Archive for March, 2011

Comparing Chernobyl & Fukushima

Japan’s use of military helicopters to drop water on reactors today has no doubt reminded many people of the infamous 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl, where the Soviet Union did the same. However, most experts seem to agree that Fukushima’s situation is not as bad as what happened at Chernobyl.

Below are a few quotes from articles that compare Japan’s current situation to Chernobyl.

Comments from the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers:

The reason why radiation was disseminated so widely from Chernobyl with such devastating effects was a carbon fire. Some 1,200 tonnes of carbon were in the reactor at Chernobyl and this caused the fire which projected radioactive material up into the upper atmosphere causing it to be carried across most of Europe.

There is no carbon in the reactors at Fukushima, and this means that even if a large amount of radioactive material were to leak from the plant, it would only affect the local area.

The Japanese authorities acted swiftly and decisively in evacuating people living within 20km of the plant, and ensuring people living within 30km of the plant remained in their homes, with windows and doors closed. The radiation measured so far at Fukushima is 100,000 times less than that at Chernobyl.

Nuclear engineer Alexander Sich, who worked with the Chernobyl Complex Expedition, comments on the differences between Fukushima and Chernobyl:

“There is no way the Japanese plant will even closely compare to what happened in Chernobyl,” he said. “First off, Chernobyl-type reactors have no proper containment building, but they do have confinement boundaries – a big difference. The Soviets compromised on safety believing they could control their reactors and avoid major accidents. … In contrast, the Japanese unit has an inner concrete containment vessel (the Mark I) that functions like a less robust containment building to mitigate the effects of potential accidents.

“The second difference is that the Japanese reactor, like all western light-water reactors, is primarily metal and the fuel contained within a very strong 6- to 8-inch-thick steel reactor pressure vessel. In contrast, the Chernobyl reactor design, of which at least 11 are still in operation to this day, has no such vessel. Instead, a thin 3/4-inch steel ‘skin’ surrounds 1,700 high-pressure coolant channels containing nuclear fuel. …

“The third difference is the size and operational stability of the reactor,” he continued. “Chernobyl-type reactors are huge: 11.8 by 7 meters, while the Japanese reactor is significantly smaller at 2.5 by 3.7 meters. What this means is that operators have to pay constant close operational attention to a reactor because one part of the core cannot easily communicate with the other, neutronically speaking.”

Professor Aidan Byrne, director of the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra, says the situation is not like Chernobyl:

Some reports are comparing the situation at Fukushima with the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

In that accident, nuclear fission ran unchecked and the reactor lacked the multi-barrier containment strategy that exists in the 40-year-old Fukushima plant. Byrne says, unlike Chernobyl, Fukushima’s nuclear reactors have been shut down, and control rods have been inserted stopping the fission chain reaction.

The main concern is if the reactor is not cooled down, the radioisotopes in the fuel rods and decay-heat will heat up the container.

According to Japanese authorities, seawater mixed with boric acid is being used to cool the reactor down, which should reduce the risk of a fission reaction restarting.

Professor Leonid Bolshov of the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that it is not similar:

When you hear these comparisons to Chernobyl, what do you think about?

LEONID BOLSHOV: I think it’s misinformation. The knowledge of reactor design even, general features is something that is very limited.

Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council for Foreign Relations, has written about “Chernobyl’s Lessons for Japan“:

Unlike 1986 Soviet authorities, the Kan government in Japan has responded swiftly to each stage of the Fukushima disaster, has evacuated citizens rapidly from the area, and has been relatively transparent about radiation evidence as it has been collected. Aware of the dangers of both “radiophobia” public hysteria, and cavalier denialism, the government has tried to convey information that directs the Japanese people to a rational, middle ground response. Given the Fukushima catastrophe is a sideline to the earthquake and tsunami horrors, this is a remarkable feat.

Still, the human health dangers remain, not only for the workers remaining inside the Fukushima plant, but all people remaining in a roughly twenty to thirty mile periphery of the area. Until details regarding the radionuclide types and doses that have already been emitted are known, most health claims regarding the general Japanese population are pure speculation. Certainly further breaches, fires, explosions, or meltdowns in the Fukushima facility increase the probability of health problems among those directly exposed to fallout.

The U.K.’s Chief Scientific Officer, John Beddington, compares the worst case scenario to what happened at Chernobyl:

“In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion,” he said. “Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not serious for elsewhere.”

