Nuclear Incidents and Accidents - s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com file · Web viewChina Syndrome was about a nuclear plant with internal problems that, if unattended, could have led to

8 Nuclear and HydropowerNuclear Incidents and Accidents

A nuclear incident occurs when released radioactivity is contained; that is, prevented from escaping to the outside environment with no resulting loss of life and with minimal impact on the health of those exposed to radiation. Nuclear accidents involve radioactivity escaping to the outside environment with or without injuries or deaths. The history of nuclear accidents starts in 1952 with a partial meltdown of a reactor’s core at Chalk River near Ottawa, Canada, when four control rods were accidentally removed. The resulting radioactive release was contained in millions of gallons of water and no injuries resulted. In 1957, Windscale Pile No. 1 north of Liverpool, England, sustained a fire in a graphite moderated reactor and spewed radiation over a 200 square mile area. In the same year, an explosion of radioactive wastes at a Soviet nuclear weapons factory in South Ural Mountains forced evacuation of over 10,000 people from the contaminated area. In 1976, a failure of safety systems during a fire nearly caused a reactor meltdown near Greifswald in former East Germany.

Human error played a major role in both Three Mile Island incident and Chernobyl accident. Nearly all the radioactive release of the Three Mile Island incident was kept within its containment system, as it was designed to do. Soviet nuclear power plants do not have containment systems built to withstand pressure generated from a ruptured reactor system, but are housed in buildings to protect against the weather. Nor did the Soviet Union select a safe plant design. Whereas most reactors shut down when the water moderator in the core boils away (an example of a negative feedback system), the same phenomenon with the Soviet graphite moderated reactor led to a runaway power surge (an example of a positive feedback system). Fukushima was not a matter of human error in its operations. Fukushima is a victim of a tectonic plate shift and an accompanying tsunami for which the plant turned out to be extremely vulnerable. Some maintain that human error is ultimately the cause of all accidents; here it was the decision to remove land to lower the plant’s elevation with respect to the ocean surface.

Three Mile Island Incident

The Three Mile Island incident in March 28, 1979 was preceded by the release of the movie China Syndrome on March 16, 1979, a case of Hollywood prescience or fiction preceding fact. China Syndrome was about a nuclear plant with internal problems that, if unattended, could have led to a core meltdown, which, after melting through the containment system, would then burrow its way toward

©Routledge/Taylor & Francis 2016

China. The film dealt with management’s decision to ignore and cover up the plant’s problems until exposed by a crusading journalist.

The Three Mile Island incident proved that nuclear power plants were not immune to accidents, despite claims to the contrary. In this case a malfunction of a secondary cooling circuit caused temperature in the primary coolant to rise, shutting down the reactor as expected. What was not expected was failure of a relief valve to close and stop the primary coolant from draining away. The relief valve indicator on the instrumentation panel showed the valve as being closed, making it difficult for operators to diagnose the true cause of the problem. As a result, coolant continued to drain away until the core was uncovered. Without coolant, residual decay heat in the reactor core raised its temperature sufficiently for a partial core meltdown.

Although the instrumentation panel failed to show that the relief valve was still open, blame for the accident was eventually assigned to inadequate emergency response training for the operators. In other words, despite faulty indication of the relief valve, operators should have identified the true cause of the problem and taken proper action before it was too late. The containment system performed as it was designed to do—nearly all released radioactivity was prevented from escaping to the outside environment. Contrary to the China Syndrome plot, management did not hide the plant’s problems from the public and the core would not have melted through the earth.

There were minor health impacts and no injuries from the Three Mile Island incident. Even though the nuclear power industry took remedial steps to improve training and operations to make reactors even more safe and reliable, Three Mile Island incident dealt a deathblow to the US nuclear power industry. The incident halted all further orders of nuclear power plants in the US and was blamed for the cancellation of over 40 orders for plants not yet started. Some maintain that the Three Mile Island incident just turned out to be a convenient excuse for cancelling plants that could not be built without enormous cost overruns and construction time delays. The economic benefit of nuclear power was not living up to its initial expectations. Most plants under construction were completed, although a few were converted to fossil fuel plants. Public concern over nuclear safety generated by this incident was sufficient to prevent the Shoreham plant on Long Island from becoming operational when it was completed in 1984. A study showed that if a more serious incident than that of Three Mile Island were to occur at the Shoreham plant, the few bridges and tunnels connecting Long Island with the mainland would preclude any large-scale evacuation. For this, the plant was dismantled in 1992.

Radiation


Radiation is ever present. It is defined as energy traveling through space epitomized by sunlight that delivers light, heat and, if one is not careful, sunburn. Sunglasses, shade, clothing, and sunscreen protect from discomfiting or harmful effects of the sun’s radiation. Radiation comes in different wavelengths with long wavelengths associated with radio waves, and in descending order, microwaves, infrared, visible light from red to blue, ultra violet, X-rays, gamma, and cosmic rays. Radio waves are measured in meters, microwaves in hundredths, visible light in thousandths, and on down to cosmic waves in hundred millionths of a meter. Artificial X-ray radiation identifies medical and dental problems hidden from view and treats cancer.

Most elements are stable, but some isotopes of stable elements (same number of protons, but greater number of neutrons) have excess energy that is emitted as radiation as the isotope steps down from a higher to a lower energy state before becoming stable. Some isotopes decay remaining the same element, but others change to different elements if one or more protons are ejected. Radiation is measured in becquerel (Bq), where one Bq is defined as one atomic decay per second.1 Table CW8.1 shows radioactivity of some materials.2

Table CW8.1 Examples of Radioactivity in Bq

Quantity Item Bq1 kg Granite 1,0001 kg Coffee 1,0001 kg Coal Ash 2,000100 sq meters Australian home 3,000100 sq meters European home 30,000Adult human 100 Bq/kg 7,000Smoke detector Americium 30,0001 kg uranium ore Australia (0.3 percent U) 500,0001 kg uranium ore Canada (15 percent U 26 million1 kg Low level nuclear waste 1 million

Radioisotope for medical diagnosis 70 millionLuminous Exit sign (1970s) 1 TBq*

1 kg High level nuclear waste 10 TBqRadioisotope for medical therapy 100 TBq

*One tera-becquerel (TBq) is a million million Becquerel or 1012 atomic decays per second.

Atomic decay can take various forms. Alpha particles are helium nuclei consisting of two protons and two neutrons stripped of their two electrons and are emitted from decay of heavy elements such as uranium and radium. Emission of an alpha particle, because it contains protons, changes an isotope of one element to an isotope of another. Radon is a radioactive gas found in the earth’s surface and in


building materials and collects in the atmosphere of closed spaces such as basements. Radon emits alpha particles, which at best can barely penetrate skin, but are dangerous if inhaled. In the lungs, alpha particles penetrate cell membranes and can do significant damage including causing cancer.

