A suspected rupture in one of the reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant threatens to spew untold quantities of radiation around the area, potentially making an already grave situation worse.
“We are not in a position where we can be optimistic,” said Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, according to the Associated Press. “We must treat every development with the utmost care.”
Concerns about a possible breach in the unit 3 reactor grew when two workers this week waded into water that had 10,000 times the amount of radiation normally found in water at nuclear plants. As a result, officials announced that they suspected a crack either in the stainless steel containment barrier around the reactor’s core, or in the concrete containment walls around the spent fuel rods.
Reactor 3 suffered a hydrogen explosion on March 14, which some speculate is when a rupture might have opened up. If so, that means it might have been a source of radiation spilling into the environment for 11 days.
Japanese officials already have evacuated many people living near the plant. In light of the new developments, they said that for the time being, people living from 12 to 20 miles from the plant should be safe as long as they stay indoors. However, because of the difficulty in bringing supplies to some of those areas, authorities said that voluntary evacuations might be in order.
As the Japanese nuclear disaster presents that nation with an extraordinary challenge, recent enthusiasm for nuclear energy in the U.S. is being complicated by the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
As The New York Times reports, support for nuclear power’s role in the U.S. was borne of a growing concern about the long-term health and environmental impact of fossil fuel-based energy, and the problems at Fukushima could thwart plans to expand nuclear power’s future role.
New opposition is cropping up against President Obama’s plans for supporting nuclear power, which includes $36 billion in guaranteed loans for the construction of new nuclear power plants.
“The risk is just so great if there’s a screw-up,” David Hamilton, director of energy programs for the Sierra Club, told the Times. “The nuclear renaissance was already hanging by a thread, and the Japanese disaster may have cut the thread.”
Further evidence of the increased opposition comes in the wave of governmental hearings and reviews of nuclear safety. As reported by the Associated Press and the Chicago Sun-Times, Arizona and Illinois are two of the states where lawmakers have announced that they plan to take a closer look at nuclear plants.
However, Obama and other supporters of nuclear energy have thus far remained steadfast in their support.
“We surely should avoid a rush to judgment,” said Jeff Merrifield, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in a video appearing on the website of the industry group the Nuclear Energy Institute. Merrifield also called the expansion of the nuclear industry “the right thing for our nation.”
A significant reason for the political support, critics say, is nuclear energy’s cozy relationship with the White House and with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. According to the political spending research firm MAPLight.org, nuclear companies and their employees have donated $4.6 million to congressional and presidential campaigns in the last 10 years, including donations to Obama’s presidential campaign.
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U.S. Watching Out for Radiation in Japanese Drugs, Food
Your readers might be interested in how to treat their radioactively contaminated drinking water:
http://crisismaven.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/dangers-properties-possible-uses-and-methods-of-purification-of-radioactively-contaminated-drinking-water-e-g-in-japan/
A Japanese translation seems underway, see comment by Takuya there. Maybe someone wants to help with other languages?