Talk about one engineering ethics case or issue in the last 4 months - Essay Example

An engineering ethics issue that occurred during the last four months is the Fukushima nuclear accident. Fukushima was one of four nuclear energy plants located in the island of Japan. The 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, 2011 caused damage to the Fukushima plant. The damage was so very severe that it led to radiation leakage. As the crisis was going on at this plant the engineering crews of nuclear plant had some tough ethical decisions to make. It was known that radiation was emitting from the ground at the plant.

The engineers needed to make repairs and most of these repairs required human labor. Crews were sent in with full knowledge that these workers could suffer from severe health consequences. Along with the employees of the plant there are lots of ethical dilemmas associated with eh Fukushima disaster. There is not enough information to determine whether the accident was preventable. Engineers are supposed to implement safety protocols to ensure these types of accident don’t occur even if nuclear plant is hit by an earthquake.

The government of Japan must launch a full investigation of the matter in order to get the truth. The government of Japan faces a logistical nightmare in regards to its electricity infrastructure. The nuclear system in Japan was responsible for providing 25% of the electricity of the entire country. The Fukushima disaster has left a very sour taste in the minds of the Japanese people and the international community. The disaster will have long term repercussion in the population of Japan. It is estimated that 5.

5% of the population living within a 200 km radius of Fukushima will develop cancer in the long term (Youtube). There are 7.8 million people living within that distance of Fukushima. There are going to be over 400,000 new cases of cancer as a consequence of the disaster. The Japanese government and its engineers have to reconsider the composition of its energy system. Based on the damage that Fukushima caused Japan has to ask itself whether it is ethical to continue the nuclear power plan. If Japan decides to eliminate its use of nuclear energy the engineers of the country have to device a way to substitute all that energy.

The new system can use the traditional model of depending on petroleum to generate energy. Due to the rising cost of crude oil and the fact that Japan had a system in place using nuclear energy which substituted the need for petroleum on a large scale the country might not want to go back to technologies from the past. The use of renewable energy would be the ideal solution to supply Japan with the 25% energy deficiency the country would face if nuclear power was eliminated forever. Once the reactors are stabilized the ethical duty of Japan is to fully investigate the accident to learn from their mistakes.

Disasters such as the Fukushima event and the BP oil spill on the Gulf are the types of events that cannot repeat themselves ever again. Work Cited Page Youtube.com. 2011. “Bubsy: 400,000 to develop cancer in 200 km radius of Fukushima.” YouTube. 2 May 2011. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0H-mtsdsgg>