As isotopes decay by emitting a neutron to a more stable state, beta particles, which are fast-moving electrons, are also emitted. Neutron and beta emission do not change an element, but reflects a change to a lower and eventually stable energy state. Beta particles are more penetrating than alpha particles, but can be easily shielded by a few millimeters of wood or aluminum. Beta particles can penetrate a little way into human flesh, and, of course, can do more damage if inhaled or ingested as they can penetrate cell membranes of vital organs. Exposure to high energy beta rays produces a type of sunburn slower to heal than that from the sun while low energy beta rays are stopped by skin or cellophane. Alpha and beta radioactive substances are safe if kept in appropriately sealed containers.

Ionizing radiation with wavelengths above visible light affects living cells; if ionizing radiation is strong enough, an organism (man) can suffer from radiation sickness; or if severe enough, death. Birth defects can occur if cells associated with reproduction are affected by radiation. The most dangerous radiation are high-energy beams of gamma rays similar to X-rays, but more energetic. They are associated with many forms of radioactive decay and are very penetrable, requiring substantial shielding. Gamma rays are the main hazard to people dealing with radioactive materials. Radiation dose badges worn by workers during times of exposure detect and monitor gamma ray exposure. Geiger counters measure gamma rays. All life is exposed to low-level background gamma radiation from the sun and universe plus radioactive decay in rocks and other naturally occurring substances. X-rays are lower frequency, less energetic gamma rays while cosmic radiation from space, normally high energy protons, is the most energetic form of gamma rays. Neutrons are very damaging form of radiation that can penetrate far into living matter, but are mostly released by nuclear fission and encountered far less often outside a nuclear reactor core.

Hence a becquerel (Bq) defined as one atomic decay per second does not measure the ionizing damage to human cells. An alpha particle stopped by skin is not nearly as deleterious as a high energy gamma ray tearing apart the genetic information within cells. Thus it would be preferable to place radiation on the same scale in terms of its biological impact on living cells regardless of the form of radiation. Biological effects of radiation are measured in Sieverts, the equivalent dose of receiving one joule of X-rays per kilogram of bodily mass.3 A Sievert (Sv) is equivalent to 100 rem, an older measure of radiation damage. A millisievert (mSv), one thousandth of a Sievert, is the normal unit of measurement. Table CW8.2 provides the level of impact of different doses of millisieverts.

Table CW8.2 Likely Effects of Whole-body Radiation Doses


Dose in mSv/Year Likely Effect

1.5–2.5 including 0.7 from radon in air Average global normal background

3 including 2 from radon in air North America normal background

15 Parts of India

40 Parts of Brazil and Sudan

50 Parts of Europe and Iran (260 in Ramsar)

10 Maximum allowable dose uranium miner in Australia

20 Radiological personnel in nuclear industry, hospitals

50 Lowest dose with evidence of causing cancer

100 Probability of cancer begins to increase for bodily cells; for reproductive cells, damage may be genetic in nature causing birth defects

250 Maximum dose for workers at Fukushima

1,000 (1 sievert) In short term whole-body dose, radiation sickness

10,000 (10 sieverts) In short term whole-body dose, death within a few weeks; between 2–5 sieverts severe radiation sickness with increasing likelihood of being fatal

Another measure of radioactivity is the half-life of radioactive substances. Radioactive decay is the disintegration of an unstable atom with an accompanying emission of radiation and atomic particles. Various types of radiation are emitted at each step of an isotope on its pathway toward a stable configuration where radiation ceases. Emission rates of radioactive decay become less frequent with time as unstable isotopes decay to another isotope on their pathway to stability. When all atoms are stable, material is no longer radioactive.

Radioactive decay occurs at a fixed rate for a given number of isotopic atoms and the half-life of a radioisotope is time required for one half of the atoms to reach the next step in radioactive decay. At one half-life, intensity of radioactive decay is cut by 50 percent because half of the atoms have been transformed to the next lower isotopic state. At two half-lives, intensity is cut by a factor of four. After nine half-lives, less than one-thousandth of the original activity will remain. Length of a half-life differs


markedly for each radioisotope. For instance, cesium 137 has a half-life of 30.2 years and strontium 90 of 28 years, both common radioisotopes released during nuclear accidents. Radioactivity associated with these two isotopes falls in half in about 30 years, thus its decay in terms of becquerel will be cut in half and sieverts, a measure of biological damage, will also decline, but not necessarily in a linear relationship with bequerels. It may take several hundreds of years for intense releases of radioactive cesium and strontium to decay to an acceptable level. Other radioactive isotopes have half-lives of hundreds of years requiring thousands of years for a significant reduction in radiation. Alpha emitting plutonium 239 (Pu239), produced as a waste product in nuclear reactors, has a half-life of 24,300 years. Once ingested, it tends to concentrate in the liver, lungs, and bones causing severe biological damage from its high energy alpha emissions. Hundreds of thousands of years may be necessary to reduce radiation from Pu239 to a safe level. On the other hand, iodine 121 and 135 have half-lives of only 8 days, which means in a few months they may not be detectable. However rate of release of radioactivity is much higher for iodine than cesium or strontium because of its shorter half-life.

Release of radioactivity at Chernobyl and Fukushima is measured in terms of 100 quadrillion becquerel, a number that defies imagination. Radiation released at Fukushima was greater than at Chernobyl primarily because Fukushima involved three reactor meltdowns, not one as at Chernobyl.4 Moreover Chernobyl was eventually contained in a cement sarcophagus whereas Fukushima is still open to the environment with no plan to contain the ongoing release of radioactive material. But that does not necessarily make Fukushima more dangerous than Chernobyl for humans. Radioactive material from Chernobyl was spread by wind over a wide land mass in an uneven fashion affecting different populated and unpopulated areas with a wide disparity in radiation intensity. The prevalent wind pattern over Fukushima spread much of the radioactivity over the Pacific Ocean, which was eventually deposited on its surface, then spread on the surface and in depth by atmospheric winds and ocean currents. Moreover, contaminated water from the reactor buildings is spilling toward the Pacific Ocean, not toward populated areas. This does not make Fukushima less of a calamity just because the Pacific Ocean was more affected by radiation than the Japanese mainland. In investigating radioactive impact, various sources had far different assessments on the amount of radiation released by Chernobyl and Fukushima and on their effect on the general population. Government spokespeople and environmentalists generally have polar views on the radiological consequences of these two accidents. Truth is probably lost in the middle.

