Nuclear Radiation Illness in Japan after Fukushima Dai-Ichi Meltdowns

Subtitle:  Are Children Cancer-Free With Nuclear Plants Shut Down?

A couple of years ago, June 2014, I wrote article 19 of the Truth About Nuclear Power series, titled "Nuclear Radiation Injures People and Other Living Things."  see link.   One of the references in article 19 is the study on cancer incidence in the population surrounding

California's Rancho Seco nuclear power plant that was shut down in June of 1989.  The rate of cancers dropped significantly in the years following the plant's shutdown.   see link to Mangano and Sherman study: 

Biomedicine International, 2013, 4: 12-25, "Long-term Local Cancer Reductions Following Nuclear Plant Shutdown," authors Joseph J. Mangano, Janette D. Sherman, Radiation and Public Health Project, New York, NY, USA

It is time that similar studies be conducted near reactors that have been shut down, not only in the US but in other countries.  Japan, for example, has multiple reactors not operating for more than 5 years after the Fukushima Dai-Ichi meltdowns in March, 2011.    Germany shut down 8 reactors after the Japanese disaster. 

It is time to see what the modern data shows us, whether the people of Sacramento, California are alone in enjoying better health and fewer cancer diagnoses, or millions of people around the world are also enjoying better lives.    Sufficient time has passed, the data is there if we but find it, analyze it, and report it.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California

copyright (c) 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved.

Fukushima Nuclear Meltdowns Five Years On

Subtitle: Fukushima Design Flaws Should Not Have Existed

 The 9.0-magnitude earthquake off north-eastern Japan on March 11, 2011 occurred five years ago to the day.  The 50-foot tsunami that followed the earthquake had devastating consequences to a large area in Japan, especially knocking out the grid power and disabling the emergency power to several of the six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima power complex.   As is well-known today, three of the reactors melted down, three containment buildings exploded, and great quantities of nuclear radiation were released into the air, the soil, and the ocean.   Radioactive water continues to leak into the ocean even today.  

SLB has a post from 2014 on the Fukushima nuclear disaster, titled "Fukushima - The Disaster That Could Not Happen."  (see link).   This is article 22 of the 30-article series on Truth About Nuclear Power (that presently has more than 21,000 pageviews). 

Fukushima nuclear reactors after meltdowns and explosions
March 11, 2011 (credit: ORNL)

While pausing to offer condolences to those who lost loved ones, and whose lives were changed for the worse, this article discusses a few additional aspects of what went wrong and what lessons should be learned. 

In simplest terms, sheer stupidity created the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns.   There are essentially no lessons that were taught that day, beyond what competent engineers already knew and know.   The lesson is: nuclear designers and advocates should not be trusted with the safety aspect of nuclear plants. 

First, it was well-known that a nuclear power plant requires a considerable water supply and means to circulate that water for cooling a reactor after a shutdown.   It was equally well-known that a loss of grid power could occur, in fact, that is the very reason that emergency generators are installed in nuclear power plants.   Fukushima had the emergency generators.  It was also well-known that diesel fuel is required to run the emergency generators.  Fuel was stored on-site, but only sufficient fuel for 8 to 10 hours for each reactor.  It was also well-known that Japan is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.  In fact, some of the nearby areas have or had tsunami protection systems such as seawalls, and gates that could close to prevent water from entering a river valley.    So much for not knowing what to do if power is lost, and not knowing about earthquakes and tsunamis at Fukushima. 

What was incredibly wrong was the emergency generators and batteries were in the basement of the buildings, where seawater flooded them and made them inoperable.  

It was also a bad decision to design the plants to withstand a tsunami of only 20 feet, when it was well-known that earlier tsunamis were much higher.  The actual tsunami was approximately 50 feet high.   Historical tsunamis in Japan include one from 1896 that was 30 to 38 meters (100 to 130 feet); in 1933 the tsunami was 21 meters (70 feet approximately).   There can be no excuse for building Fukushima reactors to withstand a tsunami of only 20 feet.  

It should be noted that elevating the entire plant another 30 to 40 feet adds a trivial amount to the construction cost.   In the alternative, constructing a water-tight wall with appropriate openings also would add a trivial amount to the construction cost. 

From the ORNL paper referenced in the earlier SLB post, (see link), the tsunami design portion has strange wording that leads to even more unease about Japanese nuclear designs:

"At the target site, the height of the design tsunami should exceed all the
calculated historical tsunami heights.

 ...the design tsunami is compared with the historical records …. it is confirmed
the height of the design tsunami that is obtained in this paper is twice that of

historical tsunamis on an average”  --  (see p. 14 of the ORNL paper linked above)

Several things are wrong with this statement.  "At the target site," should not be used for the design basis, instead, "in the general area" would give a much safer design.   

