Emergency Shutdown Procedures And Its Effects On The World Essay

his led to the melting of the fuel and a drastic increase in radioactivity within the reactor coolant.This also resulted in leaks in the coolant system, which led to small amounts of radiation escaping into the environment.[7]

This caused reactors 1 through 3 to go into a meltdown and it created a situation where Japan was on the brink of a major environmental disaster. To fully understand the different events there will be a focus on: factors that caused the meltdown, why this did not impact the other three reactors, the consequences, who is responsible and how these incidents can be prevented in the future. Together, these elements will highlight the underlying effects of this disaster and its impact on the region. ("Fukushima Accident")

The Fukushima disaster was caused by an earthquake and its following tsunami which caused a failure in the backup systems (World Nuclear Association, 2016). The tsunami knocked out the generators that powered the cooldown processes for three of the Fukushima power plants which caused the radiation leaks and other complications. Consequentially, the disaster was initially classified as a level 5 on the INES scale. Further investigation after the disaster was under control changed it to a level 7 disaster, the highest level on the INES scale. The estimated radioactive releases were about one tenth of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history.

When an 9.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan on March 11th, 2011, it was the first of a series of horrific events that Japan would be forced to endure. Many homes, families, properties, and belongings were lost on that day. And when the tsunami rolled over the island, many believed that it was over for them. Not only had people’s lives been put in disarray and desolation, but there had not even been simple necessities available. Food. Water. Communications. And electricity. When the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been hit by the earthquake and tsunami, the reactors were shut down and so was the electricity. Over the course of months the reactors suffered, extreme heat, fires, hydrogen explosions, and radiation exposures. At the time,

The accident began about 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, when there was failure in the secondary, non-nuclear section of the plant. The main feedwater pumps stopped running, which was caused by either a mechanical or electrical failure that prevented the steam generators from removing heat. First the turbine, then the reactor automatically shut down. Then the pressure in the primary

The operator opened the relief valve to release the pressure in which is in the reactor, while the pressure inside the reactor was decreasing up to the required level due to the improper respond and malfunctioning lead to failure of the valve to close. Not only wrong readings by the engineers, but also an inputting excess amount of computer data lead to the technical failure, the slag in the ongoing analyzing process and immediately human alert was alarmed in the power plant. But this issue as not stopped yet, the core of the reactor was beginning to cook. The incident China syndrome was named since there was the increasing of temperature from 4300 degrees Celsius to 5300degree at which meltdown. Hazardous radioactive gas was exposed all over the plant because of the leaked water from the open valve in an adjacent building. No emergency precaution was taken when the second accident of radioactive gas took place. In the video, there was also a communication error to note down and transfer the report were the problems facing the operators to take the decision quickly. Also, one of the employers found the fault in the explosion theory of co-worker prediction the hydrogen bubble was never a threat, it was a human error. Finally, it was the most devastating incident that was spread in the news all over the world and local people

For some reason, the center control rod, possibly for maintenance purposes, was manually lifted approximately 50 cm (Stacy, 2000, 141). This caused there to be an instant, or prompt, criticality which caused the reactor to blow up (Stacy, 2000, 141). The reason for this appears to be that the reactor activated due to the reaction caused by the influx of water, a moderator, into the system. The reaction rapidly heated the moderator and the cooling water to steam which expanded in the small containment vessel and caused the reactor pressure lid to blow off of the vessel (Stacy, 2000, 141). Two of the three men, who were working inside the reactor compartment, apparently died instantly from the explosion. The other

At 4 a.m., the plant failed on the non-nuclear section. A mechanical or electrical failure prevented water to flow to the steam generators that remove heat from the reactor core. This caused the secondary plant’s turbine generator and reactor to shut down which quickly made the pressure of the primary system increase. The primary system was the nuclear portion of the plant. In order to

Summer march 28, 1979 reactor number 1 was shutdown for refueling while reactor number 2 was running at 97% power. The problem which caused the main event to follow was a blockage in the filtration system, the filtration was normally cleaned with air pressure. When the air pressure wasn’t working they decided just to use the force of the water. The force of the water caused a valve to leak which then caused the feed water and booster pumps to turn off. This stopped the whole process of the nuclear reactor, with that happened the steam in the reactor had nowhere to go with the decay heat increasing. All this caused

It all started with a malfunction in the secondary, non-nuclear section of the plant. There was a failure that prevented the pumps from sending water down to the core to cool the hot, blazing core. This caused many things in the plant to shut down, so to try and reduce the pressure the operator opened a relief valve. This value should have closed when the pressure was relieved, but instead it got stuck. However, in the control room it showed that it was closed, so they had no idea that a disaster was brewing on the horizon.

There was still tons of work to be done to keep the nuclear plant from harming and releasing radioactive materials. One of major problems after the nuclear power plant explosion was that there was no electricity to operate the backup cooling system. Workers soon found that there was one diesel generator and a power line that was still in working condition after the explosion. That one power line and generator saved the nuclear plant from complete destruction. Workers at the power plant were able to get into some of the control room and try to maintain the water level and temperature. They soon found out that they couldn't get any power to three of the four reactors. Which made it nearly impossible for their cooling system to take affect. Workers knew that if they wanted to restore the power plant they were going to have to ask for volunteers to risk their lives in spite to help restore the power plant. Three to Four weeks after the accident workers were able to get into all the control rooms and stabilize the reactors with recycled water and help manage the water level inside the reactors. As of today all three reactors are now in stable working

On March 11th, 2011, the northern section of Japan was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, followed by a 15 meter tsunami, causing the death of over 15000 people. (Spacey) Even though the earthquake and the tsunami caused a tremendous amount of deaths in the northern region of Japan, the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant caused a severe damage to northern Japan’s ecosystem that people still cannot go back to their homes; despite it is 4 years after the disaster. After the earthquake, the tsunami destroyed the power supply used by Fukushima’s three nuclear power stations, causing severe levels of meltdown to be occurred inside the reactors in the timespan of 3 days. It was not until 2 weeks after the tragedy, when the reactors were finally stabilized, and took several months to approach what is called a “cold shutdown condition”, in which the fission in the reactors are completely stopped.(Fukushima A)

The disaster took place on April 1986, and was caused by inexperienced staff. When the power plant had to undergo a special test, to make sure that sufficient amount of cooling water would be supplied to the reactor in case of a power outage. However, the test had been delayed, because the national grid required the power output more than the expected time. Hence, the test was postponed after midnight where the night shift had to come. The night shift had little experience about such a test as most of them were electrical engineers rather than nuclear. On the other hand, the night shift had to perform the test before the grid needed the power again, otherwise they would have all been fined or fired. Consequently, lead to an unnecessary pressure on the personnel, which in turn increased the probability of making incorrect

Eastern Japan sits right off a major earthquake fault line. Therefore, it was a matter of time before a sizeable earthquake occurred that would severely damage Japan. On Friday, March 11, 2011, a catastrophic nine magnitude earthquake hit eastern Japan, the most devastating the country had ever encountered. Equally devastating was the catastrophic tsunami that followed. This tsunami, being one of the worlds all time worst, was able to generate waves of water reaching as much as eighty feet which engulfed many of the hardest hit areas during this disaster. This catastrophe resulted in severe, yet preventable damages to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. To begin with, the electricity being provided to reactors one, two, and three

The causes of the accident was quite complex. In brief, it began with a closed bypass valve, which stopped the water flowing to the secondary main feed water pumps, once the steam generators could not receive water, they stopped and the reactor emergently shutdown. Control rods were inserted into the