Chernobyl Nuclear Accident

Chernobyl nuclear accident occurred on April 26, 1986. In one respect, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are similar: both involved human error. At Chernobyl, a runaway reactor occurred during a test, ironically one associated with reactor safety—how long could turbines supply power when cut off from reactor power? What made Chernobyl so much worse than Three Mile Island was the nature of its


reactor design, actions taken by operators to defeat safety features, and absence of a containment system (the reactor housing was not built to contain a pressure buildup from a rupture of the reactor or its piping). In conducting the test, automatic reactor trip mechanisms were disabled and emergency core cooling system was shut off. With its valves locked shut, none of the operators knew who had the keys! Having disabled the reactor’s safety features, two principal operators started “doing their own thing” in running two separate tests without communicating to each other what they were doing. On site management could have acted, but management was far away in Moscow who were virtually ignorant of what was happening in the plant.

Reactor design made a bad situation worse. Soviet reactors use graphite as a moderator and water as a coolant. Graphite has several undesirable features as a moderator. At too high a temperature, graphite can burn or react violently with steam to generate hydrogen and carbon monoxide, both combustible gases. In a US reactor, water, as both moderator and coolant, shuts down the reactor when it boils in the core. Void spaces in boiling water reduce the number of neutrons being slowed to keep the reactor critical (negative feedback). In the Soviet reactor, creation of void spaces in boiling water allowed a greater number of neutrons to reach the graphite moderator, increasing the fission rate (positive feedback). From a low power condition, operators retracted more control rods than recommended and the reactor went supercritical, generating enough heat to turn coolant to steam, which further increased the number of fissions. The resulting power surge ruptured the fuel elements and blew off the reactor cover plate. When air gained access to the core, the graphite moderator burst into flames and the resulting blast, along with escaping steam, ruptured the roof of the building housing the reactor. Large chunks of reactor core and graphite moderator were scattered outside the building, releasing far more radioactivity than nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Death quickly followed for those in contact with radioactive debris or caught in the radioactive cloud close by the plant. A group of people standing on a bridge not far away died from exposure to radioactivity by gazing in wonderment at strange lights emanating from the reactor. True to Soviet style management, no public mention of this accident was made until radiation alarms went off in Sweden. About 200,000 people living within a 30 km radius of the plant had to be evacuated and resettled. Increasing the exclusion zone a few years later required resettling another 200,000. Those caught in the radioactive cloud that reached to Eastern Europe and Scandinavia now suffer from a higher incidence of cancer and birth defects. Although Russian inspectors monitor food for radioactivity from farms, they miss large quantities of contaminated berries and mushrooms gathered by individuals from forests that “all but glow in the dark.” Many believe that the actual death toll far exceeds the official death count of a few hundred. All those involved in the initial clean up died of radiation poisoning after picking up reactor fragments and debris with their hands and depositing them in garbage cans. Even so, the statistics do not include shortening of life from a higher incidence of cancer and babies born with serious birth defects.5


Since the Chernobyl accident, Russian reactors have been retrofitted with modifications to overcome the deficiencies in the original design. Moreover there has been significant collaboration between Russian and western nuclear engineers to advance safety in nuclear reactor design and operation. Three other unaffected reactors units 1–3 at Chernobyl continued operating until they were shut down in the 1990s. One suffered from a serious fire incident. Unit 4 was the reactor that blew itself apart and units 5 and 6, under construction at the time of the accident, were never completed. The entire reactor, including the bottom of the reactor building, was entombed in a cement sarcophagus. The hastily constructed entombment of unit 4 began showing early signs of deterioration. If the structure collapsed, it would be accompanied by a large release of radioactive material still entrapped within the building. In 2014 progress is proceeding on the construction of a 100-year tomb for unit 4, essentially a double-skinned huge hut-like structure dubbed the New Safe Confinement. It is being built several hundred meters away from unit 4 because high radiation levels preclude building the structure on site.6 When completed, the structure will be moved on rails to cover the existing sarcophagus with added construction to ensure that unit 4 is sealed entirely from the outside environment. The purpose of the new structure is to protect the existing sarcophagus from further eroding effects of weather; and if the sarcophagus were to collapse, the new structure will contain released radioactive material. The structure is financed interestingly by European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, not a Russian financial institution, and its projected time of completion is 2017.7

Other Nuclear Incidents

Since Chernobyl, but before Fukushima, a nuclear incident occurred in 1999 in Tokaimura, Japan, in a uranium reprocessing nuclear fuel plant. Workers inadvertently mixed spent uranium in solution in a container large enough to create a critical mass. Although there was no explosion, the liquid went critical, giving off large amounts of radioactivity. As the liquid solution boiled, void spaces stopped the chain reaction (lack of a moderator to slow down the neutrons). When cooled, the solution became critical again. This lasted for 20 hours before a neutron absorber could be added to the tank to keep its contents subcritical. Twenty-seven people were exposed to very high levels of radioactivity and two died, and more than 600 others were exposed to less dangerous levels of radiation. Three years after this incident, in 2002, a scandal broke out when it was learned that Japanese utility management hid the fact that there were cracks in nuclear power plant piping (shades of China Syndrome). All nuclear power plants in Japan were shut down for inspection and repair, if necessary. No reactor incident came of this, but there was a justifiable loss of confidence in management, raising doubts about Japan’s future reliance on nuclear power.

Fukushima Daiichi Accident


Tsunamis of equal height as the one that struck Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station on March 11, 2011 are memorialized on ancient megalithic monuments along the Japanese shoreline. They state a dire warning not to forget the calamity of a great tsunami and never build anything below the height of the monument no matter how many years have passed and always remain vigilant, a heeding ignored when siting the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station.8 The sea wall built at Fukushima Daiichi was deemed adequate for tsunamis that had struck in recorded history spanning several centuries. But not back far enough. The probability of a tsunamis higher than the sea wall was assessed as so small that it was not worth considering—too bad for the planners that the probability of a tsunami over twice as high as the protecting sea wall turned out to be 100 percent.9 As a point of interest, a sea wall height of 18.7 feet was already in question. Japanese government’s Earthquake Research Committee completed a report in February 2011, which was due for release in April, one month after the Fukushima tsunami. The report included an analysis of a magnitude 8.3 earthquake that had struck the region 1,140 years ago; it may even have advocated a higher sea wall, but too late.10

Fukushima Daiichi was the first of three nuclear generating stations operated by TEPCO located on 860 acres in the Fukushima prefecture, about 160 miles from Tokyo on the northeast coast of Japan. The nuclear generating station consisted of six boiling water reactors capable of generating 5,480 mW (5.48 gW) of electricity making it one of the largest generating stations in the world. In addition, there were pools containing spent fuel assemblies that had to be cooled to prevent overheating from residual radiation.