Assuming that weather patterns drive radioactive material toward Tokyo, there would be “absolutely no issue” for human health, he said. Even following the disaster at Chernobyl, there were no radiation-related problems outside the 30 kilometer (18.6 mile) exclusion zone, the scientist said.

Beddington has argued that most of the post-Chernobyl health problems came from eating contaminated food, not from direct exposure to the radiation leak.

One man, who helped implement the Soviet policy of exposing thousands of cleanup workers to deadly radiation, wants Japan to do the same thing (because exposing 50 workers to danger is not enough, apparently):

Yuli Andreyev, former head of the agency tasked with cleaning up after Chernobyl, told the Guardian the Japanese had failed to grasp the scale of the disaster. He also said the authorities had to be willing to sacrifice nuclear response workers for the good of the greater public, and should not only be deploying a skeleton staff. “They don’t know what to do,” he said. “The personnel have been removed and those that remain are stretched.”

For those who want to learn more about Chernobyl, here are a few interesting documentaries and video clips. ( All were produced before the Fukushima accident, so they don’t contain direct comparisons. )

It happened in … Chernobyl (Al Jazeera English – Original Airdate: June 2008)
Part 1

The True Battle of Chernobyl Uncensored (hour and a half documentary):

A collection of film from Vladimir Shevchenko, a Ukrainian filmmaker who visited the nuclear reactor shortly after the accident. He filmed the workers, most of whom had no protective gear whatsoever. Shevchenko was exposed to a fatal dose of radiation while filming, and died soon afterwards:

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Rush Limbaugh Mocks Japanese Earthquake Survivors

American radio host Rush Limbaugh has mocked Japanese earthquake victims:

Rush Limbaugh laughed about Japanese refugees recycling after the earthquake that struck the country on his Tuesday show.

A caller asked Limbaugh, “If these are the people that invented the Prius, have mastered public transportation, recycling, why did Mother Earth, Gaia if you will, hit them with this disaster?”

Limbaugh called this an “interesting question,” and played a clip of ABC’s Diane Sawyer reporting from a shelter in Japan. In the clip, Sawyer is surprised that the refugees in the shelter have maintained a recycling program. Limbaugh first mocked Sawyer, doing an impression of her and saying that “she sounds like she saw her husband for the first time in six months.” He then turned to his caller’s question.

“He’s right,” Limbaugh said. “They’ve given us the Prius. Even now, refugees are recycling their garbage.” Here, he began to laugh, continuing, “and yet, Gaia levels them! Just wipes them out!”

This video clip includes audio of Limbaugh laughing as he says it:

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U.K. Newspaper: GET OUT OF TOKYO NOW

I didn’t think it could get any worse than the hilariously inaccurate “Mass exodus from Tokyo” I posted about yesterday. However, their front page headline today and this new article soar to new heights of sensational stupidity.

Now they’ll print the crazy ravings of panic-stricken idiots:

Keely Fujiyama, 37, phoned The Sun to describe a city in fear of nuclear catastrophe – with streets deserted and food, water and fuel running out.

And she slammed the British Embassy for failing to help expats desperate to escape – after radiation levels from Japan’s stricken nuclear reactors reached ten times normal.

The mum of two said: “They fled and left us here to fry. I’m ashamed to call myself British.”

Keely, from Croydon, South London, has lived in Tokyo for ten years after marrying Japanese Ryu Fujiyama.

She said: “I’m stuck inside a third-floor apartment in a part of the city that resembles a ghost-town. Normally the streets bustle like nowhere else on earth.

“But I look outside now and they’re completely deserted. It’s like London in the zombie movie 28 Days Later.

[...]

“On Tuesday, the radiation levels in Tokyo were ten times above normal and people started to panic.

“What if, every day, radiation continues to double?”

The Sun doesn’t bother to inform readers that doubling Tokyo’s radiation level again and again would still produce a radiation level that is not harmful to human health. The woman says she is not going outside, yet she claims to be an expert on the situation in the streets outside.

It goes on to mention how the British embassy and consulate have not been receptive towards this hysterical woman’s phone calls:

“The first to flee Tokyo have been British Embassy staff. I repeatedly rang the Tokyo number for our embassy – but there’s just a recorded message saying, ‘We are not taking calls’.

“So I phoned the embassy in Osaka and got the same message.

“I then rang the Foreign Office and got patched through to a crisis line man, who just told me to try and get on a plane.

