“An event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility.” IAEA

Fukushima Accident

In 2011, one of the world worst accidents took place in Japan. An earthquake of magnitude 9.0 at 2:46pm on Friday March 2011 changed the live of a whole country leaving considerable damages which was followed by a 15-meter tsunami which resulted in outrageous amount of human death, over a million building  destroyed and a huge damage to costal ports and towns.

During the accident eleven (11) reactors at four nuclear power plants were operating in the region and immediately shut down with the earthquake. Even though the reactors proved robust seismically, they were vulnerable to the tsunami; the 15-meter tsunami flooded the entire site disabling the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors, causing a huge nuclear accident. This disabled 12 of 13 back- up generators on site and also heat exchanges for dumping reactor waste heat and decay heat to the sea. To add up to this tragedy a hardened emergency response center on site was unable to be used in grappling with the situation, due to radioactive contamination.

This accident was rated 7 on the INES scale, due to high radioactive releases over days 4 to 6, eventually a total of some 940 PBq (I-131 eq Although, there have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear accident, however over 100,000 people were evacuated from their homes to ensure this. Government nervousness delays the return of many.

-The following picture color code different areas, the green areas show “Areas to which people may return but no stay overnight and there is not a required equipment to return” the orange area are restricted, pink area is named “difficult” meaning its accessible but only for public interest, red area represents fully evacuated and yellow represents planned evacuation area.

Chernobyl Accident

This accident took place the April of 1986 in Ukraine, The Chernobyl accident was the result of a flawed Soviet reactor designed that was operated with inadequately trained personnel. This was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture.

This horrific accident ended up destroying the whole Chernobyl 4 reactor, killing more than 20 operators and firemen within three months later, acute radiation syndrome was diagnosed in more than 200 people on-site confirming 134 cases from which about 28 people died.

The Chernobyl disaster has been the only even in history of commercial nuclear power where radiation-related fatalities occurred; this led to major changes in safety culture and industry operation over time.

Safer Nuclear Technology

After the Fukushima accident the U.S has develop some safety proposal that should be consider in order to prevent a tragedy. While the probability of a nuclear power accident may be small, the human and environmental consequences of a radiation release can be catastrophic. Enforcing fire and earthquake regulations, addressing flood risk, and safer storage for nuclear waste are just a few of the ways we can help prevent nuclear accidents. Although nature is a big threat for nuclear facilities it’s not the only one. These facilities are key targets for sabotage and terrorist attack, and these could have horrible consequences if successfully performed. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) makes security rules that all plats must follow in order to maintain a safe status some of these are: security access zones, size and capability of security staffing, testing security systems and more; however these are not the only ways to prevent a nuclear technology, and there are many theories that agree that the NRC must do more to prevent and make nuclear technology safer.

Safely store waste

“Nuclear fuel remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years after it’s no longer useful in a commercial reactor.”

• Dry cask for short term solution

Spent fuel pools at nuclear plants tend house nuclear waste only until it is cool enough to be transferred to permanent storage, have become dangerously overcrowded as the search for a permanent repository has stalled.  Experts recommend that instead of doing this it’s better to store it right away into dry casks to reduce safety hazard.

• Repositories for long term solution

• Reprocessing

 According to some research reprocessing is not a good solution, although many have been doing it over the past years this process separates nuclear waste into component materials, including plutonium, which can then be re-used as nuclear reactor fuel BUT it can also be used as the raw material for a nuclear weapon which can lead to terrorism attacks putting ourselves into a serious risk.

References

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx#.UZn0laL2axo

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx#.UZn2DKL2axo

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power#.VuHaHPkrK9K.

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-waste#.VuHoCPkrK9I