Fukushima Earthquake Research Paper

The Fukushima Daiichi power station was affected on March 11, 2011, by an earthquake and tsunami. The next day, leakage of radioactive materials were found. The steam was filled in the building by the core meltdown caused by dysfunction of the cooling system. Radioactive materials released into the environment, the government issued evacuations for residents within 20km

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake occurred off the east coast of Japan, generating massive tsunamis, which severely damaged coastal areas. The earthquake and tsunami also hit the nuclear power plants (NPP) located in the coastal area in Tohoku and led to the loss of the entire core cooling capacity of three reactors of Fukushima Daiichi NPP and severe damage to the nuclear cores.1 Although deaths related to the release of radiation have not been reported six years after the disaster, the Japanese government and medical professionals have noticed an increase in mental health problems in emergency workers and evacuees. Numerous evacuations, physical detachment from homes and personal belongings, and stigmas between evacuees have been

Being a supporter of nuclear power in today’s society could be potentially risky. So conveys author William Tucker who believes there is no other alternative, even after the Fukushima disaster (228). Tucker uses a plethora of examples and statistics to demonstrate how nuclear power could be the best alternative; moreover, he doesn’t specify which energy technology is most dangerous, but states that they all are in different ways. All alternatives have risks that determine how harmful they can be; however, it is up to the people to decide how much they are willing to risk. Progressing on from the risks, Tucker claims that we need nuclear power “if we are going to maintain our standard of living” (228). As others try to disprove this statement,

Hukushima Nuclear Meltdown is one of the most horrible disasters in modern days. Technology that was meant to benefit human turned against people, changing the nature into the dead land. What I knew about this incident was that the reactor exploded in the nuclear power plant, resulting a critical amount of radioactive particles into the ocean. However, I did not know that there was a film taken in the power plant at the very moment of the disaster. Yesterday, my roommate told me that going into the reactor area in order to shut down the reactor manually was ranked as the most expensive part time job. Payment was 8000 dollars in an hour, but it was risking the life of those who went in. Ironically, there were limited people to get in because

So, the rising temperatures affects the melting of land/sea ice which then raises the sea

Fukushima represents a catastrophe that had world wide implications for the nuclear power sector. On March 11, 2011, following a major earthquake, a 15 m tsunami hit the coast of Japan. This natural disaster caused a great deal of damage to the surrounding areas, but had a particularly dangerous effect on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. In response to the initial earthquake, the operating units at Fukushima were automatically shutdown (Hindmarsh, 5). The 15 m tsunami, which hit the plant, flooded it under several meters of water. This combined caused the entire plant to suffer a complete power blackout. It was not believed that the plant would lose all power, nor that a tsunami of such size could occur (Hindmarsh 28). Resulting from the loss of power, existing cooling functions for the reactors were shut down also and as a result, fuel in the core was damaged, and radioactive material was released into the environment (Hindmarsh 12). Charles Perrow's Normal Accident Theory (NAT) proposes "a framework for characterizing complex technological systems such as air traffic, marine traffic, chemical plants, dams, and especially nuclear power plants according to their riskiness" (“Normal Accidents” 5). Perrow suggests that systems that are highly complex and tightly coupled create the environment for ‘normal accidents’ to occur; that is, accidents that are inevitable (“Normal Accidents” 88-89).

The Fukushima was caused by a 15-meter tsunami that crumbled and destroyed the power supply of three Fukushima reactors. Ineffect to the crumbling of the three Fukushima reactors, more than 100,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes in Japan. Government officials were nervous about people returning to their homes due to the cause of possible radioactive materials being released into

The Fukushima nuclear plant was on the television; tsunami had hit this plant. A massive amount of stories from air to even in milk. The media is always un believable with these kind of things, always seeming to throw everybody into a panic. If we step aside from the hyperbole and the news reports what do, we find in nuclear power? The truth? In spite of these recent events that made the world nearly hate nuclear power. However, it’s still a source of clean power that needs to be advanced and overseen properly.

The location of the earthquake was near the Miyagi Prefecture where the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant located. What is worse, the tsunami was triggered by the serious earthquake leading to not only the flooding of the emergency generator room and the damage of the diesel generator, but also the block on aid. Thus, without cooling system, the reactors became overheated and finally meltdown in the next few days. On the other hand, these accidents were recognized would happen and a relative report had be handed in to the manager by the engineer of TPECO for several years ago. However, the company did not take the report seriously because managers would not believe the risk is realistic. Because of the mistake of managers, the catastrophe may eventually cause anywhere from 15 to 1,300 deaths and from 24 to 2,500 cases of cancer, mostly in Japan, and it also had chance to damage environment all around the world (Science Daily, 2012).

Five years after the nuclear disaster, Fukushima returned to export agricultural products. Including rice Japan began to be sent to the United Kingdom next month.

The article I have chose to read and write about is, Impact of the Fukushima accident on marine life, five years later. In the article it is stated that about five years ago the largest single release of human-made radioactive discharge to the marine environment resulted from an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. The article states that approximately eighty percent of the fallout happened over the Pacific ocean. The article then discusses how a new study explores the environmental consequences in the marine environment of the accident. Lastly the article outlines the status of the current research about the impact of the fallout on plant and animal life and what remains to be done as the radioactivity continues to spread.

A powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit Japan early Tuesday, Nov. 22. The quake's epicenter was determined to be Fukushima Prefecture, near the coast where the devastating 2011 quake took place.

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," 2012)

Since the first commercial plant in the 1950s, the nuclear energy sector has increased steadily. From generating 684 billion kilowatt hours worldwide in 1980, nuclear power accounted for 2,345 billion KWh in 2012 (World Bank, n.d.). While the Chernobyl accident in 1986 did not trigger any decline in the global nuclear-generated power in the following years, the Fukushima accident in 2011 did. A drop of almost 200 billion KWh from 2011 to 2012 put a hold on the previously roughly constant numbers. This decline is already visible in the 2011 data, as Japan immediately ordered a shut-down of all their 50 reactors, the last one in 2012 (Hong, Bradshaw, & Brook, May 2013). Today 31 countries operate 438 commercial nuclear power plants (IAEA - PRIS, 2015a). The following table shows the operating and under construction reactors in the world, including their current percent share in their total electricity generation.

All the disasters were started by an earthquake. The huge earthquakes then caused a 15-metre tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors. As the tsunami wave keep on hitting all the pools, reactors and where the generating of heat takes place, all parts of the station have had huge losses and damages. All 4 units had lost power at 3.42 pm, almost an hour after the quake, when the entire site was flooded by the 15-metre tsunami. Eleven reactors at four nuclear power plants in the region were operating at the time and all shut down automatically when the quake hit. When the diesel generators