“Great East Japan Earthquake” of magnitude 9.0 on the Richter scale, one of the largest ever experienced in Japan, occurred 112 miles off the coast at 2:46 pm on March 11, 2011. The earthquake moved the crust under Japan several meters to the east and the local coastline subsided half a meter. The resulting tsunamis inundated about 560 square kilometers of area killing over 19,000 people. At the first indication of an earthquake, 11 reactors at four power plants in the region were scrammed (shut down). None suffered damage from the earthquake. But seven tsunamis hit the Fukushima reactor station, the highest estimated to be between 46 and 49 feet above sea level about an hour after the earthquake. It destroyed the 18.7 foot high sea wall and inundated the reactor building located 32.8 feet above sea level. The land upon which the reactor building was built was originally a bluff from which 80 feet (25 m) were stripped away to prepare the site for the reactor plant. If only 60 feet were stripped away raising the height of the reactor building by 20 feet, the tsunami would have had no impact.11

But being 32.8 feet above sea level, the tsunami carried away all equipment and fuel tanks outside the reactor building and flooded the basement of the turbine building that housed diesel generators to provide emergency cooling and the connection between electricity generation and transmission lines. The basement was purposively selected to protect diesel generators and the transmission connection against typhoons; but not, unfortunately, a tsunami of this height. The tsunami destroyed not only the means to cool the reactors including the diesel generators and heat exchangers for transferring reactor decay heat to ocean water, but also the capability to transmit electricity from external sources to the stricken plant.


With the sensing of the earthquake, the three operating reactor units 1–3 were scrammed and would have remained in a safe mode had there been no tsunami. Unit 4 was shut down and its fuel removed in preparation for a refueling. Spent fuel assemblies were stored in a fuel pond above the reactor within the reactor building. Units 5 and 6 were being refueled and their emergency cooling system survived the tsunami to provide cooling necessary for the new fuel assemblies stored in their fuel ponds. Although units 4, 5, and 6 did not suffer physical damage, they are scheduled to be dismantled.

With total loss of coolant and electrical systems, energy generated by residual radioactivity in the three operating reactors began to heat up their cores raising their pressures within the primary containment systems, the reactor vessels. The power of residual radioactivity to generate heat was estimated to be equivalent to 22 mW in unit 1 and 33 mW in units 2 and 3, no small amount. With no means to dissipate this heat, the resulting precipitous rises in core temperatures made it necessary to start venting the reactor vessels to lower their internal pressures to prevent rupturing the primary containment systems. Despite initial attempts to vent, temperatures had already reached a point where steam within the cores had begun to react with zirconium in cladding around the fuel rods generating hydrogen. To make matters worse the steam-zirconium reaction is exothermic meaning that the reaction generates even more heat. Degradation of the cladding allowed fissionable products to infiltrate coolant water. Venting the cores allowed hydrogen accumulating in the cores along with radioactive particles to be admitted to the secondary containment systems, reactor buildings housing the primary containment systems (reactor vessels). A spark ignited hydrogen resulting in explosions that ripped open the roofs of reactor buildings allowing radioactivity to escape into the local environment. Release of radioactivity initiated the first evacuation 8 hours after the accident for all who lived within 1.2 miles of the station and within another hour was extended to 6 miles, and then eventually 16 miles. It is now permissible to live in areas outside the exclusionary zone around Fukushima reactor station as long as radiation is less than 20 millisieverts per year. For some, this means spending time at home only during daylight hours. About 140,000 evacuated people have yet to return. There has been a rise in the incidence of thyroid cancer in the general population.12 Fish from local waters have been prohibited for consumption because of radiation risk. The prohibition is confounded by far ranging fish devouring local fish and then disappearing over the horizon to be caught thousands of miles away in open ocean waters.13

Valiant, but fruitless, actions were concentrated in trying to keep the reactor cores covered with water. The last resort was to hook up hoses from fire trucks, but the central problem was that the fire engines’ water pressure had to exceed the pressure within the core for water to enter the core. No water would flow as long as the pressure within the core was greater than the fire engines’ pressure. This meant that the cores had to be continually vented, which allowed escape of now highly radioactive reactor water in the form of steam, for water to be pumped into the reactors. Thus relatively small volumes of water could be pumped into the cores; first fresh then sea water. It was a case of too little too late and core meltdown started within a few hours and after 16 hours, the core was essentially a puddle of highly radioactive material at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel.

It is not immediately clear where the melted cores for units 1, 2, and 3 are now located, but it is felt that the primary containment systems, the reactor pressure vessels, have been breached. Radioactive material at the bottom of the reactor building is contaminating ground water flowing into the basement of the reactor buildings at about 300 tons per day. Obviously the integrity of the reactor buildings below ground level has been compromised. Highly contaminated water is being removed and stored in 1,200 tanks with a total capacity of 300,000 tons that have been hastily constructed.14 Some of the tanks have developed leaks where escaping radioactive water joins up with other groundwater flowing into the Pacific Ocean. The origin of the groundwater flow into the reactor building is not well


understood, although some is from attempts to keep the cores covered with water. What is well understood is that this water becomes highly radioactive and has to be removed before it spills over into the Pacific Ocean. Various plans have been advanced to stop this flow of contaminated water starting with the construction of an ice wall around the reactor building, which has been abandoned. Various ideas to entrap water with a cement or other type bonding material have been advanced with no real progress in finding a solution.15 Perhaps Japan should have accepted an early invitation by Russia to aid in recovery efforts: Russia has excellent experience in entombing burst reactors.

Part of this imbroglio about the source of water leaking into the reactor buildings is that the whereabouts of the melted cores are not known with certainty. If the cores melted their way through their reactor pressure vessels, they then lie on top of a 2.6 m thick cement casing under the reactor building. Perhaps some of the flooding of ground water into the reactor buildings is from melted cores compromising integrity of the cement casing. A nightmare scenario is melted cores penetrating the cement foundation of the secondary containment, which would lead to direct exposure of the melted cores to ground water. As insinuated in China Syndrome, the cores could melt their way through the earth’s crust. If the three cores melted their way to a common point, this could possibly result in an explosion with the direst of consequences.

What is known is that continued flooding of the reactor building is ongoing with no sign of abating.16 Tens of billions of dollars have been spent on cleanup and in compensation for those suffering injuries, death from radiation or psychological stress, health problems, relocation expenses, and financial hardship. Cleanup is expected to last 40 years, but it may never end given the half-life of some isotopes.

