Over the past week I have read the article on the Presidents climate action plan. This action plan goes into detail about how climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are no longer a distant threat and need to be dealt with now. The presidents main focus to help resolve this issue is by cutting the carbon pollution in America while also preparing the United States and rest of the world to combat the effects of global climate change.  The three initiatives I will blog about include:

1. Deploying Clean Energy                                                                                               2. Building a 21st Century Transportation Sector                                                             3. Cutting Energy Waste in Homes and Businesses

Deploying Clean Energy

Aerial view of the disaster

Several years ago on March 11, 2011, a catastrophe happened that changed life in Japan as they know it. The nuclear power plant at Fukishima went into a meltdown releasing radiation into the air. The Fukishima disaster is the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl incident of 1986. The nuclear disaster was rated a level 7 on the INES scale. There were thousands of damaged and destroyed buildings along with many casualties.

But how did this disaster happen in the first place?

The Great East Japan Earthquake of magnitude 9.0 at 2.46 pm on Friday 11 March 2011 did heavy damage in the region, and the large tsunami it created was an even bigger problem. The earthquake was centred 130 km offshore the city of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture on the eastern cost of Honshu Island, and was a rare double quake giving a severe duration of about 3 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLId9kso2oE

Relief Efforts

The United States along with other countries are continuing to help Japan today. Studies of the Fukushima disaster have identified changes and improvements that could have reduced or eliminated the amount of radioactivity released from the plant. This disaster was a tragedy that ruined many lives, however it was not caused directly from the nuclear power plant. It was an outside source (tsunami and earthquake) that actually caused the disaster. Natural events cannot be controlled.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-18718486

Pandora’s Promise is a documentary that I was recently assigned to watch. It was filmed over three years on four different continents. This film is mostly about the Nuclear Power debate. It starts out by talking about the dangers and disasters caused by nuclear energy, then goes in depth about the opposition of those claims.  The argument is that nuclear power, which has been considered not a safe source by environmentalist, is actually a relatively safe and clean energy source. I found the movie very interesting because I had no idea about the benefits that nuclear energy can actually bring to our society. Before seeing the documentary I always believed that is was the most dangerous source of energy because of radiation and the disasters you hear about in the media or learn about in school, however, this film says that this is not the case and it is safe and produces large amounts of energy. The epitome of Pandoras Promise is that everything you though you knew about nuclear energy is probably wrong.

As we progress as a civilization our demand for energy will increase. If this source of energy is not clean we will have to face the reality of a climate catastrophe. The film emphasizes that we need to take action. After watching this film it makes sense to me that nuclear energy does not harm the environment nearly as much as other energy sources, and we should utilize it to make a better environment. The only three nuclear disasters that have happened are Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The climate catastrophe could be devastating and change life as we know it if we do not take action. Many people think of “radiation” when they hear the term nuclear (as i did before watching this film). But statistically no one has ever died in the United states from a nuclear disaster, however about 15000 people die from the pollution caused by coal. The film promoted nuclear energy as the most efficient power source that can meet the publics energy demand.Overall I enjoyed the film and am interested to see how our future unfolds.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Safety-of-Nuclear-Power-Reactors/

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/world/cnn-films-pandoras-promise

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pandoras_promise_2013/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-stone/pandoras-promise-documentary_b_2507213.html

MIT Nuclear Reactor

Last friday our class went on a tour to the MIT Nuclear Reactor. This was probably one of the best and most interesting “field trips” I have ever gone on. When we first arrived it looked like any old building that you would see in the city. It was just a plain door off the side walk that let us in. After we arrived we had to go through several processes before we began our tour. We started by going to a presentation about the lab that was presented an employee named Tom. Tom gave us the basic history and facts about the reactor as well as the purpose of it today. He also gave us a little lesson on fission and fusion.

Inside a reactor

After the presentation things began to get very interesting and caught me by surprise. To enter the actual reactor we had to enter through  a computer controlled steel door that required retina analysis. Then we waited in the airlock for a few seconds until the next steel door opened up. Once we got inside there were several scientist walking around monitoring the computers and what not. I was fascinated by how the reactor looked. I couldn’t believe something like this was just sitting in the middle of a major city being run my college students. The reactor was not as big as i expected it to be. We couldn’t actually look down inside the reactor by had an idea of what it looked like because of the presentation. After touring the main room of the reactor we headed down to the control room. The control room is the most important part of the reactor.

Control Room

The room was being operated by an MIT student who the tour guide claimed was “the most important person in the reactor” since she could control everything by the push of a button. The closer the buttons were to the operator the more important they were. After that we headed out which also required another process that we had to go through. Before we left we had to scan ourselves for radiation incase we became contaminated on the tour. We inserted our hands into a device that checked us. Then right before the exit we had to scan ourselves for a second time to be positive there was no contamination. Overall visiting the MIT Reactor was quite an experience and I’m glad I took part in it. I learned some very interesting things and would be more than happy to go back.