"Yesterday will go down in history as one of the most significant for mankind."

Dr Euan Mearns, Editor of The Oil Drum, "I have for a long while been pro-nuclear but must admit that my faith in nuclear planners is shaken by this sequence of events"


Yesterday, I believe, will go down in history as one of the most significant for mankind. Whilst most citizens of the developed and developing world do not realise this yet, the future of the human global energy system has just changed course with potentially far reaching consequences for human civilisation.

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It often takes a disaster to test our systems and to bring into the public domain certain frailties that may exist. The Fukushima catastrophe has brought into the public eye frailties than most were not concerned about until Saturday 12th March 2011 when news of the reactor problems broke following the earthquake and tsunami of the previous day. Fukushima’s fate was sealed on the day the Japanese government gave approval for the reactors to be built on a coastline where there was a high probability of earthquake and tsunami in the plant’s lifetime. The risks were known and understood and the facility was engineered to a high specification to withstand such events. For three days, the fate of the global nuclear industry has hung in the balance. Had the Japanese engineers managed to contain the incident then it was possible that the nuclear industry could emerge strengthened with proof that well designed and maintained American reactors could withstand the worst that nature can throw. But alas, this is not the case.

In granting consent to build these reactors the Japanese government, with little to no supplies of indigenous primary energy such as coal, oil and natural gas, must have decided that benefits to Japan of providing over 30% of electricity from nuclear sources outweighed the risks of building nuclear plant in one of the seismically most active regions of the world. Not only did they consent to build, but they built 4 reactors in close proximity to each other, right on the coast where they would feel the maximum effect of any tsunami. The coastal location proves beneficial now since this provides ready access to cooling water, much of the radiation released will fall on the sea and not on land, and there is reduced risk of pollution of ground water. But had they been built on higher ground a short way inland then they would not have been hit by the tsunami in the first place. How such risks have been weighed will go under the microscope in the weeks and months ahead. Building a cluster like this is no doubt based on a shared defence system, but it has been surprising to watch hydrogen explosions in one reactor compromise neighbouring reactor buildings. Were these risks properly weighed?

It has also been instructive to learn that steel and concrete containment systems alone are not sufficient to guarantee safety. Maintaining the engineering ability to pump water through the core after emergency shutdown means that pumps, pipes and valves located outside of the armoured core defence systems must also continue to function, and as is the case with many disasters, damage inflicted by the disaster itself may compromise the safety systems and their backup. In the case of Fukushima, the plant survived the initial onslaught of earthquake and tsunami. Damage inflicted at that stage set in motion a sequence of events, starting with the venting of hydrogen gas and the explosions they caused, and further degraded the capability to contain an escalating crisis. In terms of reactor design, it strikes me as odd that hydrogen should be vented into the confines of the reactor building, effectively creating a bomb. Have these eventualities been anticipated by the engineers who designed the plant?



Continue reading at

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7661




Dr. Euan Mearns, PhD degrees in geology, editor of The Oil Drum
Euan Mearns has BSc and from the University of Aberdeen. Following 8 years in Norway as a researcher at the University of Oslo, he returned to Aberdeen in 1991 where he set up a geochemical analysis and consulting firm serving the international oil industry.

this will be the one time when people will magically forget who is getting paid by the oil industry... at least this guy admits to it

I find it a very credible source for info about the nuke crisis.

over there are interesting reading, too.

of these plants is that they store spent fuel rods INSIDE the reactor building, above the heat source. How fucking stupid is that? Even the three reactors that were shut down prior to the quake (No 4 is the first) are now endanger of being involved in a meltdown situation.

I expect all the reactors were designed to withstand scale 7 or 8 earthquakes, and the thought of an 8.9 was seen as too remote to be worth guarding against.