Another associated problem was spent fuel ponds located at the station, particularly the one holding spent fuel assemblies from reactor unit 4 that had just been removed from the core shortly before the accident. Spent fuel assemblies are kept three years under cooled water until radioactivity has decayed sufficient for the spent fuel assemblies to be transferred to dry storage where forced air ventilation is adequate for controlling temperature. Fuel ponds at the top of reactor buildings were damaged from the hydrogen explosions. It was feared that a collapse of fuel ponds, particularly in unit 4, with a concomitant loss of water would cause overheating of spent fuel adding to the magnitude of the catastrophe. Fuel ponds were structurally reinforced, but there was some release of radioactivity from a few spent fuel assemblies overheating in unit 4 fuel pond. Water from the fire trucks kept the spent fuel covered minimizing radioactive material release. Both fresh (new fuel assemblies for units 5 and 6) and spent fuel assemblies most notably from unit 4 have been subsequently removed with some of the spent fuel assemblies shipped to a Japanese reprocessing plant and the rest placed in storage away from Fukushima.17

Japan did not suffer blackouts as a result of Fukushima because 90 percent of Japanese reactors were still available for generation. However, there was a period of voluntary reduced electricity consumption to get fossil fueled plants operational as nuclear power plants were shut down. Air conditioning was cut to the bone during the summer of 2011. The big winner as a replacement fuel for nuclear power was LNG. Japan’s dependence on LNG caused a boom for converting plants to burn LNG and in constructing more liquefaction plants and LNG carriers to expand global LNG export capacity. Japan’s purchase of LNG swung its balance of payments from positive to negative, the primary reason why government


authorities want to restart nuclear reactors in other parts of the nation. Restarting reactors would be contingent on passing a stringent inspection by Japan’s nuclear authority with respect to reactor and geologic safety issues. Only two plants are currently operational.18

Alternatives to restarting nuclear power plants are being offered such as one to construct offshore islands from landfill in shallow waters of bays, estuaries, and other protected waters to be covered with solar farms.19 Germany is relying on renewables (solar and wind) as substitute energy for the nuclear plants that have been shut down. Growth in renewables is expected to exceed Germany’s entire pre-Fukushima nuclear output by 2016.20 However China is embracing nuclear power in what can only be called a gargantuan scale. Rather than relying on Western designs, China is “indigenizing” building of its reactors for both domestic use and for export including licensing of its design. Some commentators believe that building large numbers of reactors of a unique and untested design may lead to another Fukushima.21 Of course there is no law that China cannot build a reliable reactor with a new design that can be safely operated. The negative reaction to China bringing out a new generation of nuclear power plants may be sour grapes; just another annoying sign of the West’s waning industrial prowess.

Birth of the Environmental MovementSaga of the Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams

The Hoover and Glen Canyon dams mark the beginning and end of a dam-building spree in the US. When built, Hoover Dam ranked first in the world in size and power generation. Although Glen Canyon Dam has the same electricity generating capacity as Hoover Dam, and is similar in size and structure, a few far larger dams were built in the 30-year interim separating the two.22 Hoover Dam was built during the Great Depression in the 1930s to jump-start the US economy as were dams built in Appalachia under the Tennessee Valley Authority. Other major dam projects were Shasta Dam across the Sacramento River and Grand Coulee Dam across the Columbia River. Shasta and Grand Coulee dams supply water for irrigation and flood control, but of the two, only the Grand Coulee Dam generates electricity; more than twice the combined output of Hoover and Glen Canyon dams.

The Hoover and Glen Canyon dams straddle the Colorado River, discovered by Coronado in 1540 in his quest for the fabled seven cities of gold (actually Cardenes, a member of Coronado’s party, was the first to discover the Colorado River from the rim of the Grand Canyon). Coronado named the river after the Spanish word for “red,” the color of the silt-laden river. Coronado did not explore the Colorado River; in fact, it presented an insurmountable barrier to further exploration. Exploring the river would not take place for another 300 years, when a daring individual led the first recorded expedition down the river.


Colorado River falls 14,000 feet from the Rocky Mountains to sea level in the Gulf of California and carries more silt than any other river in the world, including the “muddy” Mississippi. The original time estimate for Lake Powell, the reservoir in back of Glen Canyon Dam, to fill up with silt was 400 years, but was subsequently revised to 1,000 years by later estimates of silt-capturing capacity of other dams upstream of where the Colorado River enters Lake Powell. Primary advantages of the Colorado River from the point of view of dam building are that the river flows through a canyon whose geology is ideal for damming and through a region desperate for water. The disadvantage of the Colorado River is its relatively low average water flow, which varies from a summer trickle to a springtide flood that carries away the snowmelt of a large area of the Rocky Mountains.

In early part of the twentieth century, the original idea was to build a dam at Glen Canyon first, followed by three more downstream dams whose construction would be made easier by building the upstream dam first. The problem was that the Glen Canyon reservoir would serve Arizona, which had a small population at the time. Population growth was centered in California, and by the 1920s, it was clear that further development hinged on having an adequate and dependable supply of water to support agriculture and urbanization. California politicians prevailed at deliberations as to where to build the first dam: it would be built at Boulder Canyon, whose reservoir water could be easily diverted to California. It was understood at the time that another dam would eventually be built to serve Arizona.

The name Boulder Dam stuck after the original site was changed to a better location in nearby Black Canyon, about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Boulder Dam was renamed Hoover Dam in 1930 after the president who authorized its construction. In 1933 New Deal bureaucrats decided that the world’s most monumental dam project should not be named after the president who presided over the onset of the Great Depression and changed the name back to Boulder. The dam was completed in 1936 and another six years were to pass before its reservoir, Lake Mead, was filled. In 1947, a Republican-controlled Congress under President Truman passed a law to reinstate the name Hoover.

Dams and other capital-intensive projects cannot be funded from private sources; too much money is at risk. The risk private investors shun is accepted by the government because risk of loss can be spread among the taxpaying public. Moreover government cooperation is needed for land condemnation to clear the way for the reservoir, particularly when much of the land is already in the public domain. Responsibility for dam building fell under the auspices of Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior. “Reclamation” was interpreted to mean “reclaiming” unproductive land for agricultural use by building dams to provide water for irrigation. Early reclamation projects were financial failures because revenue from growing crops on irrigated land fell far short of justifying the cost of building a dam. It was the fact that dams can also generate electricity that swung the financial equation in favor of


dam building. Department of Interior was also administrative home for Bureau of National Parks Service, charged with preserving and protecting wilderness areas, and Bureau of Indian Affairs, which establishes and administers American Indian reservations. One bureau built dams whose reservoirs, at times, submerged lands set aside by a sister bureau to preserve wilderness areas or by another to establish American Indian reservations. Talk about dichotomy of purpose within one government department!

