Compare and Contrast Chernobyl and Fukushima Disaster - Assignment Example

Compare and Contrast Chernobyl and Fukushima disaster Compare and Contrast Chernobyl and Fukushima Disaster Introduction Fukushima Disaster A disaster is a naturally occurring upheaval claiming life or property damage. The occurrence of natural catastrophes originates from unexplained happens or events. Fukushima Daiichi forms an exemplary nuclear disaster in the history of time. The 2011 incident resulted in a 9.0 earthquake magnitude followed by a huge tsunami. The March incident originated from faulty equipment within a power plant. A failure of the emergency generators resulted to the nuclear energy leakage. The northeastern disaster claimed hundreds of the Japanese population. The overview of the faulty operation originated from fractional nuclear render down in unit 1 and unit 3. The disaster affected negatively on the immediate population within the region prompting evacuation. The disaster resulted also from equipment malfunctioning leading to the emission of radioactive material into the environment. The tragedy ranged in the INES as level 7 category due to the damage levels. Ana evaluation of the condition pointed to a high concentration of isotope concentration into the environment. The effects of the Fukushima disaster translated to an implementation of emergency measure by the Japanese government. The Chernobyl Disaster The Chernobyl disaster took place in 1986was caused by an industrial reactor deemed faulty which was being handled by inadequately trained personnel. The soviet reactor had flaws of its own and wrong decisions made by the operators made during an experiment which made it worse. The massive fire and steam coming from the explosion contributed to release of 5% of radioactive matter into the atmosphere at a measurement of 5200 PBq. The death toll was at a minimum of two workers in the beginning but this gradually increased up to 30 workers dying as weeks passed due to radiation poison spreading from the plant. One worker died of coronary thrombosis as more diagnosed acute radiation syndrome. An estimated 237 people including those who were cleaning up as well as those at the plant received diagnosis. The health institutions recorded over a hundred more related health cases reported. Clearly, this was not going to end anytime soon. More children were diagnosed with thyroid cancer after this disaster which was caused by highly radioactive iodine content threatening the child mortality rate within the region between 1987 and 2004 but this has not necessarily been 100% confirmed. Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were contaminated but each had different radioactive levels of exposure. This paper discusses effects and occurrences revolving the two disasters. The basis of the argument in this paper will also compare the two occurrences drawing references from historical facts within the two tragedies (Rissman, 2014). Causes of the Chernobyl disater Four power reactors of a voltage of up to 1000 megawatts had been constructed along the Pripyat River, 60 miles north of the Ukraine as one more was under construction. The reactors were close to a major grain production area situated along south west of the USSR. The Chernobyl plant did not have a radioactive containment facility that would have greatly reduced the spread. United States’ reactive plants for example have built such containment facilities. Eventually, the accident originated from incompetency, defiance and ignorance on the Soviet administrative and political department’s part during an experiment. The soviet administration also ignored American physicist Hans Bethe’s findings as he termed the reactors “fundamentally faulty having a built-in instability”. These reactors were too powerful to terminate active reactions at some point. The experts at the plant poorly supervised and handled the technical experiments. The experts tried to tap power from the fourth reactor when the turbine was off but it was still in operation. Due to delays after they tried to tap about 2.5% of power from the winding turbine, the reactor terminated before time causing build up by fissions that absorbed the neutrons causing reaction poisoning. Deputy Chief Engineer Dyatlov was running out of patience and rushed the experiment and the operators never questioned this move (Dowswell, 2004). We can now clearly see that if the soviet administration had handed such a complex experiment and handling to the United States’ containment abilities, there would have been no deaths or injuries in an occurrence of such disaster. The administration would have also notified the public including its workers and its own government of such sensitive engineering shortcomings during experiments. There was denial of responsibility and defiance between the two countries as people played blame games ignoring the problems of nuclear power in general. Bernard Cohen, a University of Pittsburgh radiation and health professor, uses Chernobyl as reference when he explains the dangers of air pollution causing 16,000 in America alone. Looking into Chernobyl’s historical background, this region has undergone colonization and war, mass killings and uprisings since the 13TH century. Polish peasants, Ukrainian habitants and Jews had occupied Chernobyl at the time. The old Catholics opposed the rule by the Council of Trent as the Polish had a failed uprising attempt in the 18th century. Bolsheviks and Ukrainians fought for Chernobyl later incorporating it to form the USSR. Its habitants also underwent torture and horrific killings from the secret police, the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD). Chernobyl even faced famine and more murders from the Germans who came into the region in 1941. In my opinion, this region had undergone so much religious, administrative and political turmoil to a point where they would ignore any advice from foreign experts be it good or bad. This would later lead to a clearly avoidable disaster if proper management and containment were considered during construction of the plant (Nelson, 2010). All these events have given birth to existence of covert spy networks leading to obtaining nuclear weapon information discretely from the British and American intelligence. Labor exploitation was a great factor that fueled colonization and empowering of the NKVD agency. Th agency focused on scientific experiments and weapons development. Evidently, fight for power and dominance was the order of the day in this Soviet region. Secrecy and trust issues have played a major part in such a disaster as the nuclear reactor incident. These two factors have led to recruiting of foreign workers in containment (now termed “confinement”) plants from more than 20 countries. They still face date changes and re-scheduling of important