CEEB223 Introduction to Environmental Engineering

Semester II 2012/2013 ASSIGNMENT

TITLE: Environment Disaster: Fukushima Tsunami and Nuclear Plant Disaster March 2011
By

GOH PIN LING CE087543 GOH YU HAO CE087544

1 LECTURER: DR. CHUA KOK HUA SECTION: 02

Date:29/12/2012

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NO 1 CONTENT BACKGROUND SLIDE NO. 3

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3 4 5 6

SUMMARY
CAUSES IMPACT COSTS LESSON LEARNED

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5-6 7-10 11-12 13-17

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EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

REFERENCES 2

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BACKGROUND
Fukushima nuclear power plant Owned by TEPCO, Tokyo Electric power

Company
suffered major damage from the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011 and, as of December 2012, is not

expected to reopen.

SUMMARY
A massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit northeast japan on 11 March 2011, Friday. It causing dozens of deaths, more than 80 fires, and a 10meter tsunami along parts of the countrys coastline. Unfortunately, the earthquake and tsunami knocked down the backup power systems of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that were needed to cool the reactors at the plant, causing three of them to undergo fuel melting,
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CAUSES
Magnitude of 9.0 earthquake hits. Initiate 14-meter high tsunami Happen of Fukushima nuclear plant disaster

Human factors

TEPCO expected the power plant to withstand earthquakes with magnitudes reaching 8.2 to 8.6. The plant is built to withstand a maximum water height of 5.7 meters in the case of a tsunami. The facilities sit on bluffs 4.3 to 6.3 meters above this expected high-water mark. But in March, the 14meter-high tsunami waves overwhelmed the protective seawall and crippled the Fukushima plant. The one-two punch of the quake and tsunami, however, wrecked Fukushimas electric grid.

Geographical location

Nuclear facilities should be in areas not prone to natural hazards. But here we face a paradoxical situation: Nuclear power plants are there to generate electricity, which means they cannot be too far from centre's of populations and industrial activity, and these are largely located in world regions prone to natural hazards of one sort or another.
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IMPACT OF TSUNAMI
Burning and explosion
The electric supply was shut down abruptly during the attack of tsunami and earthquake. Thus causing many residential and industrial area facing threat of burning and explosion.

Landslides and changes of terrain

Tsunami and earthquake causing landslides happened around the disaster area. Terrain facing changes abruptly as result in destroy by Tsunami. 7

Flash flood
The tsunami had bring in terrible amount of sea water into Fukushima in a short time thus causing floods around the disaster area. Many places including residential area, industrial area and even airport also flooding.

Human casualties
Many people were die and missing after the attack of Tsunami in Fukushima. A lot of residents were lost their homeland and properties.

Economic losses
A lots of companies and factories were destroyed in Fukushima Tsunami. Causing economical activities in Fukushima suspended indefinitely. 8

IMPACT OF NUCLEAR PLANT DISASTER Leakage of radioactive substances

Radiation levels in the nearby areas increase tremendously and cancer-causing radioactive elements such as iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239 enter the soil, water, air, food chain, and life forms, including humans.

Pollution on marine life and foods

The radioactive substances were fallout and spread widely through land area and ocean. Many ocean organisms died and many animals and plants were contaminate by radioactive substances.
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Insufficient of electric supply

30% of electric supply in Japan rely on nuclear power plants. Corruption of Fukushima nuclear plant not only wreck down the electric grid of Japan but also put a big question mark on nuclear energy safety.

Deficit of economies
Japan is synonymous of many foods such as vegetables, beef, and etc. News of radioactive pollution on Japans production was disrupt the export industries of Japan. This was cause Japan lose a great amount of moneys. 10

COST
COST DEAD INJURED MISSING PEOPLE EVACUATED AMOUNT > 16000 people > 6000 people > 3700 people > 350,000 people

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COST HOUSES DESTROYED ESTIMATED MONEY LOSS PEOPLE REMAIN EVACUATED ESTIMATED RECOVERY PERIOD

AMOUNT > 200,000 homes > 100,000 billion US dollars > 80,000 people > 10 years

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1.

