All Things Nuclear - Get Your Facts Straight

With all the media reports surrounding the Fukoshima Dai-Ichi nuclear power reactors in Japan failing, due to the Tsunami rather than the actual earthquake shaking, a lot of folks are rightfully concerned. Actually, some are bat-shit crazy. Like one guy in the CVS Pharmacy this afternoon. He was hurrying around looking for Potassium Iodide to prevent harm from the approaching big bad radioactive cloud from Japan.

This was one of those instances when I stood there - pretending to look at stuff - just so I could eavesdrop on this bizarro world conversation - trying really hard not to start laughing. The CVS clerk was totally buying into it all - and between the two - it was getting more than a little creepy. Unless the nimrod is within a 10-mile radius (Emergency Planning Radius) of a nuclear power plant about to go critical, he’s at more risk from normal, natural background radiation.

Can everybody just step back and get a clue?

This isn’t Three Mile Island, and certainly not Chernobyl. It’s really bad, as in the Japanese just don’t need this on top of everything else that’s gone wrong. But it’s not exactly Doomsday, either. To compare the Japanese situation with Chernobyl is comparing apples with wheelbarrows.

The catastrophic Chernobyl accident was largely due to some very quirky and highly ‘non-standard’ design flaws - in addition to operator error during an experiment. You can read more about Chernobyl here. There was no containment structure at Chernobyl.

According to Wikipedia:

“Soviet designed RBMKs, found only in Russia and the CIS, do not have containment buildings, are naturally unstable (tending to dangerous power fluctuations), and also have ECCS systems that are considered grossly inadequate by Western safety standards.”

The Three Mile Island accident - and partial meltdown - was due to both a stuck valve and human error. TMI was a pressurized water reactor. Unfortunately, the public perceptions generated by the TMI accident profoundly affected the future of nuclear generated power in the United States.

“In the end, the reactor was brought under control, although full details of the accident were not discovered until much later, following extensive investigations by both a presidential commission and the NRC. The Kemeny Commission Report concluded that “there will either be no case of cancer or the number of cases will be so small that it will never be possible to detect them. The same conclusion applies to the other possible health effects.”^[2] Several epidemiological studies in the years since the accident have supported the conclusion that radiation releases from the accident had no perceptible effect on cancer incidence in residents near the plant, though these findings have been contested by one team of researchers. ^[3]

Public reaction to the event was probably influenced by The China Syndrome, a movie which had recently been released and which depicts an accident at a nuclear reactor.^[4] Communications from officials during the initial phases of the accident were felt to be confusing.^[5] The accident crystallized anti-nuclear safety concerns among activists and the general public, resulted in new regulations for the nuclear industry, and has been cited as a contributor to the decline of new reactor construction that was already underway in the 1970s.”

There were no cancer epidemics. No Doomsday. Yet inaccurate perceptions remain and are almost impossible to shake. And this is a least partly what is generating a low level of anxiety here - thousands of miles away from the Japanese reactors. Again, we’re not talking Chernobyl and a huge wholesale, irresponsible release of radioactive materials to the four winds.

There have been issues of genuine concern over risks of primary containment vessel breach in the Mark I containment vessels similar to the those used with the BWR (Boiling Water Reactors) in use at the Fukushimi Dai-Ichi plant. In worst case scenarios, they don’t work as well as other models. See study conducted by Sandia National Laboratories, in addition to identified increased cancer risks due to containment breach, due to the use of MOX (Mixed Oxide) fuel in pressurized reactors.

Even physicists cannot agree on what might happen in the event that the nuclear fuel pellets do drop down to the bottom of the containment vessel and burn through it, resulting in an enormous release of radioactive materials.

To better understand the entire concept of how a nuclear reactor shuts down, and what has been happening with the Fukusimi Dai-Ichi plants, The New York Times has an excellent multi-media presentation.

Additionally, you can learn more about the causes and effects of a nuclear meltdown here on Wikipedia.

It’s always good to know how far we’ve come since the early days of nuclear energy. Ron had just left his employment at the (INEL) Idaho National Engineering Laboratory in Arco, Idaho (the first town to be lighted by nuclear power) when the SL-1 reactor went critical and did, indeed, meltdown. It was the most deadly nuclear accident in United States history, with three fatalities. It’s a fascinating story. When one of the lead lined coffins was loaded onto a C-47, the main gear went right through the ramp.

-maven

Comments

[bluelyon]

Thanks so much for this. The scare-mongering is just getting out of hand, isn't it? I'm talking about it over at Blue Lyon too, and had to mention the CVS guy in my post.