Next, "should exceed all the calculated historical tsunami heights" should be "exceed all the actual historical tsunami heights."     There is, or should be, sufficient evidence in a long-populated country like Japan to know, not have to guess or calculate tsunami heights.    

Finally, "it is confirmed ... is twice that of historical tsunamis ON AN AVERAGE."  This is so wrong it beggars belief.  One does not design a plant to meet the average conditions, instead, one designs for the worst case.  

It is clear from the evidence that a nearby nuclear power plant, also part of the Fukushima complex, managed quite well during and after the earthquake and the tsunami.  That reactor was built on higher ground and had an emergency generator that functioned long enough.   

What is also abundantly clear is that nuclear industry professionals are not to be trusted with their assurances that reactors are designed, built, and operated safely.   There is a great need for independent, competent engineers to review the designs and actual construction, and especially the design basis, to identify problems such as existed at Fukushima and went undetected for decades.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California  

Copyright (c) 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

Japanese Nuclear Utility Executives Face Criminal Charges

Subtitle: Fukushima Dai-ichi Disaster Was Alleged Crime 

From the Japanese on-line newspaper, English version, Mainichi Shimbun editorial of August 1, 2015, "Decision to indict ex-TEPCO executives in court over nuclear accident is meaningful."  see link   

From the editorial:  "The Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution recommended that former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and two former vice presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro, be prosecuted on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury. This was the second recommendation by the

Fukushima Dai-ichi Plant before earthquake
source:  ORNL

prosecution inquest panel, whose eleven members were selected from among members of the general public.

In 2008, three years before the disaster, TEPCO released its estimate that the atomic power plant could be hit by a tsunami up to 15.7 meters in height. The inquest panel determined that the three former executives failed to take necessary measures, and neglected their duty to prevent a serious accident, even though they knew of this possibility."

This is significant because the Dai-ichi nuclear plant was designed for only a 6 meter tsunami (23 feet).  The 15.7 meter tsunami estimate from 2008 would be 51 feet.  The actual tsunami was approximately 50 feet high.  

If the TEPCO executives do stand trial and are convicted, a clear message will be sent to nuclear utility executives to modify their nuclear plants when new information becomes available, and not wait until a disaster occurs. 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2015 by Roger Sowell

The Truth About Nuclear Power - Part 25

Subtitle: Price-Anderson Act Gives Too Much Protection to Nuclear Plants

[UPDATE 7/3/2014-  India has its own problems with its version of nuclear liability law.  See near end of article. -- end update]

In an earlier article in The Truth About Nuclear Power series, (part 13 see link), several forms of government subsidy for nuclear power were discussed.  This article discusses one of those subsidies in more detail, the Price-Anderson Act by which government assumes the liability from a large nuclear accident, after industry reaches the stated cap on its liability.  To encourage the nuclear industry to build any plants at all, the inherently unsafe characteristics of nuclear power plants required government shielding from liability, or subsidy, for the costs of a nuclear accident via the Price-Anderson Act.

Even as early as the 1950s, the nuclear industry was aware of the catastrophic nature of a nuclear accident, a meltdown due to a loss-of-cooling-accident, radiation released into the atmosphere or water, and the potential for hundreds of thousands of deaths or even many, many more.    Industrial insurance underwriters also were keenly aware of the risks, and had their premiums adjusted accordingly.  Utilities that wanted to enter the nuclear power business realized quickly that they could not afford to build the plants, plus pay for insurance premiums.  The price for their nuclear-based power would be prohibitive – and the adverse publicity would be devastating.  One can imagine the headlines: “Nuclear Disaster Insurance Increases Electricity Prices to Unaffordable Levels.”  Or, some similar headline.  

Subsequent events have shown that such nuclear calamity is not only possible, but extremely deadly.  Three major events have happened to date, at Three Mile Island in 1979 with a reactor core partially melting down, Chernobyl in 1986 with a core explosion, and Fukushima Dai-ichi in 2011 with three reactors melted down and four containment buildings exploded.    With hundreds of reactors operating world-wide and almost one hundred more either planned or under construction, more meltdown disasters are inevitable.  

With the economic consequences in mind, the industry asked for relief from Congress, and Congress responded with the Price-Anderson Act in 1957.    The language of the Act mentions “extraordinary liability that companies would incur if a nuclear accident were to happen…”    The extraordinary liability is a result of nuclear activities being classified as an ultrahazardous activity.  These activities are defined as an activity that cannot be made safe even with the utmost care taken.   Examples include the use and storage of of explosives, blasting such as in mining or quarrying, use, storage and transport of certain chemicals, nuclear materials used in medicine and industry, and nuclear power reactors. 