Can we produce nuclear energy without running the risk of irradiating people?
In theory, it may be possible: A large number of nuclear reactors have been operating

for decades and as far as we know, nuclear accidents have seldom occurred.
Nonetheless, such accidents have happened and can happen again. Indeed, given the reputation that Japan has for its management style, attention to details and advanced technology, the Fukushima accident suggests we cannot mitigate the risk entirely whether on the technological or management level. The current situation thus highlights the danger of nuclear accidents in other and especially in less prepared parts of the world now and in the future. This in turn highlights the critical role of international supervision in the nuclear sector globally, and enforcement of higher nuclear safety regulations on the national level.
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2. Improvement of prevention structure There are many concrete sea walls around much of the Japanese coastline. However Japans concrete sea walls were not built to handle such high waves. The concrete seawalls in many places in Japan are about 10 meters, that's about 33 feet. In Sendai, they were about three meters, that's about 10 feet. So that shows you that at least in that area they were not expecting such a sizeable wave because they would have built a higher seawall.

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3. Mitigation of risks
We also try to mitigate risks, by, for example, having plants shut down when an earthquake strikes, as Japans automated system does. But again, Fukushima

shows that the system isnt perfect: The nuclear disaster occurred after the
facility had already been shut down. On the day of the earthquake, three of the plants six units were not operating

(shut down for routine maintenance) and the other three units were shut down
by an automated system that sensed strong ground shaking. The Fukushima disaster has awakened the public to the fact that nuclear plants, even if not operating, require 24/7 maintenance because the radioactive fuels rods (even the spent rods) still release huge amount of heat and should thus be kept cool and safe.
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4. Nuclear Wastes Disposal

When that doesnt happen, as is the case at Fukushima, disaster can ensue. This disaster has yet again also revived the decades-old and yet unresolved problem of nuclear waste disposal. Currently, in the absence of safe

underground storage, thousands of tons of spent fuel rods are sitting on the
ground at hundreds of nuclear plants around the world and are kept cool by water; how safe are they from natural hazards? Or for that matter, how safe are they from people who may be up to no good? These are important questions that the public needs to ask and officials must clarify. Nevertheless, we can see that how weak are human in front of radioactive pollution. Hence, the reliability and safety of nuclear power generation should be redefined.

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5. Petroleum or Nuclear power?

Then there is the issue of materials: When oil prices increase abruptly,

we think of tapping non-petroleum resources such as nuclear power. We

think of switching to nuclear power to decrease our dependency on imported oil from relatively unstable parts of the world. But like the

petroleum industry, nuclear power utilizes minerals (uranium and

plutonium) that are finite and expendable, and are concentrated in certain areas, notably Canada, Russia, Australia and parts of central

Asia and Africa. Japan and the U.S. both import the bulk of their
uranium from overseas. So if more countries go nuclear, the price of uranium will rise because of increased demand.
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Early Warning System

On 11st March 2011, 2:46pm, a magnitude of 9.0 earthquake struck northeast of Japan which is Fukushima. 3 minutes later, the Japans Meteorological Agency released its first tsunami warnings. More than 4,000 Seismic Intensity Meter in place throughout Japan to

measure earthquake activity.

These meters provide information within two minutes of an earthquake happening. Information about the strength and the center of the

earthquake can be learned within three minutes.

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 Hence, Japan is said to be the most well-prepared countries on earth in terms of tsunami warning.

2 reasons for Japan had not anticipated the

size of this earthquake and tsunami
Japan has not had any event anywhere near as big as this one in the last
one hundred fifty years. And scientists had not expected such a large earthquake happening off the coast of Japan.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake was the fourth most powerful

earthquake ever recorded worldwide. It was also the worst earthquake ever to hit Japan. The tsunami waves that followed were reported to have reached as high as fourteen meters in some areas.
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References
1. http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/japans-early-warning-systemone-of-the-best-in-the-world-118258934/116824.html 2. http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/voices-nuclear-plants-and-naturaldisasters-fukushimas-fallout 3. 4. 5. 6. http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/voices-what-happened-fukushima http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/03/earthquake-in-japan/100022/ http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html http://earthquake-report.com/2011/03/16/catdat-estimated-direct-lossafter-japan-tsunami-100-billion-us/ 7. http://www.fas.orgsgpcrsnukeR41694

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