There are marked similarities between Hoover and Glen Canyon dams. Both generate 1.3 million kilowatts (or 1,300 mW or 1.3 gW of output), enough electricity to supply a US city of over 1 million people. (Hoover Dam was upgraded to 2.1 gW in 1993.) Both rise 587 feet above the riverbed, although Hoover Dam is taller by sixteen feet when measured from bedrock. Like most dams, both had huge tunnels built around the dam site to divert waters of the Colorado River at full flood during dam construction. These were eventually plugged when the dams were completed to start filling the reservoirs, although both have diversion tunnels to reduce excessively high reservoir levels. Each required building of a new town for construction workers, one that started out as a disorganized tent city at Hoover Dam site and the other an equally disorganized trailer park at Glen Canyon Dam site. Tents and trailers were eventually replaced by carefully laid-out company towns for the construction workers and both survived completion of the dams as Boulder City, Nevada, and Page, Arizona.

The reservoir behind Hoover Dam (Lake Mead) holds two times the annual flow of the Colorado River; enough to irrigate 1 million acres of farmland in southern California and southwestern Arizona and 400,000 acres in Mexico, and supply more than 16 million people with water in Los Angeles and portions of Arizona and southern Nevada. Lake Mead is 110 miles in length with 550 miles of shoreline. The reservoir behind Glen Canyon Dam (Lake Powell) covers 252 square miles, is 186 miles long, and has 1,960 miles of shoreline. Considering the area and the length of Lake Powell, its average width can only be slightly over a mile of flooded canyons. Lake Mead was named after Elwood Mead, a commissioner in the Bureau of Reclamation. Lake Powell was named after John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Civil War veteran who in 1869 successfully led the first recorded expedition of ten men in four boats down the Colorado River. Although Powell did mention developing the area along with the need for preserving its natural beauty, what he had in mind in terms of development was far different than the type of development posed by the lake that bears his name. Mead is a fitting name for a dam’s reservoir; Powell is not.

Both dams were built in a similar fashion: in blocks, the smallest being the size of a house. One-inch copper pipes for pumping refrigerated water through the wet cement were incorporated in the construction of the dam to speed up curing from an estimated 150 years to nineteen or so months. Most dams built before the Hoover Dam were gravity dams; pyramidal in shape (thick at the bottom and narrow at the top), so that the weight of the dam held back the water. They were commonly cement or masonry on the outside and filled with rock or gravel. Arch dams of pure concrete or masonry, first built


in the late nineteenth century, were thin in comparison with gravity dams. A gravity dam depends on its massiveness to hold back the pressure of the water in a reservoir whereas an arch dam transfers pressure on the dam to thrust on canyon wall abutments. Hoover and Glen Canyon dams were an innovative combination of both gravity and arch designs. Though curved, they are still pyramidal, thick at the base and narrow at the top. (A third type is the buttress dam where the face of the dam is supported by buttresses on its downstream side.) While similar, there are differences between the two. The intake towers at Hoover Dam were built on the canyon walls, and tunnels (penstocks) were cut through the canyon walls for water to flow to the turbines whereas the intake towers and penstocks were incorporated within the Glen Canyon Dam. One can drive across Hoover Dam, but there is a bridge for vehicle traffic alongside Glen Canyon Dam, whose construction was a feat in itself.

Parenthetically, Las Vegas was built on the electricity generated by Hoover Dam. Gangster Bugsy Siegel saw “easy-going” Nevada with its legalized gambling as a land of opportunity and built the first gambling palace, the Flamingo. Bugsy saw before others that Hoover Dam could supply cheap and plentiful electricity for air conditioning and lights and water for casino fountains built in the middle of a hot, dry, inhospitable desert. Flamingo was the first step in transforming a backwoods desert town into the gambling Mecca of the world and one of the fastest growing cities in the US before the housing bubble burst in 2006.

Glen Canyon Dam, started in 1958, was completed four years later when gates to the lower tunnel were closed to begin filling Lake Powell. While the reservoir was filling, much work remained. Generators and transmission lines had to be installed, and tunnels that diverted the flow of the Colorado River during construction had to be permanently sealed. The fill rate was slow because a minimum quantity of water must flow through Glen Canyon Dam to ensure an adequate supply of water to Lake Mead, which in turn supplies water to California and powers Hoover Dam’s generators. With light snowfall in the Rockies in 1963 and 1964, Lake Mead was rapidly dropping while Lake Powell was hardly filling.23 Return of normal snowfalls sped up the fill, but a court injunction in 1973 temporarily stopped filling of Lake Powell when its reservoir water was about to invade the Rainbow Bridge National Monument. A congressional law was subsequently passed that allowed water to flood land previously set aside as part of a National Monument, violating a prior agreement with environmentalists in the Sierra Club that allowed Glen Canyon Dam to be built. In 1980, 17 years after the completion of the dam, Lake Powell was finally filled.

Hoover Dam was planned in the late 1920s in response to California developers who saw a lack of water as an impediment to further development of agriculture and urban areas. Harnessing a mighty river for the common good to make deserts bloom, light cities, and provide power to industry and commerce, Hoover Dam was “concrete” proof of America’s engineering skill and industrial might. No one opposed building the Hoover dam. Supporters included federal government via the Bureau of Reclamation,


private construction companies, and California politicians and developers. Thirty years later, Glen Canyon Dam was also viewed favorably by the same coterie of supporters, except politicians and developers were from Arizona. But a new entity was involved; the first environmentalist group to capture the nation’s attention, the Sierra Club.

Sierra Club was formed in the late nineteenth century by John Muir, a naturalist, to preserve the Sierra Nevada Mountains in their original pristine condition. Ever interested in preserving nature, Muir persuaded Theodore Roosevelt to declare a portion of Grand Canyon as a national monument, at the same time chiding Roosevelt for his habitual trophy-hunting of game animals. Sierra Club members were mainly conservative businessmen and academics dedicated to preserving wilderness areas of the high Sierras. After Muir lost a fight to prevent building a dam on a national preserve in the Sierras, the Sierra Club vowed that they would never allow this to happen again—in the Sierras. Transformation of the Sierra Club to openly fighting for conservation and preservation of wilderness far beyond the Sierras started in 1949 when the Bureau of Reclamation publicized its intention to build a dam across the Colorado in Dinosaur National Monument. This marked the beginning of a dramatic change in makeup of Sierra Club membership, from one of conservative businessmen and academics to a more politically active constituency that advocated preservation of wilderness and conservation of natural resources far beyond the high Sierras.