Note that most of these activities have existed long before nuclear energy was discovered.   The concept of an ultrahazardous activity is not new; it is merely the proper category in which nuclear energy must be placed.    The person or company that engages in ultrahazardous activities bears the risk of any harm to persons or property from that activity - with very limited legal defenses to liability.  He also carries insurance to limit his own risk.  However, for nuclear power plants, the insurance is simply unaffordable – except as provided for under the Act. 

An example from my own industrial experience deals with the use and storage of a certain thermally-unstable chemical.   The chemical was a liquid, and was used as an initiator in the production of PVC resin from vinyl chloride monomer.   The chemical was packaged in a plastic cube surrounded by cardboard, approximately one foot on each side.  The boxes of initiator were stored in a dugout-style bunker with stout walls and a flimsy roof, the entire room kept at below freezing temperature.  The nature of the initiator was that it was stable when very cold, but would explode when warmed to something below ambient temperature.   A description from an initiator supplier states it is a “refrigerated organic peroxide undergoing self-accelerating thermal decomposition below room temperature.”     My company did not have, nor did it require, an act of Congress to limit the liability from using the explosive initiator.   Nuclear power is far, far more dangerous than that explosive liquid. 

The words of the Price-Anderson Act are excerpted below:

“Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act in 1957 to ensure that adequate funds would be available to compensate victims of a nuclear accident. It also recognized that the risk of extraordinary liability that companies would incur if a nuclear accident were to happen would render insurance costs prohibitively high, and thwart the development of nuclear energy.  
. . . 
The Price-Anderson Act requires owners of commercial reactors to assume all liability for damages to the public resulting from an ``extraordinary nuclear occurrence'' and to waive most legal defenses they would otherwise have. However, in exchange, their liability will be limited to capped amounts established in the Act.”   – Re-Authorization of the Price-Anderson Act, December 9, 2003, Senate Report 108-218.  

The Act is all that stands between nuclear plants and total shutdown, immediately.  Without it, no nuclear plant would assume the risk of $2 trillion – or more – in damages from an “extraordinary nuclear occurrence” – a meltdown and subsequent deaths of millions of people. 

As mentioned earlier, the US has narrowly escaped such an incident at Three Mile Island in 1979, where only by sheer dumb luck did clueless plant operators turn on a water injection pump just before the nuclear fuel melted all the way through the reactor walls.   The operators had no clue what they were doing, and actually turned off a water pump earlier in the day that could have prevented the meltdown.  The meltdown eroded almost all the way through the reactor walls.   This incident was discussed in some detail in Part 21 -- see link. 

If an accident occurs, and a million people were to die from radiation, liability would be approximately $7 million per each death, using the US EPA’s value of a statistical life.    That alone is $7 trillion, for a single incident.  There are many nuclear reactors close to population centers that each contain millions of people: near Miami: Turkey Point and St. Lucie, near Atlanta: Vogtle and Hatch, along the northeast corridor: Three Mile Island (where one reactor melted down but the other continues to operate to this day),  North Anna, Surry, Calvert Cliffs, Salem, Limerick, Peach Bottom, Susquehanna, Indian Point, and Millstone, near Chicago: LaSalle, Braidwood, Byron, Dresden, and Quad Cities, near Dallas: Comanche Peak, near San Francisco: Diablo Canyon, and near Phoenix: Palo Verde (a triple-reactor plant).   Note that many of the sites listed have two reactors, although some have a single reactor. 

Even if a settlement could be reached with each decedent’s estate for $1 million each, a million victims would still require a payout of $1 trillion.  It can be seen then, why no nuclear power plants would be built with that amount of potential liability.  As the preface to the Price-Anderson Act states, [Congress] “recognized that the risk of extraordinary liability that companies would incur if a nuclear accident were to happen would render insurance costs prohibitively high, and thwart the development of nuclear energy.” 

Insurance for Liability 

The Act requires each nuclear power plant to carry $300 million in liability insurance for each reactor.  

“First, each licensed reactor must carry the maximum amount of insurance commercially available to pay any damages from a severe nuclear accident. That amount is currently $300 million.”  -- the Act

Excess Damages beyond Insurance Amount

Excess damages, beyond $300 million, are covered up to approximately $10 billion by requiring all covered commercial reactors to pay up to approximately $100 million each; with approximately 100 US reactors, the total reaches $10 billion.   The Act states:

“Any damages exceeding that amount are to be assessed equally against all covered commercial reactors, up to $95.8 million per reactor (most recently adjusted for inflation by NRC in August 2004).Those assessments would be paid at an annual rate of no more than $10 million per reactor. According to the NRC, all of the nation’s 103 commercial reactors are currently covered by the Price-Anderson retrospective premium requirement.

