Like almost everyone reading this, I lack any qualifications to suggest the implications of the meltdown(s) occurring in Japan. Experience has taught me, however, that promises by experts have never saved a life. We will learn the significance of these events, whether they be dire or demonstrative proof that the nuclear energy industry has advanced to the stage where we need no longer fear catastrophe.
From Morgsatlarge, via David Kopel at VC, a letter by Dr Josef Oehmen, a research scientist at MIT, in Boston. He is a PhD Scientist, whose father has extensive experience in Germany’s nuclear industry.
He has a German name, hangs at MIT and his father has “extensive experience” with nuclear energy. Maybe his dead on accurate, but maybe not. If people die of radiation sickness, what difference will it make what was said by those who are reassuring us that it can’t happen.I am writing this text (Mar 12) to give you some peace of mind regarding some of the troubles in Japan, that is the safety of Japan’s nuclear reactors. Up front, the situation is serious, but under control. And this text is long! But you will know more about nuclear power plants after reading it than all journalists on this planet put together.
There was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity.
By “significant” I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on – say – a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation.
I have been reading every news release on the incident since the earthquake. There has not been one single (!) report that was accurate and free of errors (and part of that problem is also a weakness in the Japanese crisis communication).
Dr. Oehmen goes on to explain at length the redundant systems designed to prevent the escape of significant levels of radioactivity. I have no reason to doubt him, and certainly basis to challenge him. Indeed, I know engineers who work in the design to nuclear plants, and I’ve heard them explain, often at greater length than anyone wants, why nuclear power is safe.
Some questioned the “big deal,” given how many died from the quake/tsunami, that there might be some potential exposure to radiation from the meltdown(s). While it superficially seems like mixing apples and Chevys, since we cannot control natural disasters but have complete control over the construction of power plants that can wreak havoc, there is a connection between the things that will cause a nuclear meltdown, such as the quake, and the resultant problems with man-made creations. In other words, if nuclear power plants are safe except when a natural disaster strikes, then the correlation between the extent of damage and suffering caused the by the natural disaster, and the contribution to that damage and suffering from nuclear power, bears some connection.
Yet that ignores that death and destruction is individual, not collective. So if 1000 lives are lost because of the tsunami, is it statistically significant that 1100 lives are lost because of a tsunami plus nuclear meltdown? Certainly to those additional 100 people and their families, it matters. Whether it matters to society on a cost/benefit basis is another matter, but then it’s impossible to say without society being fully informed of the cost and making the decision that its prepared to lose those lives in order to have nuclear energy.
It’s my hope that those who assure us that there will be no harm from nuclear radiation are right. Certainly, we can use as many, and as much, energy as possible. To all those who love their shiny techy gadgets, they don’t charge up on passion. Perhaps the outcome of this disaster will be to learn to improve on things that went wrong, systems that failed. Perhaps the outcome of this disaster will be to confirm that even when things go wrong, these nuclear power plants have been so carefully engineered that they are every bit as safe as claimed.
But then, beliefs in the promise of science and safety have been certain before, and ultimately proven wrong. Afterward, everybody says how obvious is was that the work was shoddy, the systems inadequate, the science lacking. It’s always afterward that everybody knows better. And so, consider this film, via Turley, by Vladimir Shevchenko who died shortly after visiting Chernobyl.
One way of the other, we will learn whether the assurances that no harm will come from the damaged plants or that they are the next Chernobyl, or somewhere in between, are correct. But history has shown that assurances, no matter how detailed, official and qualified, won’t save anyone from dying.
The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan was about 100 miles offshore when it detected the radiation from the Japanese meltdown. As its namesake said, “trust, but verify.” His scriptwriter was a wise person.
Update: Yesterday, those knowledgeable about nuclear engineering were relatively optimistic about there being no material risk. A mere 24 hours, and a second explosion, later, are you still so confident?
Update 2: Via CNN :
The explosion Tuesday at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has elevated the situation there to a “serious accident” on a level just below Chernobyl, a French nuclear official said, referring to an international scale that rates the severity of such incidents.The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale — or INES — goes from Level 1, which indicates very little danger to the general population, to Level 7, a “major accident” in which there’s been a large release of radioactive material and there will be widespread health and environmental effects.
“It’s clear we are at Level 6, that’s to say we’re at a level in between what happened at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl,” Andre-Claude Lacoste, president of France’s nuclear safety authority, told reporters Tuesday.
A Level 6 seems a pretty major to me. Are we still happy because it could have been worse?