“I kept telling him we can’t even get to the airport but he didn’t seem concerned.

“I was shaking. I feel like they’re just leaving us here to fry.

“I don’t want my children to get cancer. The Japanese news tells us radiation in Tokyo isn’t at harmful levels. But why would they tell us to wear masks otherwise?

“I begged the Foreign Office man, ‘Please help me’. But he told me if I raised my voice one more time he was terminating the call.

“In desperation, I rang the US embassy and immediately a human voice asked, ‘How can I help?’ They can’t do much as I’m British. But the contrast was staggering.

“If I get out of Tokyo I want to go to America, Australia, anywhere. I have no faith in Britain any more. I don’t want to see my country ever again.”

The embassy staff has not fled Japan. As you might expect following a huge earthquake, they probably are far too busy to take phone calls because they are doing work that matters – helping citizens who are stranded in Tohoku.

The Sun and many other foreign newspapers have been running photos of people wearing face masks – common site during allergy season – with captions describing how Tokyoites are trying to protect themselves from radiation. This hysterical woman seems to think that people in Tokyo have been asked to wear masks like that, but no such recommendation has been made. It sounds like she is misunderstanding Japanese media reports about what people in Fukushima should do about radiation.

Tokyo has not become a ghost town. There is no mass exodus of Japanese people taking place. The worst panic about this nuclear accident seems to be taking place outside of Japan, where the profit-hungry media is actively reporting wild exaggerations and false information.

Note: I’m well aware of the fact that the Sun is a tabloid rag, known for low quality reporting. Other international media outlets haven’t gone to such extremes, but a lot of them aren’t doing much to encourage level-headed and rational examination of the situation in Japan.

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Helicopters Drop Water on Nuclear Reactor

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces have begun aerial water drops on reactor 3 at the Fukushima nuclear power plant:

Japanese military helicopters were seen dropping water Thursday morning to cool the damaged No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility. The helicopters, belonging to the Self-Defense Forces, were conducting the operations as it was feared the reactor may have released radioactive steam due to damage to its containment vessel, according to a Kyodo news report. Each helicopter can drop about 7.5 tons of water, according to a report on N-H-K World news channel.

You can watch this happening live on N-H-K World or the N-H-K Japanese live feeds.

It has been reported that water cannon trucks are also on their way to the area. However, each truck can apparently only shoot 4 tons of water at a time.

N-H-K says that parts of the Chinook helicopters have been reinforced with lead plates and that the pilots are wearing protective gear. However, they are no doubt exposing themselves to quite a bit of radiation. If they expect to continue this operation for some time, will have to be a lot of swapping of helicopters and crews.

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British, Australian, and American Governments: No Serious Radiation Threat to Tokyo

Just in case you are wondering how some governments are reacting to the Fukushima nuclear accident, here are some excerpts from statements that the United States, Australia, and U.K. have made to their citizens in Japan.

A summary of the British government’s official view:

* In case of a ‘reasonable worst case scenario’ (defined as total meltdown of one reactor with subsequent radioactive explosion) an exclusion zone of 30 miles (50km) would be the maximum required to avoid affecting peoples’ health. Even in a worse situation (loss of two or more reactors) it is unlikely that the damage would be significantly more than that caused by the loss of a single reactor.

* The current 20km exclusion zone is appropriate for the levels of radiation/risk currently experienced, and if the pouring of sea water can be maintained to cool the reactors, the likelihood of a major incident should be avoided. A further large quake with tsunami could lead to the suspension of the current cooling operations, leading to the above scenario.

* The bottom line is that these experts do not see there being a possibility of a health problem for residents in Tokyo. The radiation levels would need to be hundreds of times higher than current to cause the possibility for health issues, and that, in their opinion, is not going to happen (they were talking minimum levels affecting pregnant women and children – for normal adults the levels would need to be much higher still).

* The experts do not consider the wind direction to be material. They say Tokyo is too far away to be materially affected.

* If the pouring of water can be maintained the situation should be much improved after ten days, as the reactors’ cores cool down.

* Information being provided by Japanese authorities is being independently monitored by a number of organizations and is deemed to be accurate, as far as measures of radioactivity levels are concerned.

* This is a very different situation from Chernobyl, where the reactor went into meltdown and the encasement, which exploded, was left to burn for weeks without any control. Even with Chernobyl, an exclusion zone of 30 miles would have been adequate to protect human health. The problem was that most people became sick from eating contaminated food, crops, milk and water in the region for years afterward, as no attempt was made to measure radioactivity levels in the food supply at that time or warn people of the dangers. The secrecy over the Chernobyl explosion is in contrast to the very public coverage of the Fukushima crisis.