Funding for public compensation following a major nuclear incident would therefore include the $300 million in insurance coverage carried by the reactor that suffered the incident, plus the$95.8 million in retrospective premiums from each of the 103 currently covered reactors, totaling $10.2 billion. On top of those payments, a 5 percent surcharge may also be imposed, raising the total per-reactor retrospective premium to $100.6 million and the total potential compensation for each incident to about $10.7 billion.

Under Price-Anderson, the nuclear industry’s liability for an incident is capped at that amount, which varies depending on the number of covered reactors, amount of available insurance, and an inflation adjustment that is made every 5 years.”  -- The Act

Excess Damages Beyond $10 Billion

For a large event with damages beyond $10 billion, the US government assumes the amount above $10 billion.  

“The Act provides that in the event that actual damages from an accident are in excess of this amount, [$10.7 billion] Congress will ‘‘thoroughly review’’ the incident and take such action as is necessary to provide ‘‘full and prompt compensation to the public.’’ "  -- Price-Anderson Act

Conclusion

The very existence of nuclear power plants depends on Congress renewing the Price-Anderson Act as it periodically expires.  Without the government assuming the excess liability, nuclear plants would shut down immediately.  No utility company has resources of $1 trillion, and certainly cannot buy insurance in that amount.  The Act is the single largest subsidy for nuclear power, greater than loan guarantees ($8 billion roughly for each reactor), the carbon tax on coal plants that benefits nuclear plants due to their “carbon free” power production, no lawsuits being permitted during construction (a limited exception applies), increased electricity prices during nuclear plant construction to avoid paying interest on loans, and operating safety regulations routinely relaxed to allow nuclear plants to continue operating without meeting safety standards. 

It is a struggle to think of any other industry that enjoys such a government benefit: what other industry would shut down tomorrow if its uninsurable risks were not borne by the government?    The risks are so great, and the cost of insurance is just too high for the nuclear power industry to compete, or even exist, without the comfortable cushion of the Price-Anderson Act.  

Indeed, that raises the question: are nuclear plant operators too comfortable, too complacent, due to the certain knowledge that any catastrophic event will be paid first by $300 million in insurance, and then cost them only $100 million each?  Any amount over and beyond those limits will be paid for by the US Government.   Perhaps nuclear plants would pay more attention to safety, and operating procedures if they knew the plant would shut down or be sold at auction to pay the damages.   Perhaps the nuclear industry would be much more self-policing if the limits were $20 billion for each reactor, not the $100 million that exists today.   (see link to part 16 for a description of near misses in US reactors over the previous four years) 

[UPDATE 7/3/2014:  India has its own problems with apportioning civil liability from a nuclear disaster.  A Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Law is nearing completion, but it places risk and costs on equipment suppliers for latent or patent defects, plus inferior service (e.g. installation work).  Understandably, nuclear reactor suppliers are not happy.  see link.   -- end update ]

Previous Articles

The Truth About Nuclear Power emphasizes the economic and safety aspects by showing that (one) modern nuclear power plants are uneconomic to operate compared to natural gas and wind energy, (two) they produce preposterous pricing if they are the sole power source for a grid, (three) they cost far too much to construct, (four) use far more water for cooling, 4 times as much, than better alternatives, (five) nuclear fuel makes them difficult to shut down and requires very costly safeguards, (six) they are built to huge scale of 1,000 to 1,600 MWe or greater to attempt to reduce costs via economy of scale, (seven) an all-nuclear grid will lose customers to self-generation, (eight) smaller and modular nuclear plants have no benefits due to reverse economy of scale, (nine) large-scale plants have very long construction schedules even without lawsuits that delay construction, (ten) nuclear plants do not reach 50 or 60 years life because they require costly upgrades after 20 to 30 years that do not always perform as designed, (eleven) France has 85 percent of its electricity produced via nuclear power but it is subsidized, is still almost twice as expensive as prices in the US, and is only viable due to exporting power at night rather than throttling back the plants during low demand, (twelve) nuclear plants cannot provide cheap power on small islands, (thirteen) US nuclear plants are heavily subsidized but still cannot compete, (fourteen), projects are cancelled due to unfavorable economics, reactor vendors are desperate for sales, nuclear advocates tout low operating costs and ignore capital costs, nuclear utilities never ask for a rate decrease when building a new nuclear plant, and high nuclear costs are buried in a large customer base, (fifteen) safety regulations are routinely relaxed to allow the plants to continue operating without spending the funds to bring them into compliance, (sixteen) many, many near-misses occur each year in nuclear power, approximately one every 3 weeks, (seventeen) safety issues with short term, and long-term, storage of spent fuel, (eighteen)  safety hazards of spent fuel reprocessing, (nineteen) health effects on people and other living things, (twenty) nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, (twenty-one) nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, (twenty-two)  nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima, (twenty-three) near-disaster at San Onofre, (twenty-four) the looming disaster at St. Lucie, (twenty-five)  the inherently unsafe characteristics of nuclear power plants required government shielding from liability, or subsidy, for the costs of a nuclear accident via the Price-Anderson Act, and (twenty-six) the serious public impacts of large-scale population evacuation and relocation after a major incident, or "extraordinary nuclear occurrence" in the language used by the Price-Anderson Act.  Additional articles will include (twenty-seven) the future of nuclear fusion, (twenty-eight) future of thorium reactors, (twenty-nine) future of high-temperature gas nuclear reactors, and (thirty), a concluding chapter with a world-wide economic analysis of nuclear reactors and why countries build them.  Links to each article in TANP series are included at the end of this article.

