My thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Japan as they deal with this natural disaster of unprecedented magnitude.
While I’ve been unable to post blogs or record a podcast this weekend, I’ve been trying to stay engaged by sharing news and bits of analysis via my twitter feed. There has been some excellent fact based coverage of the reactor damaging event at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Unfortunately, very little of the excellent coverage is coming from mainstream media sources.
When the opportunity arises, please point your friends and colleagues to one of the following sources for factual coverage of the events:
· The American Nuclear Society Blog
This is an incomplete list, but these are a good starting point and they will lead you to other accurate reports and analysis.
As I have watched the events unfold I am encouraged by the deliberate and methodical actions of the plant’s operators and the performance of the robust nuclear reactor design. Even in these incredibly adverse conditions that far exceeded the plant’s design basis the public is being kept safe. When the dust has settled we’ll be able to say once again that even in worse case situations nuclear energy is a safe and important part of our energy supply.
As one person commented on my twitter feed, the refineries, natural gas plants, and other fossil fuel infrastructure in the quake affected area are all damaged beyond recovery. By contrast, the nuclear plants held up amazingly well. Most will be able to resume operation after repairs and thorough inspections. As I write this post there are no reports of members of the public being harmed by the nuclear plants and the World Health Organization has issued a statement that no public health effects are expected from the nuclear fuel damaging events.
John Wheeler
#1 by Yves on March 14, 2011 - 8:18 PM
” the World Health Organization has issued a statement that no public health effects are expected from the nuclear fuel damaging events.” Well, that’s gross…
#2 by John Wheeler on March 20, 2011 - 12:27 PM
All reputable scientific organizations continue to insist there will be no public health impact. I know it’s tough for anti-nuclear activists to believe that even in a “meltdown” the public is protected, but that is the truth. The 3-barrier, defense in depth design and operating philosophy of nuclear plants around the world has demonstrated IT WORKS at Fukushima.
#3 by Sarantos Soumakis on March 17, 2011 - 4:53 AM
130 tons of spent fuel in reactor 4 with no coolant!!!
That is the COST OF NUCLEAR POWER… Wake up to reality
#4 by John Wheeler on March 20, 2011 - 12:23 PM
Jaczko’s statement that the unit 4 fuel storage pool was dry were wrong. Japanese and IAEA officials immediately stated he was wrong, but thus far he has refused to retract or apologize. I should not be surprised: facts rarely matter to the anti-nuclear crowd.
#5 by Fifi on March 20, 2011 - 7:42 PM
John,
True believers will never let facts stand in front of their core beliefs. Nuclear energy is evul hence anything happening at a nuclear power plant is a evul disaster that’s going to kill us all, reality not withstanding. And anyone who dares object to those core beliefs are shills for the nuclear industrial complex in a plot to suppress the hidden facts about the devastation caused by the nuclear industry or whatever …
Same goes for Chernobyl that supposedly killed 100s of thousands of people, like “everybody knows”, never mind the WHO research that tried really, really hard to find dead people yet finally came up with only 4,000 potential excess mortality. Not quite empty handed but a lot lower than most in the industry expected themselves and two orders of magnitude lower than the numbers hawked about by all those courageous anti-nuclear activists standing proudly to the nuclear industrial complex or whatever.
And yet, there is only one solution to that: keep repeating the facts again and again and again, knowing full well that it won’t change anything true believers want to believe.