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Actions to take in response to emergency situations
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[Type the document title] Contents I. Introduction 1 II. Ethical theories and principles 2 III. Conclusions 2 IV. References 2 V. Appendices 2 I. Introduction On March 11, 2011 and earthquake of grade 9 on the Richter scale sacudio (the larger on the 1400 years or records history [1]) the Pacific coast of Tohoku in which the Fukushima nuclear power complex is located. The initial disaster did not represented any significant risk even the power cut that isolate the complex from the electric grid the generators in place kept the cooling system of the generators running and the 3 operating reactors active at that moment initiated an automatic shutdown to protect the cores, what nobody at this point was expecting was a tsunami with a wave higher than 15 meters that forty-one minutes later hit the seawall that originally was designed to withstand waves up to 6 meters. This caused significant flooding on all the installations and malfunction on the diesel generators, replacement batteries in place powered the cooling system, but couldn’t prevent those from overheating oxidising their protective cladding and melting their radioactive cores, producing significant amount of hydrogen in reactors 1,2 and 3 which eventually exploded damaging the containing vessels. Reactors 1, 3 and 4 had significant leaking given the structural damage, and contaminated water was released to the environment. Overall by the end of the first crisis, three of the six reactors suffered a partial meltdown with the consequent release of radioactivity that contaminated the atmosphere and water from the reactors that reached the ocean. The situation raised many ethical issues given the nature of the incident and the implications as well as the ... ... middle of paper ... ...ilosophy, 2012. [2] Robert Jan van den Berg, "Nuclear Waste and," Social and ethical aspects of the retrievable storage of nuclear waste, 2000. [3] Wikipedia - Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. [Online]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster [4] Steven Starr. Costs and Consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster. [Online]. http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/costs-and-consequences-of-fukushima.html [5] Zoe Schalanger. (2014, February ) Another Day, Another Spill of Radioactive Water From Fukushima. [Online]. http://www.newsweek.com/another-day-another-spill-radioactive-water-fukushima-229840 [6] Managing Director of Investigation - Sakon Uda, "The official report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission," The National Diet of Japan, 2012.
This theme describes the inter-related processes by which the partially decrepit and moribund nuclear apparatus is being dismantled, appropriated, recycled, commodified, and memorialized in contemporary culture (e.
One of the most talked about opposition toward nuclear fission is the radioactive waste it produces. A radioactive waste is what is left behind after using a reactor to make electricity. There are two levels of waste, low and high, but both are regulated by the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. High level waste is made up of fuel that’s been used directly in the reactor that is highly radioactive but can still be disposed. Low level waste is the contaminated items that have been exposed to radiation. The nuclear wastes are then stored in a safe and secure location with different types of methods such as wet storage, dry storage, and away from reactor storage. Wet storage is the main method of disposing the waste because it is the
Accident Title: Partial Meltdown and Radioactive Release at the Nuclear Facility on Three Mile Island
Early in the morning of April 27, 1986, the world experienced its largest nuclear disaster ever (Gould 40). While violating safety protocol during a test, Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl power plant was placed in a severely unstable state, and in a matter of seconds the reactor output shot up to 120 times the rated output (Flavin 8). The resulting steam explosion tossed aside the reactor’s 1,000 ton concrete covering and released radioactive particles up to one and a half miles into the sky (Gould 38). The explosion and resulting fires caused 31 immediate deaths and over a thousand injuries, including radiation poisoning (Flavin 5). After the accident more than 135,000 people were evacuated from their Ukrainian homes, but the major fallout occurred outside of the Soviet Union’s borders. Smaller radioactive particles were carried in the atmosphere until they returned to earth via precipitation (Gould 43). The Soviets quickly seeded clouds to prevent rainfall over their own land, so most of the radioactivity burdened Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans (Flavin 12). This truly international disaster had far reaching effects; some of these were on health, the environment, social standards, and politics.
...ernobyl power plant. The highest doses of radiation were received by the fireman and the personnel of the power station on the night of the accident. About 600 000 persons of recovery operation workers (civilian and military) have received special certificates confirming their status as liquidators. The evacuation of the nearby residents was carried out at different times after the accident on the basis of the radiation situation and of the distance of the populated areas from the damaged reactor. For inhabitants of contaminated areas of the former Soviet Union, they continued to live in the contaminated territories surrounding the Chernobyl reactor although efforts were made to limit their doses. The average doses from 134Cs and 137Cs that were received during the first 10 years after the accident by the residents of contaminated areas are estimated to be 10 mSv.
This specific situation can analyzed to any extent that it allows. Theories and ethics can be applied to any problem but it goes to show that one must apply them carefully and orderly.
I. (Gain Attention and Interest): March 11, 2011. 2:45 pm. Operations at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant continued as usual. At 2:46 pm a massive 9.0 earthquake strikes the island of Japan. All nuclear reactors on the island shut down automatically as a response to the earthquake. At Fukushima, emergency procedures are automatically enabled to shut down reactors and cool spent nuclear fuel before it melts-down in a catastrophic explosion. The situation seems under control, emergency diesel generators located in the basement of the plant activate and workers breathe a sigh of relief that the reactors are stabilizing. Then 41 minutes later at 3:27 pm the unthinkable occurs. As workers monitored the situation from within the plant, citizens from the adjacent town ran from the coastline as a 49 foot tsunami approached. The tsunami came swiftly and flooded the coastline situated Fukushima plant. Emergency generators were destroyed and cooling systems failed. Within hours, a chain of events led to an explosion of reactor 1 of the plant. One by one in the subsequent days reactors 2, and 3 suffered similar fates as explosions destroyed containment cases and the structures surrounding the reactors (Fukushima Accident). Intense amount...