Additional articles will be linked as they are published. 

Part One – Nuclear Power Plants Cannot Compete

Part Two – Preposterous Power Pricing if Nuclear Power Proponents Prevail

Part Three – Nuclear Power Plants Cost Far Too Much to Construct

Part Four – Nuclear Power Plants Use Far More Fresh Water

Part Five – Cannot Simply Turn Off a Nuclear Power Plant

Part Six –  Nuclear Plants are Huge to Reduce Costs

Part Seven -- All Nuclear Grid Will Sell Less Power

Part Eight – No Benefits from Smaller Modular Nuclear Plants

Part Nine -- Nuclear Plants Require Long Construction Schedules

Part Ten -- Nuclear Plants Require Costly Upgrades After 20 to 30 Years

Part Eleven - Following France in Nuclear Is Not The Way To Go

Part Twelve - Nuclear Plants Cannot Provide Cheap Power on Small Islands

Part Thirteen - US Nuclear Plants are Heavily Subsidized

Part Fourteen - A Few More Reasons Nuclear Cannot Compete

Part Fifteen - Nuclear Safety Compromised by Bending the Rules

Part Sixteen - Near Misses on Meltdowns Occur Every 3 Weeks

Part Seventeen - Storing Spent Fuel is Hazardous for Short or Long Term

Part Eighteen - Reprocessing Spent Fuel Is Not Safe

Part Nineteen - Nuclear Radiation Injures People and Other Living Things

Part Twenty - Chernobyl Meltdown And Explosion

Part Twenty One - Three Mile Island Unit 2 Meltdown 1979

Part Twenty Two - Fukushima The Disaster That Could Not Happen 

Part Twenty Three - San Onofre Shutdown Saga

Part Twenty Four - St Lucie Ominous Tube Wear

Part Twenty Five - this article

Part Twenty Six - Evacuation Plans Required at Nuclear Plants

Part Twenty Seven - Power From Nuclear Fusion

Part Twenty Eight - Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process

Part Twenty Nine - High Temperature Gas Reactor Still A Dream

Part Thirty - Conclusion

Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California

The Truth About Nuclear Power - Part 22

Subtitle:  Fukushima - The Disaster That Could Not Happen

The Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor meltdowns have been extensively watched and written about.  This article gives my perspective.   The basics are these: the plants were heavily damaged by a larger-than-expected earthquake, at 9.0 magnitude, and a larger-than-expected tsunami of approximately 50 feet height about 40 minutes after the first earthquake.  (the initial shock was followed by hundreds of after-shocks.  

Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, Reactors 1-6 Before Earthquake
source:  ORNL

Some of the after-shocks were major earthquakes themselves, at 7 or greater magnitude.) Meltdowns occurred in 3 reactors, with the extent of the meltdowns yet unknown.  Explosions that destroyed containment buildings occurred in 4 plants.  Radioactive water was dumped into the ocean because operators had no other place to store it.  More radioactive water continues to this day to leak out of cracked foundations, through the porous soil and into the ocean.   Fish caught nearby were ruled unsafe for human consumption due to radioactivity.  Children living near the meltdown plants already have high rates of thyroid cancer, yet thyroid cancer in children is extremely rare.   US sailors on an aircraft carrier developed radiation sickness and other health issues.    This disaster is still unfolding, as even the technology-savvy Japanese struggle with what to do and how to do it.   No matter what nuclear technology is in place, a meltdown will occur when zero power is available for day after day.   That is the fundamental fact of Fukushima Dai-ichi.

The lessons for all of the nuclear industry are clear, and grim:  even the best designers and operators take huge risks when gambling human lives and health against the powers of Nature. 

It should be noted that the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors are not large, but are medium size.  If a similar meltdown occurs in a modern, large reactor, the devastation would be proportionately greater. 

The nuclear industry advocates continually state the plants are safe; yet disaster after disaster occurs.  Is it time to invoke the insanity clause: when one repeats the same old steps over and over, while expecting different results, this is insanity?  The Big Three meltdowns thus far are Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima.  What plant will be next in the massive meltdown missive?

