The Worrying News from Fukushima
Show Putting Fukushima in context - summary of some of the worst nuclear events in history and Chernobyl-type (RBMK) reactors still in use on a larger map.
Update: Okay, looks like the Fukushima disaster got worse after all. People still have no reason to panic in Finland, but the outlook for locals is considerably more grim than it was on Monday. The problems caused by the actual reactors still look relatively minor, but that doesn't help much if the whole chain from enrichment to waste disposal isn't handled responsibly. TEPCO will surely learn this costly lesson and improve safety in waste handling as well as improving the actual reactors. The map has been updated according to latest news, with INES level estimates hovering around 6. Original blog post in a sligthly edited form below.
The dust hasn't settled from the Sendai earthquake, but some things are certain. The tsunami has put the eastern coast of Japan in horrible shape, with a high death toll in one of the most well prepared countries in the world. Another thing is that the media is blowing the following nuclear disaster way out of proportion. Not that it wouldn't be a terrible accident, but compared to other problems Japan is facing, the nuclear incident is just a minor one.
The media circus has taken a special form here in Finland, a country which remembers the 1986 Chernobyl disaster all too well. I myself was born one month after the trouble in Ukraine, but I find the Finnish reaction unbelievable. Fukushima is 8000 kilometers away from here - that's a long way, and eight times the distance from Chernobyl. To top it off, no wind pattern in the world could bring high doses of radiation to Finland. If one wants to avoid nuclear disasters caused by earthquakes, there's no better place to be than right here. Yet I've read some reports on people hoarding iodine pills from apothecaries.
Finnish media is partially to blame. Getting well researched news reports around here these days is like searching for a needle in a haystack. The quality of western news reports in general is something that worries me a lot more than radiation. Particularly on the web, scandal seeking and oversimplifying rule over accuracy and breadth. It's sort of odd to resort to news with a slight Muslim bias, because BBC seems dumbed down in comparison. Speaking of biased news, a bias one knows about is always preferable to one that isn't easy to notice. Getting too used to a single source of news is a huge mistake.
So, what should this mean for the future of nuclear power? My view is this: nothing. The irony of the Fukushima case is that the reactors were based on old boiling water reactor technology, and were scheduled to be decommissioned very soon anyway. Nuclear disasters make for dramatic news stories, but even Chernobyl is nothing compared to the continuing human suffering and environmental damage caused by the coal industry. A coal plant can even release more radiation into the environment than a nuclear plant [1]. Some radiation occurs in nature, so we must deal with it either way. The good thing about radiation is that it's laughably easy to detect [2] and thus control compared to many other severe environmental health hazards.
Returning to the topic of Japan, my condolences to all those affected. Hopefully the nation will find the strength to recover like it has done in the past - earthquakes are no stranger to the Japanese. Right now, I'm happy to live in a part of the world where the worst environmental danger is freezing cold - a danger that is easily kept away by reliable, efficient and safe sources of energy, like the two new nuclear reactors at Olkiluoto. Hopefully we will also continue to invest in safety of the whole nuclear fuel logistics chain in Finland, including reactors, and see similar developments elsewhere in the world, particularly at the Russian sites still employing RBMK reactors.
Postscript: MIT has opened a blog called NSE Nuclear Information Hub offering expert analysis of the situation at Fukushima. Early blog post by Josef Oehmen I linked earlier now lives there too. Looks like a good information source for anyone that is interested in a more detailed and neutral picture about what really has happened:
http://mitnse.com/
[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioa...
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Quarta-Radiation-Monitor-RD-1503/dp/B00051E906/
