of withstanding the tsunami that hit on that day. Because of these facts, the accident is regarded as man-made…
Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March of 1979, a reactor malfunction resulted in the release of radioactive material into the atmosphere. The automatic release valve malfunctioned, which prevented water from entering the system and cooling the reactor core. This incident is considered the worst disaster in U.S. nuclear history (Gale). However, from this incident we learned more about how reactors work, the environmental impact, and the health consequences of radiation exposure.…
Many disasters have occurred involving nuclear energy, the two most publicly known ones are the disasters in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan in 2011. The…
In March 2011, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake hit the pacific coast of Japan, generating up to 133ft tall tsunami waves, which obliterated everything up to 6 mi. inland. According to the NPA (National Police Agency) of Japan, 24, 656 people were affected by this catastrophe, which include the deceased, injured, and missing. The tsunami also affected three of the six nuclear reactors of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant causing leakage of radioactive material. Many workers and even civilians worked hard to contain the harmful material for it to stop contamination in other areas, but it already spread. A The Associated Press news writer states, “The massive amount of radioactive water is among the most pressing…
Civil Engineers build significant structures that can last more than a century, some of these structures such as Burj Khalifa, pyramids and evil towers in France can be considered as landmarks, because of its history and its beauty of design. Civil Engineers study the four factors of building structures to determine which tools and materials they will use in order to build permanent structures. Although engineers studying the factors and take the determination, there is some disasters occurred in many places because of many reasons. Nick Spurrier said “There will always be failures or disasters as engineers and designers push the boundaries by building taller buildings, longer bridges, or by reaching further into space”. In this outline I will show some of engineering disasters that happened before and what are the reasons.…
A First-Hand Account of Japan's Nuclear Crisis Katsumi Furitsu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 Young doctors speak out on the Fukushima disaster . . . . . . . . . . .40 Japan’s Nuclear Nightmare Ronald McCoy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 “A terribly difficult situation with a lot of uncertainties”: PSR Press Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 What may we learn from Fukushima? Frank Boulton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Radiation in medicine and in nuclear power plants: the same but very different Andreas Nidecker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 Children, Teens and the Japan Disaster Harry Wang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63…