Facts on events of March 11, 2011

It is important to note a few features of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plants: there are six reactors located right on the coast, they use seawater for cooling, and they are only a few feet above sea level.  An earthquake rated at 9.0 occurred, and reactor units 1, 2, and 3 automatically shut down.  The land movement, or shaking, in the East-West direction was greater than the design.   Unit 4 was already shut down for routine maintenance.  Emergency generators started at all six reactors 1 – 6.    40 minutes later, the 50-foot tsunami hit and all power was lost except for one generator at reactor 6.  The other emergency generators stopped.   The one operating generator was then connected also to reactor 5, and those two reactors (5 and 6) were cooled sufficiently to go into cold shutdown.   Note that the diesel-powered generators were underwater for some time during the multiple tsunami waves.

However, units 1, 2, and 3 reactor cores melted down due to an extended lack of emergency power.  Also, buildings in units 1, 2, 3, and 4 exploded – probably from hydrogen production as the fuel melted.   It is not yet clear exactly why unit 4 exploded, as

Fukushima Dai-ichi Containment Building
After Explosion   source: ORNL

it was not operating at the time of the earthquake.

In addition, the operators were unable to maintain cooling in the spent fuel pool at reactors 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

Subsequently, operators attempted to cool the meltdown reactors’ cores, with little success.  Ultimately, out of desperation, seawater was used.  Seawater is highly corrosive, so metal parts in contact with seawater are ruined.  Afterward, a series of water storage tanks were installed and water was pumped through the melted-down reactors and spent fuel pools and back to the storage tanks. 

Substantial leaks through the ground and into the sea occurred, with radioactive water flowing into the sea.   The earthquakes damaged the foundations sufficiently to provide leakage pathways through the foundations and into the sea.   Note that some nuclear apologist sites claim that the earthquake itself caused no damage.  This is patently untrue.  If no earthquake damage occurred, the foundations would not be cracked and leaking radioactive water into the sea.

It will be years before anyone can open the reactors and determine the extent of the damage due to earthquake and meltdown, just as was the case after the meltdown at Three Mile Island.

 see link to ORNL report

and NRC report: "Recommendations For Enhancing Reactor Safety in the 21st Century"  see link

Lessons

What everyone needs to know about nuclear power plants and their designs: designers play the probability game.  Somebody (perhaps an expert) provides the odds of natural disasters of different severities occurring in the next 50 to 60 years, for things such as earthquake, tsunami, dam failure, tornado, volcanic eruption, hurricane and its storm surge, and others.   Typically, a small event is quite common, but the largest events are extremely rare.  To save money, the plant is designed to withstand a given event with an appropriately remote chance of occurrence in the plant’s lifetime.  The plant is not designed to withstand the greatest known event of all-time, especially when the odds of the event occurring during the 50 to 60 year life of the plant are very small.   This is the probability calculus used in designing nuclear power plants.    In the Fukushima Dai-ichi event, the earthquake design was slightly exceeded, however the multiple aftershocks of large magnitude were likely not in the design basis.  The tsunami design was far less than the actual 50-foot tsunami that occurred.  One source states the design was for a 23-foot tsunami.  That then shows that nature flung a wall of water more than 27 feet higher than was expected and planned for in the design. 

The next unexpected design problem was complete isolation from any power for days on end.   The plants are designed for a power failure, with onsite diesel-powered generators to supply power for some hours until grid power is restored.  At Fukushima Dai-ichi, the diesel-powered generators were inoperable after the tsunami.  There was no backup plan in place for grid power loss for days or weeks, plus no diesel-powered generators.   The Japanese management and operators were smart, well-trained, resourceful people, yet even they could not prevent meltdown in the cores without a power source.   What happens when a similar outage occurs in a third-world country?

There are other lessons from Fukushima Dai-ichi.  What about other deprivations, other than grid power and emergency generator power?  What of loss of cooling water – the lake, river, or other source?   Even nuclear plants close to shore, as Fukushima Dai-ichi is, can lose ocean cooling if the land is thrust upward in an earthquake so that the water intakes are now above sea level.   Even if electrical power were restored in time, it is mighty difficult to cool reactor cores without any water.   What about dam break, with flood including mud, debris, rocks, or ice blocks?   Ash rain from volcano?  Crash impact from missile?  Crash impact from a heavy aircraft, even a bomber loaded with bombs?  Multiple mechanical breakdown of critical pumps – e.g. bolts all failing at the same time as happened at Salem 2 in 2014.  Or, the electrical grid disconnected plus diesel generators that will not start due to any malfunction.  

What about sabotage – deliberate destruction of key cooling equipment due to a security breach?  This is a favorite theme of movies, but could it happen?  Hopefully not, with security teams on the alert.

