As soon as I had seen the first reactor blow off the walls, it was clear that the place had actually reached Chernobyl state. However, even in Chernobyl , they were not willing to accept the dangerous situation till massive radiation leak started.
Nuclear energy is the most unsafe and most Eco hazardous energy. Anything which goes about to release massive amount of energy, though can be controlled will always remain the highest threat to its user. Chernobyl was considered a design failure of the Soviet Time reactors, however, the truth is that the same design reactors worked in Ukraine and still in Russia.
Any energy out of fission or fusion out of dense fuels like plutonium, uranium , thorium etc can yield massive heat to steam the turbines into power. But this massive yield of heat unless controlled systematically and converted into steam can blow off the strongest structure on earth. This is how the Nuclear Bombs work. In case of bombs, the only difference is that the heat is not used for steam, but for destruction.
Once the reaction is set in, there is absolutely no way to stop the generation. It is like a fired missile. And now, if for some reason, the water level falls or the pumps stop working or any other failure, then the core of the reactor is up into the air. While cooling attempts are made by chilled water around the reactor etc, however for a massive heat generation, these are totally useless. Chernobyl was being tried to shut down and Fukushima also was being tried to shut down, but there are no fast ways to bring down the temperatures and external cooling is too small for such a scale of heat. Perhaps, this is an inherent technology limitation, but possibly the good solution will be to have an endless supply of ice bricks shoved into the reactor, till it cools down. The sea water pumping solution was thought far too late, in fact, it should have been part of the design, wherein as soon as the battery aided cooling was triggered , the sea water pumping should have already made its way into the reactor. It was an excellent idea. Again, at some stage, they should have pressed pumps in action with firehouse feeding of seawater into the reactor. But nothing got done. Nevertheless, atleast all other similar reactors can now take this clue and have a sea hose emergency cooling installed in place.
Japan knowing well, it was on seismic belt , has yet chosen to have one third of its energy from Nuclear sources. I could have never imagined a nation which got badly hurt by nuclear bomb, then adopting a nuclear technology to fuel its power needs. The reason being forwarded is that they have to otherwise depend upon the costly gas and oil generation. Barring some countries with good oil reserves, everyone has to depend upon gas and oil, so what is the big excuse.
Secondly, on a disaster of this scale, Japan should have made a global appeal of getting Atomic Power experts flown into Japan within 24 hours. But the country tries to put his pride ahead of the disaster. And the results is the second reactor is also deleted.
Well, Japan can now kiss good bye to Okuma City and should immediately review all the other nuclear power plants. It now has to deal with the population relocation of 200,000 people. It has to also kiss goodbye now to the marine life around the city for many decades. Greenpeace has its prayers answered, because the whales may or may not be contaminated by radioactive waves, however, atleast the Japanese will stop hunting it for fear of radioactive whales. One still has to see, how far will be the impact of the radioactive leakages go , out of all these zombie reactors.
Europe fears most that one of its nuclear power plant will be targeted by the terrorist with a plane hit direct on it and the city collapsing under radiation. But, the fears now should be the failure of any thing, which can get the uncontrolled heat to bang the place down. It can only be one disgruntled employee.
Germany is the only European country which has voluntarily accepted to phase out nuclear power plants, France and Lithuania still remain the leading nuclear power producers. Even a small country like Switzerland has 4 nuclear power plants. One of it goes phut and the country will be seen only in history books. Time to wake up.
The most hidden part of the nuclear energy is the disposal of Nuclear Waste. At the end, who knows, even the smallest radiation out of these massive waste deposits within the land fillings could be one cause of Earth Quake.
Iran should learn out of this disaster and with all its oil and gas should not find any more excuse of Nuclear Power.
Any case, this is a wake up call for the nuclear power plants worldwide. If we do need nuclear energy, then we still have to find technologies, which bring about immediate stop to a fission or fusion reaction and rapid cooling against fractional cooling of reactors.
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