Monday 16 September 2013

Fukushima Still Polluting

The problem with nuclear power is that when it goes wrong, it goes very wrong as the Japanese are finding out with after the problems in Fukushima.
More than two years after the meltdown at the nuclear power plant, the fallout is still on-going with leaks at the holding bays leaking radiation contaminated water being leaked into the Pacific and heading towards the Western coast of North America as well as polluting the groundwater in the area around the power plant.
Towns within a 20km radius of Fukushima are still off-limits, the 160,000 Fukushima refugees living in make-shift shacks, and experts are predicting that the radioactive water will continue to slowly cross the Pacific to hit the shores of the United States and Canada until 2025.
The levels of radiation in three of the plants buildings are so high that no human can enter or get close to the cores therefore making it impossible to remove these cores for hundreds of years, if ever.
Unfortunatley, the danger to human life will be downplayed, just as it was when the leaks were initially discovered when it was reported levels of around 100 milliSieverts in the leaking water before admitting that actually it was 18 times higher.
They now plan to create an ice wall to freeze the water and stop it leaking into the Ocean but that will take years to plan and execute according to experts and the contaminated water, enough to fill 130 Olympic sized swimming pools, will have to be moved from there present place in the leaking tanks with all the inherent problems that entails.
Nuclear power, the gift that just keeps giving and with 436 nuclear power stations in operation around the World and 73 more in the process of being built, it will keep giving for some time yet. You just not much like what it is offering.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

there are two sides to every human creation. what is the other side lucy? how many additional thousands of fossile fuel plants would we have? how many people would have no power if we didn't have nuclear plants? the alternatives are not free and the lower the environmental impact the more they cost.

Q