Nuclear Nightmares II: Meltdowns at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima

1. Nuclear Nightmares II: Meltdowns at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima

2. Rise of the Nuclear Power Industry • An outcome of the research done in the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb • After WWII, research strictly controlled by government • 1951 first reactor capable of generating electricity • 1954 first nuclear power plant • From tight government control to privatization

3. The “Normal Accident” • Book by Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living With High-Risk Technologies, 1984, revised edition 1999 • It is not possible to engineer out all technological risks • “Accidents” are “normal” within any complex system • Therefore: the invention of the nuclear reactor is the invention of the nuclear meltdown

4. The International Nuclear Events Scale (INES) • Level sevenA major accident which releases radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine is the only level seven incident to have taken place. • Level sixA serious accident with the likely release of significant amounts of radioactive material. • Level fiveAn accident with wider consequences, and several expected deaths. • Level fourAn accident with local consequences and at least one death. • Level threeA serious incident in which exposure exceeds ten times the statutory annual limit for workers. • Level twoAn incident in which a member of the public or a worker is exposed to a certain level and level one is an anomaly involving minor problems with safety components.

5. History of Nuclear Accidents • Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1986. The plant blew up when one of four reactors went into meltdown during an experiment. Around 200 people were seriously contaminated and 32 died within three months. More than 350,000 people were resettled. Contamination continues to be a problem and the number who will die as a result is disputed. The accident was only revealed when a giant radioactive cloud was registered moving across northern Europe. INES level seven.

6. Fukushima, Japan , 2011. a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materails at the Fukushima Dahichi Nuclear Power Plant follwing the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11,. There were two immediate deaths, and several dozen deaths attributed to the evacuation, which covered an area of 20 kms around the plant and included some 450,000 people. INES level 7

7. Kyshtym, Soviet Union, 1957. A cooling system failed, causing a non-nuclear explosion of dried homes when equipment malfunctions, problems with the design of the reactor and human error led to a partial meltdown of a reactor core. Although it resulted in some contamination within the plant, nobody died or got injured. INES level five. • Windscale, Cumberland, 1957. The core of Britain's first nuclear reactor caught fire, releasing a cloud of radioactive material. The sale of certain produces from nearby farms were banned for a month. It was blamed for an estimated 200 cases of cancer in the UK, half of them fatal. INES level five.

8. Tokaimura, Japan, 1999. A batch of highly enriched uranium was wrongly operated in a precipitation tank, causing a radiation accident that killed two workers. Around 100 workers and local residents were admitted to hospital for exposure to radiation. INES level four. • Mihama, Japan, 2004. Four workers were killed and several others injured when radioactive steam leaked from a broken pipe. One of the three nuclear reactors at the plant shut down automatically. • Tsuruga, Japan, 1981. An estimated 278 people were affected by four successive leaks of radioactivity. It took 14 hours to shut down the site.

9. Western Siberia, 1993. An explosion at the secret Tomsk-7 plant in western Siberia released a cloud of radioactive gas. The number of casualties is unclear. • Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1995. Serious contamination was reported at Chernobyl during the removal of fuel from one of the plant's reactors. The incident was reported only after an apparent attempt to cover it up. • Tokaimura, Japan, 1997. Work at the experimental treatment was partially halted after a fire and an explosion exposed 37 people to radiation.

11. Chernobyl • Meltdown in Chernobyl, then Soviet Union, now Ukraine, April 1986 • Resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind.  • Two Chernobyl plant workers died on the night of the accident, and at least 28 people died within a few from acute radiation poisoning.

12. The Sarcophagus • A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. • Built in 206 days after the meltdown

13. Chernobyl: Arguing Causes • Cause argued to be flawed reactor design and human error caused by inadequate training (a leading argument of nuclear industry)

14. Arguing Causes • Others argue causes such as Soviet isolation, Soviet economic problems, and resulting poor maintenance, that it was an “accident bound to happen” or “normal accident” (geo-political and anti-nuclear arguments)

15. Fallout • Normal radioactivity levels of a European or American city: 10-20 microroentgens/hr • A dose of 500 roentgens within 5 hours is fatal to humans. (2.5 x this for a chicken; 100x for a cockroach) • Days immediately after explosion, some places around the reactor were emitting 3,000-30,000 roentgens per hour.

16. Fallout (continued) • Radioactivity thought to exceed that of Hiroshima • Long-term health effects, including dramatic increase in thyroid cancers, not only in Ukraine, but also in other parts of Europe. • Increased levels of birth defects highest closest to explosion, but also across country and beyond • Radioactivity evident in milk, vegetables and meat across Europe

17. Fallout (continued) • Radiation will stay in the Chernobyl area for the next 48.000 years, but humans may begin repopulating the area in about 600 years - give or take three centuries. • Experts predict that, by then, the most dangerous elements will have been sufficiently diluted into the rest of the world's air, soil and water.

18. Waste Isolation Pilot Plant • The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, is a deep geological repository licensed to permanently dispose of radioactive waste, such as what is left from research and production of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, for 10,000 years. • Located near Carlsbad, New Mexico

19. The Risk Society, Ulrich Beck • Risks have become unbounded in space (they can effect all of us) and time (they are not time limited, but can extend forward through time, effecting future generations)

20. Communicating Risk to “Aliens” • Message for the Future • Since 1991, the US Dept of Energy working with linguists, scientists, SF writers, anthropologists and futurists, among others, to come up with a warning system. • http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm

21. WIPP designs • Landscape of Thorns • Spike Field • Spikes Bursting Through Grid • Leaning Stone Spikes • Menacing Earthworks • Forbidding Blocks

22. Landscape of Thorns

23. Debating Risk • Since the early 2000s, there has been an ebb in criticism about nuclear safety. Why? • The events in Fukushima changed the debate. Why?

24. Imagine... • Different stakeholders have different ways of communicating about nuclear power.

25. Writing an Essay.