When the experts tell me everything is under control and there’s no need to worry, my worry increases exponentially.
But that’s just cynical old me.
Me too. I have almost a knee-jerk reaction to go the opposite direction of all the experts who tell me there’s no need to worry. I hope I’m wrong.
When one thinks of the potential death toll of a nuclear accident — and in this case those numbers are unknown — one must also consider the potential death tolls as a result of traditional power options. Pipeline explosions, refinery explosions (23 have died at one Texas City, TX refinery within the last 10 years, and then 13 died in the BP platform explosion, and there were countless other such incidents), benzene poisoning that causes cancer, coal mine explosions … and I haven’t even gotten started.
Any death is a tragedy and 100 deaths is 100 tragedies.
I hope you’re wrong too. I think you probably are in this instance. The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan detected radiation, but the levels were well below what’s considered unsafe.
What’s happened in Japan is a horror and the explosions that have occurred are terrible.
Wishing the people of Japan well with you.
My brother the physicist says that post is largely correct, although he’s not as confident that everything’s peachy, not least since the fuel rod casing is partially melted and fission byproducts are escaping into the atmosphere. Both of those are bad, even when you’re defining “good” as “not a total meltdown.”
Whatever happens, it will likely be at most a Level 5 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. That means we should all raise a toast to the good designers (I believe it was GE) of that plant, since a 8.9 earthquake, a tsunami, a failure of backup power, and a failure of backup water brings it well outside of its design tolerances. It’s like saying the driver of a car is in the hospital, not the morgue, following a 150mph crash.
No disrespect to your brother the physicist, but the toasts can wait for the aftermath, when we may know how whether the patient lives or dies.
Please forgive me for that double post. All I wanted to say was that nuclear power would reduce the death tolls of wars fought over oil.
No worries. I have the ability to disappear it, and I have.
He’s still wondering about the shape of the rods. They’re normally shaped in a way so that, in a meltdown, they’ll spread out a certain way to dissipate heat while remaining in the containment area. If they’re cracked and partly melting, then their shape might be distorted, and that could be a big problem.
I’m the one proposing the toast, though it should indeed wait. It could have been Chernobyl again if the reactor had simply crumbled and melted down during the earthquake, but it’s almost certainly not going to be that at this point. 20,000 displaced and shouldn’t be a “win,” but it just might be in this context.
Here’s the problem for me. Assuming your brother’s actual expertise, he’s still relying on what is (1) likely how the plant was constructed; (2) what we’re told by official and unofficial spokespeople from Japan and the US and who all knows about just what happened and is happening and things like how much radiation the Reagan actually detected and how dangerous that really is to the eco-system and what it means for how much is elsewhere; and (3) computer models and expectations and the like.
The problem is that there’s a whole lot of trust and faith and percentages involved in relying on that stuff. I dearly hope he’s right. But I’m frankly not much more comforted by what he says than by what the papers report.
For whatever it’s worth, after the Three-Mile Island incident, I did a lot of personal reading about nuclear safety engineering, and I know a few people who follow it more closely, and while I can’t speak to the author’s judgement of the safety systems, his description of it comports with everything I remember.
He’s right, too, that the news media does a terrible job of distinguishing between the reactor pressure vessel (the “pressure cooker”), the containment structure, and the lightweight shell that surrounds the containment. It is only these lightweight outer shells that have been destroyed by explosions.
Third, regarding the detection by the Ronald Reagan: It’s a nuclear powered ship, it’s intended to fight on a nuclear battlefield, and it’s capable of carrying nuclear weapons on board. Consequently, they have radiation monitors up the ying-yang. I’m sure they react to even the slightest rise in radiation levels, just in case it might be coming from something on board.
So, no answers, just some thoughts.
So you don’t know nuthin’ about birthin’ no babies, but you have an opinion anyway?
I have watched CNN and BBC News television coverage, and have read various online media reports and the Wikipedia entry on nuclear safety. I have also watched the movie China Syndrome years ago. Beyond that, I also have a Twitter account and follow the latest hashtags. Accordingly, I believe I am now qualified as an internet-based nuclear science enthusiast to opine that the risk of a nuclear meltdown—comparable to Chernobyl or Three Mile Island—makes me nervous.
You should also watch the Pepsi Syndrome, a critical piece for someone seeking pop enlightenment.
I am a nuclear engineer (who likes to read law blogs) and I have been following the events in Japan closely. I have a few thoughts.