To its everlasting regret, the Sierra Club acquiesced to building of Glen Canyon Dam on condition that no more dams would be built in national parks and that something would be done to prevent flooding Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Ban on dams in national parks also included two more intended for the Grand Canyon between Glen Canyon and Hoover dams. These dams (Bridge Canyon and Marble Canyon) were to be smaller in size and less intrusive than their larger counterparts. They were intended to generate electricity to pump water over intervening mountains from Lake Powell to Tucson and Phoenix. With agreement not to build these dams, a substitute source of electricity was needed. It was first proposed that a nuclear power plant be built (this was in the 1960s, when nuclear power was considered safe and cheap). In the end, the Navajo Generating Station was built near Glen Canyon with a 2.5 gW output, about equal to the combined output of the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams. The plant, started in 1970 and completed in 1976, is fueled by Black Mesa coal strip mined on Navajo reservation land and shipped in by rail. It is ironic that environmentalists’ success in preventing building of two clean and sustainable hydropower dams led to building of one of the world’s largest coal burning plants that spews carbon dioxide and other emissions into pure desert air. It is also ironic that current attempts by environmentalists to dismantle Glen Canyon Dam ignore that Lake Powell draws far more tourists than Yellowstone and Yosemite Parks. The debate that continues to this day over Glen Canyon Dam has prevented any other large hydropower projects in the US from moving ahead.


Building of Glen Canyon Dam marks a watershed in the change of attitudes toward large-scale industrial development. Once viewed as signs of improvement of humanity’s material well-being, dams became viewed as an irretrievable loss of wilderness. Sierra Club gave birth to innumerable environmental groups dedicated to stopping not only dams, but just about anything that can be stopped from oil refineries in Texas to wind turbines off the coasts of Massachusetts and Long Island. Environmentalists maintain that building one dam leads to the building of another because industrial and agricultural development encouraged by construction of the first dam creates demand for electricity and water to justify building a second, then a third, and a fourth, and so on until the entire wilderness is submerged in reservoirs.

This phenomenon of progress creating its own demand was first observed when Robert Moses built a parkway on Long Island to give New Yorkers easy access to the “country.” Once built, so many New Yorkers moved to suburbia that the subsequent highway congestion created a demand for a second parkway. This opened access to other parts of Long Island, creating more urban sprawl, more road congestion, and need for building yet another parkway until, presumably, all of Long Island would eventually be paved over. Many cities have experienced this phenomenon with Los Angeles at the top of the list.

But urban sprawl requires a growing population supported by jobs dependent on an expanding economy, which, in turn, spurs higher consumption of energy and building of more power plants. Building one power plant allows a community to expand in population, commerce, and industry until there is a need for another. As one community experiences the economic benefits of a power plant, others copy it and the process continues until the nation is covered with power plants and the horizon cluttered with transmission lines. This is one of the chief complaints of environmentalists: progress continues until the last vestige of natural life is irretrievably lost. What the alternative vision of life under rule of environmentalists would be like is left largely unanswered (for good reason).24

Saga of Aswan High Dam

The environmental consequences of Aswan High Dam best exemplify what environmentalists fear most: environmental consequences are largely unknown before something is built; once built, little can be done to counter them. First Aswan dam, begun in 1889 when Egypt was under British control, was to irrigate cash crops such as cotton. Height of the dam was increased beginning in 1912 and 1933 to enhance its water storage capacity. Sluice gates of the original Aswan dams were opened during the flood season to let floodwaters proceed unimpeded downstream. As the flood season neared its end, sluice gates were closed, trapping water behind the dam for crop irrigation.25


The Nile flood originates in Ethiopian highlands, source of the Blue Nile, during the monsoon season. Silt deposited by floodwaters formed a thick, fertile layer of alluvium that made the Nile valley and delta one of the most productive agricultural regions on Earth. After the Egyptian revolt in 1952 brought Nasser to power, Soviet Union sponsored building of the Aswan High Dam, five kilometers long, one kilometer wide at its base, and rising 107 meters in height. This dam, called the “Pyramid for the Living” by President Nasser, permanently stopped the annual flooding of the Nile valley and delta.

The dam was supposed to be a major source of hydroelectric power for Egypt, but this potential was never fully realized. Lake Nasser did not rise to its anticipated height because of its high rate of evaporation, volume of water diverted to irrigate cropland, and possibly leakage through its bottom. Electricity was necessary, not only to supply the needs of the people, but also to provide energy for the production of fertilizer as a substitute for alluvial deposits formerly left behind by annual floods. Alluvial deposits were free, but fertilizer is not. In addition to affecting productivity of the Nile valley and delta, agricultural land has been lost by erosion of the Nile delta by the Mediterranean Sea, which had previously been replenished by annual inundations. Penetration of saline waters from the Mediterranean into the Nile delta further decreased productivity and reduced the local fish population. Agricultural land upstream of the dam, now part of Lake Nasser, was lost, along with livelihoods for 120,000 Nubians, who had to be resettled, but this was more than made up by bringing into production other lands bordering on Lake Nasser.26

There also appears to be a correlation between Lake Nasser’s water level and earthquake activity. Some geologists feel that the weight of Lake Nasser is affecting underlying faults; a phenomenon that has been observed at other dam sites. Sediments that once fertilized the Nile delta now accumulate in the bottom of Lake Nasser, over time reducing the volume of irrigation water stored in the lake. Presence of large bodies of water behind dams can affect the local climate, although this can be benign. Aswan High Dam has also been blamed for spread of schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that leads to chronic ill health, also associated with other large-scale water development projects. Where once the annual inundation of the Nile flushed the delta and river of snails that carry the parasite, now snails are moving further upstream and affecting larger numbers of people.27

This avalanche of environmental objections over the building of the Aswan High Dam has to be balanced by what proponents say. They point out that water in Lake Nasser saved Egypt from famine in 1972 and 1973 and maintained its agricultural output during nine successive years of drought between 1979 and 1987. Lake Nasser has provided irrigation for enough new land to be brought into cultivation to partially support a doubling of the population; but not enough to prevent Egypt, once a net food exporter, from


becoming a net food importer.28 Moreover, the dam protected the Nile valley from major floods in 1964, 1975, and 1988.29


