The Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan discharged
approximately 350 gallons of radioactive water into the sea today after
an earthquake shook the Japanese town, which is 160 miles northwest of
Tokyo.
Fortunately, the radioactive contamination
levels fell well below legal limits. The power plant is the one largest
nuclear facility’s in the world and just one of fifty-five nuclear
reactors in Japan. The incident, in light of the recent swarm of headlines regarding alternative energy use and the possible re-emergence of nuclear power as a primary alternative energy source, leaves many to wonder, is nuclear power safe?
Nuclear energy has both good and bad points. It creates a huge amount of energy without using valuable fossil fuels,
but it also produces radioactive materials that can be extremely
harmful to the environment. Consequently, nuclear safety includes
actions taken to prevent nuclear and radiation accidents or to limit
their consequences.
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Workers at nuclear plants, and the larger environment, run a risk due to this radioactive
material. Nuclear power plants must be run very carefully to ensure
that there are no mistakes, which is why nuclear power plant operators
promote a safety culture. The term “safety culture” is a term
introduced by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group in a
report published on the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) defines safety culture as “an assembly of
characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals, which
establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety
issues receive the attention warranted by their significance.” Safety
culture is about improving safety attitudes in people, but it is also
about good safety management established by organizations with a
holistic, whole community, whole of life approach. A good safety
culture implies a constant assessment of the safety significance of
events, such as earthquakes or other natural disasters.
Additionally, nuclear power plants possess both active and passive
safety systems. Active safety systems are systems activated by a human
operator, an automatic computer driven system, or even a mechanical
system to respond to dangerous events in an appropriate manner. Passive
safety systems rely on the laws of nature to ensure a reactor responds
in an appropriate manner during potentially dangerous events. The laws
of nature include for instance, incorporating the law of physics in
engineered components of nuclear power plants whereby a nuclear
reaction would slow versus accelerate during potentially dangerous
situations or events.
Nuclear power plants also possess structural safety systems.
Surrounding a nuclear reactor are certain containment structures, such
as the fuel ceramic, metal fuel cladding tubes and the reactor vessel
and coolant system. Finally, nuclear reactors are housed in containment
buildings. Containment buildings, which are made of steel or concrete,
enclose nuclear reactors to contain the escape of radiation.
Ultimately, human exposure to radiation, the primary contamination
of concern at nuclear power plants, is more likely to come from
exposure natural background radiation and from some medical procedures.
In fact, studies exist finding no evidence of increased risk of
exposure to radiation or occurrences of cancer in individuals living
near nuclear facilities. For instance, in 1990 a study by the National
Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health, which
surveyed over 900,000 cancer deaths in counties near nuclear
facilities, found no increased incidence of cancer mortality in people
living near 62 different nuclear facilities in the United States.
Regardless of the safety systems in place, which promote a culture of safety in nuclear power plant
operations, no industrial activity is risk-free. Occurrences take
place, which are completely outside our control, as evidenced by the
earthquake, which impacted the Kashiwazaki Kariwa
nuclear power. Any malfunction, accident or natural disaster at or near
a nuclear power plant presents potentially devastating, long-term
impacts to the surrounding community and environment.
This global nuclear power report now available at Energy Business Reports.