1. This accident is worse then Three Mile Island, but not nearly as bad as Chernobyl. There appears to be partial core melting of two of the six reactors at the site. The hydrogen explosions have not damaged the primary containment or the core itself. The clean up costs will be huge.
2. Radioactive material has been released to the environment, which is always bad, however it does not appear that enough was released to cause any fatalities. Weather or not there will be a long term increase in cancers is very hard to quantify and will take decades to sort out. Basically, it takes a lot of radiation to kill you, and the effects of low doses of radiation are not well understood.
3. This will set back the public image of nuclear energy 30 years. The video of the exploding buildings will haunt the industry for decades. This is a public relations nightmare.
4. From an engineering perspective, the fact that reactors designed to withstand a 7.0 quake held up so well to an 8.9 quake is very impressive. I also know that no one will believe this.
In summary, while this is a major nuclear disaster, the human injuries will be minimal, while the economic damage will be enormous.
I couldn’t find the SNL skit on Youtube, but the dialogue is hilarious. Here’s an excerpt:
“Carl: There’s been an explosion in main housing.
Brian: Listen, we’ve got to release the number three or that pump’s gonna blow.
Carl: If the pump blows that could mean a meltdown.
Brian: What is happening?
Matt: I’ll tell you what’s happenning. The Pepsi Syndrome.
[ shows title: “The Pepsi Syndrome” ]
Brian: Pepsi Syndrome? I’ve never heard of it.
Matt: Only a handful of people know what the Pepsi Syndrome means. Maybe soon, everyone will know it.
Carl: But, what is it?
Matt: Well, the Pepsi Syndrome. If someone spills a Pepsi on the control panel of a nuclear power reactor, the panel can short-circuit, and the whole core may melt down.
Brian: But, you spilled a Coke.
Matt: It doesn’t matter. Any cola does it.
Carl: Any cola? What about RC Cola?
Matt: Yeah, RC does it.
Brian: Canada Dry?
Matt: Sure.
Carl: 7-up?
Matt: It’s harmless. It’s an un-cola. [ smacks his hands to his forehead ] Oh, wow! I could have had a V8!”
That seems to be the prevailing view at the moment (he said as clumps of hair fell out and he doubled over in pain from radiation sickness). Of course, there are some great deals available on Japanese real estate right now. Get ’em while they’re hot.
Sure! You’ve read my blog, right? Seriously, all any of us on the outside can do is share what we’ve heard and exchange our best guesses about what’s really going on to try to build a better picture. (Who knows? Maybe we’ll even hear from a nuclear engineer…) The final results of the investigations won’t be available for years. In any case, I’ve got food, water, duck tape, and iodine tablets.
“Get ’em while they’re hot.”
Which, of course, may mean there’s no rush.
If there’s a disaster at a regular electricity plant, how long does that damage the environment? A blown-out oil well may be worse, but does it come close to reaching as far as a nuclear power plant destroyed by unforeseen disaster?
Nuclear energy is supposed to save us all. I’ve heard many push, including here in California (where we have lots of earthquakes) for more nuclear reactors.
I think we should be dumping an equal amount of money into the space program. Since we refuse to consider a real fix for our energy (and other) needs, such as human population limits, we’re going to need some way to get somewhere else when we’re done destroying this place.
On the other hand, I don’t have children. So what do I care what the rest of the world does to its descendants, if those with descendants don’t care?
I think an expert on reactor meltdowns would be someone who was on the scene during a previous meltdown or was a member of a team that investigated the meltdown. There are a few people like that but they have the same problem the rest of us have in that the information about the circumstances appears to be unreliable.
In a few days we should have more reliable information and better assessments of the severity of the problem.
Will you be an expert on nuclear reactor meltdowns in a few days? I know I won’t.
Or maybe “hot” refers to Roentgen level?
I happen to be married to a radiation expert.
Based on this perspective, I concur with nuclear engineer’s conclusions.
But science always has to include the possibility of the unexpected and unknown.
The fact it’s good the reactors didn’t do worse, given they were designed to withstand a 7.0 quake — doesn’t make the situation any less terrifying or horrible. This doesn’t minimize minimize the tragedy of any injuries that result. It does make me think that someone involved with their building took the risks seriously, thank G-d, or it could have been worse. It shows how important it is to plan for circumstances worse than any that have come before. Plan for the unplannable, in effect.
The situation is scary until it’s contained. When chemical plants release toxic substances or have explosions, it’s similarly scary until the situation is contained.
