Via International Business Times: 'Fukushima: The Story Of A Nuclear Disaster' Reveals New Insight Into Japanese Catastrophe. The book comes from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Excerpt:
The book documents the disaster beyond what made it into the papers, with findings and analysis that might be new to you:
1) The initial shutdown of Fukushima’s reactors after the earthquake went according to plan; the real problem was the tsunami:
The Tohoku earthquake began at 2:46 p.m. (Japan time) on March 11, 2011. By 2:47 p.m., the first of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi Unit began to automatically shut down, after sensors registered the earthquake.
The real trouble started about 45 minutes later, when the second wave of the tsunami struck. A first wave, 13 feet high, was deflected by the plant’s seawall; the second one was 50 feet high easily surged over the seawall, destroying seawater pumps, smashing doors, and drowning the plant’s electrical system. Power panels and emergency backup generators were inundated, leading to a station blackout.
Nuclear regulators know that a station blackout is one of the worst things that can happen at a nuclear plant: “Without any power to run the pumps and valves needed to provide a steady flow of cooling water, the radioactive fuel would overheat, the remaining water would boil away, and the core would proceed inexorably toward a meltdown.”
2) Just how powerful was that tsunami?
Powerful enough to take a Big Apple-sized bite out of Antarctica: “By the time the waves hit Antarctica, about eight thousand miles south of the epicenter, they still had enough power to break off more than fifty square miles of ice shelf, twice the area of Manhattan.”
3) Serious communication problems hampered recovery efforts in the early hours after the blackout.
“The paging system [within the plant] was disabled; TEPCO [Tokyo Electric Power Company, operator of the plant] had provided only one-hour batteries for some of the mobile units and there was no way to recharge them. Crew members often had to return to the emergency center to report simple details – a time-consuming and risky procedure.”
4) Part of the problem in the response? Japan’s huge nuclear bureaucracy:
At the time, Japan’s 54 commercial nuclear plants are regulated by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. There was also the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) which promotes nuclear energy while also being charged with radiation monitoring. There’s also the Nuclear Safety Commission, an independent agency within the Japanese government’s executive branch, and the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization. Also, Japan’s prefectures took on their own radiation monitoring and evacuation-coordinating efforts.
“On paper, all these duties and responsibilities may have seemed clear. In practice, however, the system proved unworkable.”