An excerpt from the Australian government’s statement:

Based on advice from the Japanese government and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) reports that, although unlikely, there is a small chance of exposure to radiation, at very low levels, for people who were in the Fukushima area and an isolated area near Onagawa prior to noon on 15 March 2011. The health effects from exposure at these low levels are considered very low to negligible.

For those Australians in Japan but outside the affected areas, based on current information, ARPANSA advises that since the winds are presently blowing off shore from the Fukushima area they are extremely unlikely to be contaminated and the health risks are negligible. As the situation develops, all Australians in Japan are strongly encouraged to continue to follow the protective measures recommended by the Japanese Government.

Given the very low risk of exposure, ARPANSA advises that people should have no physical symptoms. If there is any doubt about contamination this contamination is easily removed by washing your body and clothes.

The Australian government is, however, authorizing the voluntary departure of dependants of Australian officials from Tokyo – not because of the nuclear accident, but because of fears of earthquakes and transportation interruptions.

An excerpt from U.S. Ambassador Roos’ statement:

After a careful analysis of data, radiation levels, and damage assessments of all units at Fukushima, our experts are in agreement with the response and measures taken by Japanese technicians, including their recommended 20 km radius for evacuation and additional shelter-in-place recommendations out to 30 km.

Let me also address reports of very low levels of radiation outside the evacuation area detected by U.S. and Japanese sensitive instrumentation. This bears very careful monitoring, which we are doing. If we assess that the radiation poses a threat to public health, we will share that information and provide relevant guidance immediately.

And from the White House:

White House Press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that U.S. officials have determined that Americans in Japan should follow the same guidance the Japanese government is giving to its citizens.

The Japanese government has warned people within 20 miles of the nuclear reactor complex damaged in the earthquake and tsunami to stay indoors to avoid exposure.

Update: A little bit more from the US Embassy. Still nothing at all about a radiation threat to Tokyo, which is far more than 80km from the area:

Consistent with the NRC guidelines that apply to such a situation in the United States, we are recommending, as a precaution, that American citizens who live within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant evacuate the area or to take shelter indoors if safe evacuation is not practical.

We want to underscore that there are numerous factors in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, including weather, wind direction and speed, and the nature of the reactor problem that affect the risk of radioactive contamination within this 50 mile (80 km) radius or the possibility of lower-level radioactive materials reaching greater distances.

The British authorities have issued an official statement, which still agrees with the Japanese assessment of radiation risks. It looks like the statements of the experts (mentioned in the earlier summary) have been washed through the PR people in their office, so as to sound as cautious as possible:

The most recent advice from the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser remains that for those outside the exclusion zone set up by the Japanese authorities there is no real human health issue that people should be concerned about. This advice is kept under constant review. However, due to the evolving situation at the Fukushima nuclear facility and potential disruptions to the supply of goods, transport, communications, power and other infrastructure, British nationals in Tokyo and to the north of Tokyo should consider leaving the area.

The revised statements look more like they’re aimed at domestic audiences than actual residents of Japan. In both countries, the media is running hyper-sensationalist stories about radiation dangers, so the State Department and Foreign Office have probably been overwhelmed with phone calls from hysterical people who are claiming that not enough is being done to protect their citizens from the giant clouds of deadly radiation that are supposedly flying all over Japan.

In the case of the United States, somebody probably questioned why the Embassy agreed with Japan, when in fact American nuclear regulations call for a 50 mile evacuation area. To be consistent with its own domestic policies, the United States revised the Japan figure.

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French Embassy to Begin Evacuation of Citizens

The French retreat from Tokyo has begun:

The French government has urged its nationals living in Tokyo to leave the country or head to southern Japan due to the risk of radiation from an earthquake-crippled nuclear power plant to the north of the capital.

The French embassy in Tokyo said in a statement that its advisory applied with immediate effect to those French nationals who were not obliged to remain in the city.

It added that it had asked Air France to mobilise planes currently in Asia to evacuate French citizens, and two were already on their way.

Because there is no indication that dangerous levels of radiation will leak beyond a 30-kilometer radius of the nuclear plant, no other countries seem to be following the French government’s example of organizing special flights to evacuate citizens.

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