An extraordinary epidemiological effort has been made to understand and quantify the effects of the Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl events on the surrounding populations who had low dose radiation exposure rather than radiation sickness. Because radiation is everywhere — sunlight, ground, some water sources, naturally -occurring, and because low dose radiation effects are still not well understood — it’s hard to nail down. But the ill effects of low-dose radiation on health of people in the area were far less than what was initially feared, when their mortality and health information has been compared to people in circumstances without the Chernobyl event. But in general, the further out we get from these events, the less toxic the low dose radiation they released appears to be to the affected populations. It’s important to emphasize that this kind of exposure is completely different than the kind that causes radiation sickness. In the mind of the public, they seem the same, because so little was known about radiation at the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Chernobyl event happened because no one was paying attention to the warning signals — kind of like if you were the engineer of the train and you put the thing on autopilot and went to sleep for two days, and it crashed.
The Japan situation is very different.
My heart’s so heavy, thinking of the Japanese people.
FWIW my husband would HATE it that I called him an expert — he’s spent his life studying radiation and its effects on health — but that always means there’s a lot you don’t know.
I know a bit about law, but I would never call myself an expert. When someone asks a question, I usually respond, “that depends,” because I know enough to know that answers are rarely absolute.
I would be surprised if anyone with significant knowledge about radiation is doing a lot of talking today. Yesterday, yes.
Tomorrow, maybe. But not today. They may know what they know, but they rarely get to put it to the test. It’s now being put to the test, and one way or the other, they will find out whether they are wrong, right or somewhere in between. And once that’s known, and assuming they let us poor non-expert fools in on the secret, we will know too.
There will be plenty of time for “experts” to opine. No need to beat the rush.
(BTW, I note with some curiosity how your husband being an “expert” transfers to you. My wife is a doctor. Would you mind if I performed surgery on you? We talk about it at dinner all the time.)
“All would be known or shown if time were but gone.” –Yeats
You’re right — no one with any significant radiation knowledge is saying a thing publicly. A high percentage of radiation scientists are Japanese, as you can imagine. There’s a lot of stoic empathy and hoping for the best, because it’s pretty hard to be a scientist and not be connected with and love Japan.
Because this is happening in Japan and the Japanese people have a unique (and astonishingly transparent, forgiving) history with nuclear damage, risk and devastation, I think the public will be told when more is known. I sure hope so.
Scott, my husband would say you think like a physicist. Given the source, it’s a compliment. He once told me that Physics could theoretically be expressed in a language besides mathematics and suggested that ideally law was similar (although of course, law isn’t expressed in mathematics, it’s expressed in the legal language). What you said above made me think of that.
What you said about my husband’s knowledge transferring to me — I never said I was an expert, did I? I said what I wrote was based on the perspective of being married to someone in the field. And we do discuss his work with a lot more depth than chatter over diner.
What I wrote about the epidemiology of low dose radiation is what it is.
In response to your question about surgery — well, I’ll quote you and say that depends.
I’m certainly not an apologist for the nuclear industry. Our bread’s not buttered there, FWIW.
One sad fact: Cancer treatment in Germany and Japan is much more advanced than it is in the USA, in part because they use nuclear accelerators to provide radiotherapy. Of course ‘budget’ issues have stalled this in the USA, but there’s also a lot of political opposition to building accelerators because they involve nuclear activity. FWIW
I know you didn’t say you were an expert. Just an observation. I do it too, take what I learn from others and assimilate it. Just a odd human thing we do.
True.
I would like to add a few more thoughts.
1. The Chernobyl accident was a steam explosion while the reactor was at power, which blew a good part of the reactor fuel out and into the environment. That was orders of magnitude worse then what is going on in Japan.
2. While the events in Japan seem to be getting worse, and reliable information is still hard to find, I still believe that in the end there will be minimal injuries and no deaths.
3. As a nuclear engineer, this situation is embarrassing to the industry, some of it deserved, and some not. Equipment is failing that should not have failed and the fire in the spent fuel storage area confuses me. The loss of all backup power was a single mode failure that should not have happened.
4. I have do not know what will happen in the next few hours and days. My opinion may change.
The nuclear industry has been saying for decades that the reactors can survive a 7.0 quake and along comes an 8.9 and there is major damage and some release of radioactive material, but no fatalities. The subtleties will be lost on the public and a good technology will get tarnished far more then it should.
Best laid plans, ya know. I’ve got nothing against nuclear power, but I am a Malthusian.
It appears the reactors are a total loss. I assume that the quake and the tsunami wiped out their array of radiation monitors so their radiation measurements are probably limited to what they can make with portable instruments.