I am able to make an informed factual conclusion to this incident due to the fact that I took the time to ask the right questions. I did not make assumptions. I had a purpose when searching for information. I looked for and collected all the information I needed to make a decision on facts. I asked myself questions which focused on depth and breadth. I took time to understand the logic. I weeded through opinions and looked for relevance within the articles I read. I took all of my questions and wrote them down on a separate piece of paper. As I did the research I answered my questions. This gave me the ability to deeper learning of this problem. My opinion on this differs from that of a minimal student simply because I applied the standards of a critical thinker. I broke down the issue and searched for the reasoning which enabled me to make an informed no biased
Kinoy, Ernest. "Chernobyl: The Final Warning." Chernobyl: The Final Warning. Dir. Anthony Page. 1991. Web.
b. What is the essential ethical issue here? (In your own words, write out a one-sentence summary of the ethical issue as it arises in the type of situation being described here.)
In addition to the potential dangers of accidents in generating stations, nuclear waste is a continuing problem that is growing exponentially. Nuclear waste can remain radioactive for about 600 years and disposing these wastes or storing them is an immense problem. Everyone wants the energy generated by power plants, but no one wants to take responsibility for the waste. Thus far, it is stored deep in the earth, but these storage areas are potentially dangerous and will eventually run out. Some have suggested sending the waste into space, but no one is sure of the repercussions.
While the early warning saved thousands of people, the Japan’s Meteorological Agency underestimated this earthquake as the subduction zone of Japan should not produce the magnitude 9.0 quake (Oskin, 2013a). The Tohoku Earthquake and its tsunami approximately killed 16 thousand people, injured 6 thousand people and around 3 thousand people were missing. Most people died from drowning. Around 300 thousand buildings, 4000 roads, 78 bridges, and many more were affected by the earthquake, tsunami, and fires from leaking oils and gas. Electricity, telecommunication, and railways were severely damaged. The debris of 25 million tons was generated and carried out to the sea by water (BBC News, 2012). The country’s authorities estimated more than 309 billion US dollars of damages. Landslides occurred in Miyagi and liquefaction in Chiba, Tokyo, Odaiba, and Urayasu (USGS, 2013). Furthermore, the tsunami destroyed protective tsunami seawalls. Approximately 217 square miles of Japan covered in water (Oskin,
The energy industry is beginning to change. In today’s modern world, governments across the globe are shifting their focuses from traditional sources of power, like the burning coal and oil, to the more complex and scientific nuclear power supply. This relatively new system uses powerful fuel sources and produces little to no emissions while outputting enough energy to fulfill the world’s power needs (Community Science, n.d.). But while nuclear power seems to be a perfect energy source, no power production system is without faults, and nuclear reactors are no exception, with their flaws manifesting in the form of safety. Nuclear reactors employ complex systems involving pressure and heat. If any of these systems dysfunctions, the reactor can leak or even explode releasing tons of highly radioactive elements into the environment. Anyone who works at or near a nuclear reactor is constantly in danger of being exposed to a nuclear incident similar to the ones that occurred at the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi plants. These major accidents along with the unresolved problems with the design and function of nuclear reactors, as well as the economic and health issues that nuclear reactors present serve to show that nuclear energy sources are not worth the service that they provide and are too dangerous to routinely use.
Nuclear power, the use of exothermic nuclear processes to produce an enormous amount of electricity and heat for domestic, medical, military and industrial purposes i.e. “By the end of 2012 2346.3 kilowatt hours (KWh) of electricity was generated by nuclear reactors around the world” (International atomic energy agency Vienna, 2013, p.13). However, with that been said it is evident that the process of generating electricity from a nuclear reactor has numerous health and environmental safety issues.
There was a multitude of causes of the disaster in Japan. The first cause was a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that occurred off the coast of Japan. Japan is located in “The Ring of Fire,” an area in the Pacific Ocean that has multiple faults and earthquakes (Pedersen 13). Tectonic plates shifted off the North Pacific coast of Japan and created a massive earthquake. The next cause was a thirty-three foot wall of water that swept over cities and farmland in Japan (Branigan 2). Martin Fackler, a journalist, stated, “The quake churned up a devastating tsunami” (Fackler 3). The tsunami reached speeds of 497 miles per hour while approaching Japan (Fackler 3). The third and final reason of the disaster was that the cooling systems at multiple nuclear power plants failed. At Fukushima, a nuclear power plant in Sendai, Japan, the radioactive rods began to overheat due to the absence of water, which cools it. Explosions occurred at three of the reactors, which spewed radiation into the air (“Comparing nuclear power plant crises”). In conclusion, the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant issues were the causes of the disaster in Japan, but they also had a myriad of effects.