The series of mechanical and structural failures that besieged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in the chaos that ensued after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami have gone down in history as the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl event of 1986. The meltdown of the radioactive materials in three separate reactors led to the event being rated as a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the most extreme and dangerous rating possible. While the event has been labeled as “not the worst nuclear accident ever” by some analysts (citing Chernobyl as more extreme), the Japanese meltdown event was certainly the most severe nuclear event to ever happen in the new age of 24-hour news cycles and constant online coverage. “This was a crisis that played out in real time on TV. Chernobyl did not. This crisis just goes on and on,” said James Acton, Associate of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The disaster happened as a direct result of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that devastated Japan on March 11th, 2011. Reactors #1, #2, and #3 of the plant had been active at the time of the earthquake and were automatically shut down as part of emergency earthquake protocol. However, the emergency generators that were now powering the cool-down process for a recently shut down reactor were housed on ground floor facilities. The enormous tsunami waves that swept across Japan after the tremendous quake flooded these facilities and shorted out the emergency generators. Now the reactor cores had become literal nuclear ticking time bombs. Reluctant to flood the reactors with seawater (a fail-safe protocol to cool them down) because of the assured ruination of the plant’s expensive reactors, the nuclear materials in all three cores rapidly reached their boiling temperatures and melted down. Contamination of the outside environment was now an unavoidable consequence.

As we look back on the disaster from our vantage point nearly 2 years later, it seems Japan actually made it out of this frightful encounter without heavy damage. While the nuclear radiation emitted was underestimated by Japanese government agencies initially, the World Health Organization has measured it recently as being largely indiscernible to the people even within close proximity to the nuclear facility. The report claims, “experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant’s lifetime cancer risk.” There have been some concerns about contaminated groundwater and contaminated wildlife, and so steps such as advising not preparing infants’ food with groundwater have been taken. Aside from groundwater, serious concerns about radiation that leaked into the ocean have been discussed. During the summer of 2012, there was an incident where over 250 times the legal limit of cesium-137 (a fission aid in nuclear reactors) was found in two fish caught close to the shore of Fukushima.

This disaster brought back fresh all the fears that have been bubbling around nuclear energy since the Chernobyl incident in Ukraine and the Three Mile Island Near-Meltdown incident in the United States. The public is well aware that using radioactive materials to create steam to generate power has a dangerous caution tag attached to it at all times, and incidents like this will throw fuel on the anti-nuclear power side’s fire. However as I find is often the case, keeping a level head and keeping the proper perspective is always important, especially in the aftermath of an emotional and tragic disaster such as this. Nuclear energy certainly has a dangerous and problematic downside, but the upsides of nuclear power shouldn’t be disregarded because of the potential for meltdowns like this one. A great deal of non-fossil fuel based energy can be created with this method, and in the proper environment with the proper precautions, incidents like the Fukushima disaster can be kept in check. It also cannot be understated that regardless of the efficiency or inefficiency of the reaction to it, this meltdown happened only due to the occurrence of an unforeseeable and enormous earthquake.

References:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/06/japan.nuclear.meltdown/index.html?iref=NS1

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/12/japan-severity-idUSTKE00635720110412

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/articles/132391/20110409/japan-nuclear-crisis-radiation.htm

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-28/world/37338558_1_thyroid-cancer-cancer-risk-treatable-cancers

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/05/24/nuclear-japan-radiation-fukushima-idINDEE84N0CR20120524