Preview

The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident Caused Ecological Problems. Essay Example

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2025 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident Caused Ecological Problems. Essay Example
The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident caused ecological problems.

Abstract

The Fukushima nuclear accident triggered a large-scale nuclear leak, which has had an immeasurable impact on the global ecological environment. This article addresses, in depth, features of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident: during the incident, the impact of the incident, and aspects of the aftermath. Through an analysis of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident, certain referential and significant aspects of the nuclear industry are clear.

Introduction:

In a strong earthquake, which occurred on the afternoon of March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan was severely damaged; this led to a leakage of radioactive substances, causing considerable concern around the world. In recent years the promotion of a low-carbon economy has resulted in nuclear power plants being seen as one of the best producers of low-carbon energy; the accident has raised Governments’ concern. A study of the impact of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident on the surrounding environment, as well as how great significance in promoting the development of a global nuclear future. [1] 1. The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant: the whole story.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant used the early BWR (Boiling Water Reactor), the standard was low, and had technical defects; poor security was the cause of the accident. The main reason for the accident was the design of the nuclear power plant which did not take into account the double impact of a powerful earthquake and consequential tsunami. In fact, the earthquake did not completely destroy the nuclear power plant; it was the tsunami that followed that destroyed the emergency diesel generators, and caused the whole plant to lose all its internal and external AC power supply. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor used water as a coolant and moderator, but the water was boiling in the reactor and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    This nuclear disaster was a series of equipment failures – nuclear meltdowns – releases of radioactive materials at the ‘Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant’.…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 257 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first disparity between the Chernobyl and Fukushima accident is the causes. The Chernobyl accident was caused by human error in conducting the plant outside its technical specifications and failure to notify the proper authorities following the accident. Chernobyl’s power plant also had a faulty nuclear reactor design which exclude a containment structure typically found in most nuclear power plant. The two contributing factors usher the nuclear reactor to explode and failure to contain discharge of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. In contrast, the Fukushima accident precipitate due to natural disaster consist of earthquake and tsunami causing a malfunction of the plant’s cooling system. Unlike Chernobyl, Fukushima’s nuclear plant…

    • 143 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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…

    • 342 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Some disorders cause the thyroid to make more thyroid hormones than the body needs. This is called hyperthyroidism, or overactive thyroid. The most common cause of hyperthyroidism is Graves’ disease. Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disorder, in which the body 's own defense system, called the immune system, stimulates the thyroid. This causes it to make too much of the thyroid hormones. Hyperthyroidism can also be caused by thyroid nodules that prompt excess thyroid hormones to be made. A thyroid nodule is a swelling in one section of the thyroid gland. The nodule can be solid or filled with fluid or blood. You can have just one thyroid nodule or many. Most thyroid nodules do not cause symptoms. But some thyroid nodules make too much of the thyroid hormones, causing hyperthyroidism. Sometimes, nodules get to be big enough to cause problems with swallowing or breathing. In fewer than 10 percent of cases, thyroid nodules are cancerous. Thyroid nodules are quite common. By the time you reach the age of 50, you have a 50 percent chance of having a thyroid nodule larger than a half inch wide.…

    • 1646 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many people around the world ask themselves what are the disadvantages of adopting an alternative solution to solve the consumption of global nuclear energy? Based on what we have experienced through events with major disasters and the aftermath of many casualties, it has summed up to result in having failures outgrowing expectations. Therefore, global nuclear power usage is to be opposed due to the fact that it comes with high financial costs, nuclear waste management complications, and the fact that thousands in populations are mass numbers of casualties.…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Hypothyroidism

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages

    When earthquakes damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in March 2011, a large quantity of radioactive caesium-137 and iodine-131 were released into the water supply. The Japanese government was accused of responding too slowly, and for not administering iodide prophylaxis to the exposed population.…

    • 605 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    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.…

    • 1138 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nuclear power does not put out green house gasses, nuclear power does not pollute our water, and unlike some people believe nuclear power does not release toxic gasses into the air. Some people believe that it produces toxic gases into the air because they see the white clouds that come out of the top of the power plant cooling towers, but in fact those white clouds are actually just the water vapor that has been used to cool the systems, it is not toxic and therefore does not pollute the air. Nuclear energy uses either plutonium or uranium, depending on the type of the reactor. Nuclear reactors produce less waste than any other type of energy source. One pound of plutonium can produce the same amount of energy as 50,000 barrels of oil. The number of deaths caused by coal powered plants is about 24,000 a year. There were only 56 direct deaths caused by the Chernobyl reactor meltdown. Fukushima had no direct deaths, and the only other reported deaths were of the 3 men who were testing a portable reactor in Arco, Idaho. Arco was also the very first city in the world to be powered by nuclear…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    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…

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nuclear power’s bad reputation has come about due to the accident at nuclear plants such as Chernobyl in Ukraine, Fukushima in Japan and Three Mile Island in the USA. Chernobyl was one of the only ones out of three that has been classified as a “major accident” by The International Atomic Energy Agency; the other was the accident at Fukushima. The reason the Chernobyl accident was considered a “major accident”, was due to the emergency shutdown failing, with a full melt down being achieved. This area is not able to be populated ever again due to the extreme…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    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…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    As the severity of the global warming threat attains universal recognition, the United States must look for ways to decrease its reliance on fossil fuels for electricity production. The combustion of fossil fuels such as oil and coal to generate electricity produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that lead to a variety of environmental problems. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is a comparatively clean source of energy. Though still widely employed, concerns over security of stored waste and a public distrust of reactor safety—fueled by the incidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, and the paranoia behind the sensational but popular film The China Syndrome—have led to calls for the decommissioning of older plants in current operation. However, it makes little sense, economically and in terms of energy capacity, to decommission plants currently in operation. Conversely, the environmental superiority of renewable sources of energy, the problem of storage of nuclear-waste, nuclear energy’s risks and dangers, and the high expense of nuclear power due to high construction costs and enormous funding for incremental research make the construction of new nuclear power plants an impractical means of decreasing the United States’ reliance on fossil fuels for electricity.…

    • 2071 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

    • 42906 Words
    • 172 Pages

    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…

    • 42906 Words
    • 172 Pages
    Powerful Essays