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December saw several new reports about the
earthquake- and tsunami-induced Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, so we
thought it might be useful to assess what these new reports add to our understanding
of the tragedy. And a tragedy it was: Lives were lost in the hydrogen-gas
explosions that blew three of the reactors buildings to pieces; 160,000
people are still evacuated from the surrounding region; and the nuclear power
industry took a well-deserved beating as each explosion and radiation reading
reignited the public's fears of uranium, radiation, and nuclear energy in
general. Those fears bled 30% from the price of uranium and prompted several
countries to abandon nuclear power. It seemed as though the budding
renaissance of nuclear power had failed.
Now, almost ten months later, we know that the
nuclear power industry remains alive and well (please see our mid-December Dispatch
about the global race for uranium.) The uranium spot price has not recovered from the
Fukushima fire sale, but in recent months it has stabilized at just over
US$50 per lb. U3O8. Even accusations in these new
reports of insufficient regulatory oversight and false claims that thousands
of Americans died because of Fukushima radiation have failed to push the
price down. Today, there are 12 more reactors in operation, under
construction, planned, or proposed around the world than there were ten
months ago.
All told, it seems that the nuclear-power industry
and the price of uranium have found their post-Fukushima bottoms and are now
set to climb upward. With the nuclear renaissance once again gaining
momentum, what are we learning from Fukushima?
Key conclusion from the independent investigation:
Be better prepared
In the week before Christmas, Japanese authorities
finally achieved victory at Fukushima, declaring the half-destroyed plant
stabilized. It will still take decades to dismantle the wreckage completely,
and the 160,000 people who lived near the plant have still not been allowed
to return to their homes. But the nine-and-a-half-month battle to cool
radioactive fuel rods and seal off contaminated areas is finally over.
Less than a week later, an independent panel set up
by the Japanese government to investigate the disaster released its interim
report. It was not pretty. Led by Yotaro Hatamura, an engineering professor who specializes in the
study of industrial failures, the panel concluded that TEPCO (the utility
that owned and operated the plant) and government regulators from the Nuclear
Industrial and Safety Agency (NISA): had failed to adequately anticipate a
huge tsunami and its potential impacts; did not take steps to fortify the
plant even after simulations years before the earthquake revealed its
weaknesses; had no protocol in place in the case of a station blackout; and
failed to communicate effectively with the public after the event, among
other faults.
The Japanese should have known better. Japan lies on
a highly active fault line, is regularly rocked by earthquakes, and has
experienced tsunamis many times before. Even so, the engineers who designed
Fukushima figured the biggest tsunami that could ever hit the plant would be
5.7 meters high. In this their imaginations failed them completely:
Measurements from water stains on the walls after the waters receded indicate
the March 11 tsunami towered more than 14 meters above normal sea level at
its peak.
For this, responsibility lies with both TEPCO and
NISA. According to Hatamura's report, TEPCO failed
to "incorporate measures against tsunamis exceeding the design minimum.
This indicates the limit of voluntary safety measures." Then, even after
TEPCO ran simulations in 2008 and in early 2011 that highlighted Fukushima's
vulnerability to large tsunamis, NISA did not require TEPCO to take steps to
address the weakness. More generally, no one had developed a protocol for
what to do in the case of a full-station blackout – operators working
with flashlights and dying cell phones had to make the plan up as they went
along.
TEPCO and the government's regulators share
responsibility for setting themselves up for failure by not preparing for
worst-case scenarios. However, after the tsunami swept the site, flooding the
backup generators and plunging the entire facility into electrical blackout,
TEPCO employees responded heroically while NISA regulators evacuated, even
though protocol dictated they should have remained on site. In fact, Hatamura saved his strongest criticism for NISA:
"Monitoring the plant's status was the most important action at that
time, so to evacuate was very questionable. [The panel] found no evidence
that NISA officials provided necessary assistance or advice."
Hatamura's panel also hammered TEPCO and the government for
failing to keep the public properly informed. "Information on urgent
matters was delayed, press releases were withheld, and explanations were kept
ambiguous."
The 506-page report includes many more details, but
what is most pertinent is the conclusion. Hatamura's
team argues that the Fukushima disaster shows the need for "a paradigm
shift in the basic principles of disaster prevention" at nuclear power
plants. "It's inexcusable that a nuclear accident couldn't be managed
because a major event such as the tsunami exceeded expectations."
And with that they hit the nail on the head. The
Fukushima disaster does not mean that the world should turn away from nuclear
power. Instead, government regulators around the world need to learn from
what happened at Fukushima and strengthen their safety guidelines, because it
was a preventable event.
Just because it is in a scientific journal doesn't
make it true
Here's a catchy way to start a press release:
An estimated
14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to radioactive fallout
from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a
major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International
Journal of Health Services.
The release goes on to describe how this
peer-reviewed study shows that a "plume of toxic fallout arrived over
American shores" just six days after the tsunami, causing as many as
18,000 deaths.
Catchy, perhaps, but totally bogus. Within 24 hours an article in Scientific
American poked so
many holes in the 'study' it could have been a sieve. Basically, the study's
authors started with an attention-grabbing conclusion – that babies are dying because of Fukushima radiation
– and worked backward from that, torturing the data to fit their
claims. Among
the litany of errors were two key faults:
- Since the entire argument is premised on the
arrival of a toxic plume of Fukushima fallout six days after the
earthquake, one would expect evidence of radiation. Alas, there is none.
In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found radioactivity
in very few samples in the weeks and months following the disaster. To
sidestep this problem, the authors say that "clearly the 2011 EPA
reports cannot be used with confidence" – in other words, the
authors are saying that the radioactivity is there, just the authorities
didn't find it, and we too can't provide any evidence of it.
- The authors' method of calculating the number
of deaths supposedly attributable to Fukushima is an incredible example
of terrible use of statistics – unjustified extrapolations leading
to correlations that are immediately assumed to be causations. Not
surprisingly, the authors (who are antinuclear activists not affiliated
with any research institution) conclude from this game of juggle the
numbers that the plume arrived on US shores, instantly spread across the
entire country, and started killing people immediately.
No journal should have ever published the study.
Without a doubt, radiation from Fukushima is dangerous – the 160,000
people still unable to return to their homes can attest to that. There may
well be some negative health effects in North America. But this 'study'
provides zero evidence and serves only to add misinformation to a very
important debate.
[What's
not open to debate is that, sooner or later, energy prices are destined to
increase dramatically. That is creating a rare opportunity for life-changing
gains.]
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