Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Conditions at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors, damaged by the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami, remain tense, as water levels around the spent fuel rods in one reactor continue to drop, exposing the rods to the air.
As Japanese plant operators attempt to cool the remaining reactor cores at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, they must work with limited information, since the reactor buildings are highly radioactive, making it too dangerous to send workers in to get more accurate readings.
As radiation levels fluctuate at the Daiichi reactors in Fukushima, there is increasing concern about the amount of radiation workers at the plant are being exposed to and how much radiation is leaking into the surrounding area.
While it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Japanese to contain the smaller amounts of radiation escaping from the nuclear energy plants damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, a catastrophic release of radiation remains extremely unlikely.
The fire in the spent fuel pool in Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and the explosion inside another reactor have opened more pathways for radiation to be released, prompting the nuclear industry to reconsider whether their designs for reactors are sufficient to withstand significant natural disasters.
The damage done to Japan’s nuclear reactors by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami should prompt the nuclear industry to reevaluate the magnitude of natural disasters that the reactors should be designed to survive.
Given that the Japanese have one of the most advanced nuclear power programs in the world, there is bound to be a serious reevaluation of whether nuclear power programs around the world are capable of dealing with massive geological events like the earthquake that hit Japan.
While substantial core melting in the Japanese nuclear reactors damaged by the earthquake and following tsunami may create the risk of a large release of radiation into the environment, it is also possible that any amounts of radiation released would be relatively small.
Between the challenge of cooling the fuel rods at damaged Japanese nuclear energy plants and a potential breach in the containment vessel that surrounds the overheating nuclear core, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep radiation from being released into the environment.
In the wake of Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, there remains a great deal of uncertainty about what kind of damage has been done to several of the country’s nuclear energy plants and what the potential outcome of that damage will be.