1 Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852–1908) was a physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1903 along with Marie and Pierre Curie for their pioneering work in radioactivity.2 “Radiation and Life,” World Nuclear Association, Web site www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Radiation-and-Health/Nuclear-Radiation-and-Health-Effects.3 David Chandler, “Explained: rad, rem, sieverts, becquerel,” MIT News (March 28, 2011), Web site http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2011/explained-radioactivity-0328.Rolf Maximilian Sievert (1896–1966) was a medical physicist whose major contribution was studying the biological effects of radiation.4 “Study: Daily release from Fukushima of 100+ Quadrillion becquerel of cesium-137 early on in crisis ‘seems reasonable’—Chernobyl total release was ~70 Quadrillion Bq of Cs-137,” Web site http://enenews.com/govt-supported-study-release-of-100-quadrillion-becquerel-or-more-per-day-of-cesium-137-at-start-of-fukushima-crisis-seems-reasonable-chernobyl-released-less-than-100-quadrillion-becquerel. Notice that the title of the study implies that the daily release of cesium-137 at Fukushima was greater than the total release at Chernobyl! Other sources state that deaths attributable to radiation is numbered in the hundreds and that more people died from stress (including suicides) and interruption of medical care and taking medications than in radiation-induced deaths. The statistics seem to line up with whether one is pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear with the truth probably falling in between the two.5 One day while watching television, I chanced upon a program that showed gross bodily deformities among institutionalized children. After a while I realized that I was looking at the toll that Chernobyl extracted on pregnant women. But maybe not, in another report, I read that there has been no detectible increase in congenital defects in the aftermath of Chernobyl. Again, truth seems to be an end in itself depending more on preconceived notions than reality. 6 It is distressing to realize that nearly thirty years after Chernobyl that the radiation is still too high to construct the covering directly above the affected reactor building. A well-organized collection of images of Chernobyl are on Web site http://rt.com/news/155072-chernobyl-images-now-then.7 “Nuclear Safety: The Ultimate Security Blanket,” The Economist (November 22, 2014). 8 “Japan's Ancient Tsunami Warnings Carved in Stone,” Terra Daily (May 8, 2014). See also Web site http://m.megalithicportal.com/index.php shows megaliths worldwide. The Web site shows new and old megaliths standing side by side at the same height above sea level. See also Web site http://m.megalithicportal.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=121243&orderby=dateD. . See also Web site www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110510/world/Japan-s-ancient-tsunami-warnings-carved-in-stone.364570. See also CBS News Web site www.cbsnews.com/news/ancient-stone-markers-warned-of-tsunamis.9 Reactors may be safely housed, but strange things can happen around the housing. As an officer on board a nuclear powered submarine, I saw a sunken merchant ship in shallow waters of a port. It turned out that a submerged submarine, wanting to surface, listened for propeller sounds from nearby ships. The submarine heard a vessel and let it pass safely by. The officer in charge rang up speed to get the submarine underway in preparation of surfacing. The submarine was not making any headway although sonar reported that they heard the screws turning. Giving orders to increase speed did nothing. Not knowing what was going on, the submarine surfaced and punched a hole in the hull of a merchant vessel that was directly above the submarine. It turned out that the passing vessel was a tugboat towing a merchant vessel, which without propeller noise, was “invisible” to the submarine. Meanwhile the chain between the tugboat and the merchant vessel wrapped itself around the conning tower. The submarine, trying to get underway, was being towed in the opposite direction by the towboat. By the time the submarine decided to surface, the merchant vessel had floated to a spot directly above the submarine. In surfacing, the conning tower of the submarine pierced the hull of the merchant vessel. Somehow the tugboat was able to disengage itself from the submarine and tow the merchant vessel into harbor where it came to rest on the bottom in shallow waters. What is the probability that some planner would assign to this happening? Would it even be recognized as a possibility? The nuclear reactor was safe during this whole bizarre turn of events, but Fukushima demonstrates that things can happen outside the multi-layered protection of a reactor that one would never anticipate, but could have a catastrophic outcome. In dealing with probabilities, it pays to remember that the probability of a car accident at any moment in time is quite low; until it happens, then its probability jumps to 100 percent.10 “Fukushima Accident,” World Nuclear Organization, Web site www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Fukushima-Accident. 11 Reiji Yoshida and Takahiro Fukada, “Fukushima Plant Site Originally was a Hill Safe from Tsunami,” The Japan Times (July 13, 2011), Web site www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/07/13/national/fukushima-plant-site-originally-was-a-hill-safe-from-tsunami/#.VJsBLf8ADM12 Justin McCurry, “Fukushima’s Children at the Centre of Debate Over Rates of Thyroid Cancer,” The Guardian (March 8, 2014), Web site www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/09/fukushima-children-debate-thyroid-cancer-japan-disaster-nuclear-radiation.

13 “Japan’s Radiation Found in California Bluefin,” American Scientist (2012), Web site www.americanscientist.org/science/pub/japans-radiation-found-in-california-bluefin-tuna. 14 “Fukushima Operator May Have to Dump Contaminated Water into Pacific,” The Guardian (March 10, 2014), Web site www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/10/fukushima-operator-dump-contaminated-water-pacific. 15 “Fukushima’s Radioactive Water Leak: What You Should Know,” National Geographic Energy News (August 7, 2013), Web site http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/08/130807-fukushima-radioactive-water-leak. 16 “Special Report on the Nuclear Accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station,” Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) (November, 2011), Nuclear Energy Institute Web site www.nei.org/Master-Document-Folder/Backgrounders/Reports-And-Studies/Special-Report-on-the-Nuclear-Accident-at-the-Fukushima_Daiichi_MASTER_11_08_11_1.pdf.17 Martin Fackler, “Fuel Rods Are Removed from Damaged Fukushima Reactor,” The New York Times (December 20, 2014), Web site www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/world/asia/fuel-rods-are-removed-from-japans-damaged-fukushima-reactor.html?_r=0. The reference to fuel rods should better be described as spent fuel assemblies. The fuel rods of the reactor are most apt melted along with the rest of the core.18 “Nuclear Power in Japan: Flicking the switch,” The Economist (August 2, 2014).19 “Fast Forward: Sunny Side Up,” Smithsonian (February 2014).20 Amory Lovins, “How Opposite Energy Policies Turned the Fukushima Disaster into a Loss for Japan and a Win for Germany,” Forbes (June 28, 2014), Web site www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2014/06/28/how-opposite-energy-policies-turned-the-fukushima-disaster-into-a-loss-for-japan-and-a-win-for-germany.21 “Nuclear Power in China: Promethean perils,” and “Nuclear Power in China: Make Haste Slowly,” The Economist (December 6, 2014).22 Russell Martin, A Story That Stands Like a Dam (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1999).23 The continuing drought in California has reduced Lake Mead to a level not seen since Hoover Dam was constructed. Low snow falls in the Rockies are seriously affecting water availability for both Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs.24 One politician catering to the environmentalists’ opposition to the noise around a major airport flew in by private plane to deliver his speech supporting their cause and then left by plane to return to Washington. Other than an observant journalist, no one saw the irony.25 “Aswan High Dam, River Nile, Sudan – Water Technology,” water-technology.net, Web site www.water-technology.net/projects/aswan-high-dam-nile-sudan-egypt.26 “The Nile River – Where Does the Water Go?” College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Penn State, Web site https://courseware.e-education.psu.edu/courses/earth105new/content/lesson06/04.html. 27 World Health Organization Web site at www.who.int/topics/schistosomiasis/en.28 This may be a demonstration of Malthus’ theory that population growth is exponential in nature whereas agricultural growth is arithmetic.29 International Commission on Large Dams Web site www.icold-cigb.net.

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Nuclear Incidents and Accidents - s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com file · Web viewChina Syndrome was about a nuclear plant with internal problems that, if unattended, could have led to