Nuclear advocates falsely insist that the Fukushima Dai-ichi core meltdowns were due to the old, BWR (boiling water reactor) design.  That is false.   Even a modern PWR (pressurized water reactor) design would meltdown without power for several days.   This is a fact that is recognized by NRC and other sober persons.

Foundation cracks and radioactive water leaks, as have occurred at Fukushima Dai-ichi, are being addressed now, three years later.  The plan is to install an ice-dam in the earth surrounding the plant.  The ice will be kept cold by refrigeration units, powered by the grid.  In effect, there will be a giant section of artificial perma-frost underneath the leaking foundations.  One hopes that this works, and that the grid does not fail yet again.   Meanwhile, for three years the cracked foundations have leaked radioactive water into the ocean. 

  

Aftermath

Despite the claims of nuclear proponents, Fukushima radiation clearly has impacted public health, land, air, and ocean with contamination.  The radioactive air plume arrived in just a few days at the US west coast, although the radioactivity was far below danger levels.   Tsunami flotsam arrived in other countries, radioactive water flowed into the ocean, fish, crops, and milk were contaminated.

It is early yet in the life of a nuclear meltdown, but there will be cancers, diabetes, thyroid illness, and mental problems (worry, stress).   There may also be birth defects.   Unlike at Chernobyl, there will likely be no early deaths from radiation sickness.  However, there very well could be early deaths from cancer. 

Japan has made decisions on shutting down other nuclear reactors, instead using other fuels / plants for power – oil, coal, and natural gas.  Recently, some reactors have been restarted.  Nuclear power is very controversial in Japan at this time.   Germany has declared it will not build new reactors, and will shut down existing reactors in a few years’ time.  China has declared it will continue building reactors, as will India. 

Other countries took a long, sober look at their own reactors and preparations for a similar situation: if a long period without power occurs, what would they do?    The US response is to have a few resource centers, with critical equipment being available to any reactor in dire straits.   One hopes the nature of the disaster lends itself to timely delivery of the critical equipment.   

Other new requirements were issued by the NRC.  The NRC issued a long report with about 20 new requirements for the existing fleet and any new construction.   See link.

Conclusion

It appears the world has reached a tipping point, or perhaps is beginning to lose patience with the never-ending lies and deceptions from the nuclear industry.  Before Three Mile Island, the industry insisted the plants were safe.  Even the NRC bought into the “things are safe” mantra, until operator error after a common equipment malfunction (a pump stopped pumping) at Three Mile Island showed the “things are safe” line was totally wrong.  Then, Chernobyl exploded and spewed radiation all around the northern hemisphere – yet the nuclear apologists stated this was an aberration, rogue operators in a badly designed plant were doing an unauthorized test (it had graphite for moderation – basically carbon that can easily burn).   Now, Fukushima Dai-ichi has three reactor cores melted down, with four containment buildings blown apart in four separate explosions, a spent fuel pool that overheated, cracked foundations that allow radioactive water to flow into the ocean, and many children already diagnosed with thyroid cancer.   Their young lives are changed forever.   Even today, nuclear apologists insist that the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster (they don’t call it a disaster, rather the word they use is “incident”) was just an unfortunate natural event that is too rare to ever be concerned about again. 

The truth about nuclear power is this: no design is adequate for what Nature can put forth.  No humans can accurately and confidently run the numbers and predict the odds of a massive natural disaster.   No contingency plan can anticipate every eventuality.  The price we pay as a society, as a human race, is living with the very real, and rational, fear of another meltdown in a reactor near you.  How many more human errors will be made, as equipment breaks down, as natural disasters occur, in combinations that were not planned for?   How much more unsafe are the plants, when the regulatory agency relaxes rule after rule after rule?

This concludes the article on Fukushima: The Disaster That Could Not Happen.   Next, is the San Onofre Shutdown Saga. 