launch dates on given projects in the Soviet region. Population is still low due to fear of radioactive exposure even after the construction of a confinement New Safe Confinement (Dowswell, 2004). Causes of the Fukushima disaster The Fukushima disaster originated from an execution of responsive program. The execution malfunctioned active reactor rods that functioned at site. The control rods resulted in the generation of a fission that produced minimal neutrons within the reactors. An estimated catalytic effect registered on reactors at site. The estimated activation recorded a 10% power generation from the fission. The miscalculation overworked the nuclear fission eliminating the assumed regeneration duration. The interpretation of the malfunctioning shows an activated process generated large amounts of heat and energy. A normal fission slits atomic nucleus of uranium or Plutonium generating large amounts of energy. Fukushima-Daiichi power plant designers anticipated unfortunate malfunction of the reactors. As such, the designers created a power cooler generator that supplied the circulation of the hot fluid. The power generated malfunctioned resulting to a circulation of the generated hot fluid. A tsunami hit the nuclear plant resulting to the destruction of the diesel power generators. The events resulted into the reactor splitting the hydrogen and other oxygen components (Sargent, 2011). Under normal functionality, the circulation of the two components recombines in the restored water. The build up in the wet well accumulated in vented steel structures in the reactors. This force availed a catalytic reaction that processed hydrogen detonation within the first and second units. Hydrogen explosions disintegrated the steel panels due to the large heat and energy emissions. Decayed heat continued to dominate after the blast as plant operators devised means to cool the reactors. The building pressures within the nuclear plant’s internal compartment progressed even as the blast faded. The Fukushima-Daiichi situation is different from the Chernobyl crisis. Fukushima disaster did not involve an operator error as the response team managed to shut down the reactors successfully. The reactor designs at Fukushima accommodated emergency assumption. As such, the designer built redundant pumps with power generating equipments to overcome future accidents. Unfortunately, the tsunami destroyed the power cooler generation influencing the damage and disaster cause (Arato, 2014). Effects of the Fukushima disaster The demolition of the Fukushima nuclear reactors translated to massive radioactive contagion within Japan’s mainland. The disaster contaminated an estimated Japanese land of 30,000sq km within the regions of the southland. Radiation levels increased to an area of about 4,500sq km with an exposure rate of about one millisievert. The Japanese government budgeted for an evacuation on the contaminated areas with reference to highly contaminated areas. The measures followed an evaluation procedure that declared 230sq miles encompassing the reactor plant as highly risky. The report on the reactors hazardous nature detailed on possible radioactive emissions. Large populations within the approximated areas required immediate evacuations. The radioactive elements covered northwest coast of Fukushima province. The disaster also affected human health around the Japanese region. Similar to the Chernobyl incident, health institutions recorded a decreasing birth rate during the preceding months after the accident. Children also diagnosed thyroid with prolonged cysts. The radioactive elements also spiked a cancer outbreak within the period (Hindmarsh, 2013). The Fukushima incident resulted in a rising infant mortality throughout the years after the occurrence. As the Chernobyl incident, the Japanese infant mortality increased due to the accident that emitted hazardous gases and organic residues. The estimated infant mortality increased by a steady 4% over the previous figures. The report analyzed the months between March 2011 and December 2011of the same crisis. The case is similar to the infant death in Germany after the Chernobyl incident. The similarity points to a steady death case of infants after both the disasters. Japanese Health officials also observed a thyroid gland complication among children of ages between o and 18 (Elliott, 2013). Conclusion A disaster is a naturally occurring upheaval claiming life or property damage. The occurrence of natural catastrophes originates from unexplained happens or events. Fukushima Daiichi forms an exemplary nuclear disaster in the history of time. The 2011 incident resulted in a 9.0 earthquake magnitude followed by a huge tsunami. The March incident originated from faulty equipment within a power plant. A failure of the emergency generators resulted to the nuclear energy leakage. The northeastern disaster claimed hundreds of the Japanese population. The overview of the faulty operation originated from fractional nuclear render down in unit 1 and unit 3. The demolition of the Fukushima nuclear reactors translated to massive radioactive contagion within Japan’s mainland. The Chernobyl disaster took place in 1986was caused by an industrial reactor deemed faulty which was being handled by inadequately trained personnel. The soviet reactor had flaws of its own and wrong decisions made by the operators made during an experiment which made it worse. The massive fire and steam coming from the explosion contributed to release of 5% of radioactive matter into the atmosphere at a measurement of 5200 PBq. The death toll was at a minimum of two workers in the beginning but this gradually increased up to 30 workers dying as weeks passed due to radiation poison spreading from the plant. One worker died of coronary thrombosis as more diagnosed acute radiation syndrome. An estimated 237 people including those who were cleaning up as well as those at the plant received diagnosis. . References Arato, R. (2014). Fukushima nuclear disaster. New York: New Press. Dowswell, P. (2004). The Chernobyl disaster, April 26, 1986. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn. Dowswell, P. (2004). The Chernobyl disaster. London: Hodder Wayland. Eisler, R. (2013). The Fukushima 2011 disaster. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Elliott, D. (2013). Fukushima: Impacts and implications. Basingstoke : Palgrave Pivot Hindmarsh, R. A. (2013). Nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi: Social, political and environmental issues. New York: Routledge. Lüsted, M. A. (2011). The Chernobyl Disaster. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub. Nelson, D. E. (2010). Chernobyl. Detroit: Greenhaven Press/Gale Cengage Learning. Rissman, R. (2014). The Chernobyl disaster. Edina, Minn: ABDO. Sargent, W. (2011). Fukushima. London: SAGE. Read More