Previous Articles

The Truth About Nuclear Power emphasizes the economic and safety aspects by showing that (one) modern nuclear power plants are uneconomic to operate compared to natural gas and wind energy, (two) they produce preposterous pricing if they are the sole power source for a grid, (three) they cost far too much to construct, (four) use far more water for cooling, 4 times as much, than better alternatives, (five) nuclear fuel makes them difficult to shut down and requires very costly safeguards, (six) they are built to huge scale of 1,000 to 1,600 MWe or greater to attempt to reduce costs via economy of scale, (seven) an all-nuclear grid will lose customers to self-generation, (eight) smaller and modular nuclear plants have no benefits due to reverse economy of scale, (nine) large-scale plants have very long construction schedules even without lawsuits that delay construction, (ten) nuclear plants do not reach 50 or 60 years life because they require costly upgrades after 20 to 30 years that do not always perform as designed, (eleven) France has 85 percent of its electricity produced via nuclear power but it is subsidized, is still almost twice as expensive as prices in the US, and is only viable due to exporting power at night rather than throttling back the plants during low demand, (twelve) nuclear plants cannot provide cheap power on small islands, (thirteen) US nuclear plants are heavily subsidized but still cannot compete, (fourteen), projects are cancelled due to unfavorable economics, reactor vendors are desperate for sales, nuclear advocates tout low operating costs and ignore capital costs, nuclear utilities never ask for a rate decrease when building a new nuclear plant, and high nuclear costs are buried in a large customer base, (fifteen) safety regulations are routinely relaxed to allow the plants to continue operating without spending the funds to bring them into compliance, (sixteen) many, many near-misses occur each year in nuclear power, approximately one every 3 weeks, (seventeen) safety issues with short term, and long-term, storage of spent fuel, (eighteen)  safety hazards of spent fuel reprocessing, (nineteen) health effects on people and other living things, (twenty) nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, (twenty-one) nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, (twenty-two)  nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima, (twenty-three) near-disaster at San Onofre, (twenty-four) the looming disaster at St. Lucie, (twenty-five)  the inherently unsafe characteristics of nuclear power plants required government shielding from liability, or subsidy, for the costs of a nuclear accident via the Price-Anderson Act, and (twenty-six) the serious public impacts of large-scale population evacuation and relocation after a major incident, or "extraordinary nuclear occurrence" in the language used by the Price-Anderson Act.  Additional articles will include (twenty-seven) the future of nuclear fusion, (twenty-eight) future of thorium reactors, (twenty-nine) future of high-temperature gas nuclear reactors, and (thirty), a concluding chapter with a world-wide economic analysis of nuclear reactors and why countries build them.  Links to each article in TANP series are included at the end of this article. 

Additional articles will be linked as they are published. 

Part One – Nuclear Power Plants Cannot Compete

Part Two – Preposterous Power Pricing if Nuclear Power Proponents Prevail

Part Three – Nuclear Power Plants Cost Far Too Much to Construct

Part Four – Nuclear Power Plants Use Far More Fresh Water

Part Five – Cannot Simply Turn Off a Nuclear Power Plant

Part Six –  Nuclear Plants are Huge to Reduce Costs

Part Seven -- All Nuclear Grid Will Sell Less Power

Part Eight – No Benefits from Smaller Modular Nuclear Plants

Part Nine -- Nuclear Plants Require Long Construction Schedules

Part Ten -- Nuclear Plants Require Costly Upgrades After 20 to 30 Years

Part Eleven - Following France in Nuclear Is Not The Way To Go

Part Twelve - Nuclear Plants Cannot Provide Cheap Power on Small Islands

Part Thirteen - US Nuclear Plants are Heavily Subsidized

Part Fourteen - A Few More Reasons Nuclear Cannot Compete

Part Fifteen - Nuclear Safety Compromised by Bending the Rules

Part Sixteen - Near Misses on Meltdowns Occur Every 3 Weeks

Part Seventeen - Storing Spent Fuel is Hazardous for Short or Long Term

Part Eighteen - Reprocessing Spent Fuel Is Not Safe

Part Nineteen - Nuclear Radiation Injures People and Other Living Things

Part Twenty - Chernobyl Meltdown And Explosion

Part Twenty One - Three Mile Island Unit 2 Meltdown 1979

Part Twenty Two - this article

Part Twenty Three - San Onofre Shutdown Saga

Part Twenty Four - St. Lucie Ominous Tube Wear

Part Twenty Five - Price-Anderson Act Protects Nuclear Plants Too Much

Part Twenty Six - Evacuation Plans Required at Nuclear Plants

Part Twenty Seven - Power From Nuclear Fusion

Part Twenty Eight - Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process

Part Twenty Nine - High Temperature Gas Reactor Still A Dream

Part Thirty - Conclusion

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California 

Fukushima Children Showing Thyroid Cancer

Subtitle: Radiation-induced thyroid cancer rises among children

“The people, including children, are living in a highly contaminated area adjacent to the Fukushima plant. There have been some surveys that looked at what the consequences for kids will be. According to the survey, the past few years have seen an increase in diabetes, thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer among local children. Japan's Mainichi newspaper recently published a report which said that one in four children living in the disaster-hit regions needs mental care over problematic behavior. And the region will not be safe again for generations,”  -- Voice of Russia  see link

Nuclear power proponents insist that nuclear plants are safe, no one is harmed by their operation, yet studies like the one cited above clearly show that people are exposed to cancer-causing radiation.   In addition, stress over living in a region known to be contaminated with radioactive fallout from the meltdowns of 2011 requires mental care. 

For more on radiation-induced illness and sickness from nuclear power plants, see Article 19 of The Truth About Nuclear Power at this link.

Roger E. Sowell, Esq. 
Marina del Rey, California





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