John Kropinski | Section 1

Melting Down Nuclear Fears

This is a paper I downloaded off the internet for the purpose of downloading an eBook.
Im writing this so that it doesnt detect it as the exact same file. Cheers.
Not all lessons are learned as easily as others. Everybody knows this from an early age.
Most children learn that it is not okay to curse through their parents simply telling them that
whatever word they said is, in fact, not okay to say. Other lessons, such as figuring out that
stealing or fighting is wrong, often are learned through receiving spankings or groundings. Such
lessons are taught to children in an attempt to ensure that they do more good than harm in
society throughout their lives. They are taught to them to ensure that they dont continue to do
whatever they did, as it could lead them down the wrong path. That applies to nearly everything
children are punished for. It is important to note, however, that simply because a child is given a
stern talking to, or grounded, or even spanked, does not mean that they were already headed
towards a bad path in life. It doesnt mean they are a menace to society, and it certainly does
not imply that they have, or ever will, contribute more harm than good to the world. Analogously,
the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima taught the world lessons about the
importance of safety procedures and having a functional infrastructure when working with
nuclear technologies, among many other lessons. In this analogy, nuclear technologies are the
child, and the two disasters are a couple of spankings the child needed to receive in order to
learn his lessons. Would you suddenly ignore all the good a child has done in his life, and give
up hope on all the great things he could do in his future, simply based on some mistakes he
made that got him spanked? Your answer should be no. Similarly, two tragic accidents shouldnt
be able to ruin the reputation of nuclear technology. Nuclear technology has, and will almost
certainly continue, to do more good than harm in the world.
It is important, first, that what happened at each site is clear. First, the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster of 1986. The nuclear plant at Chernobyl lay approximately 120 km north of Kiev,
Ukraine, and 20 km south of Ukraines border with Belarus (Chernobyl Accident 1986). On April

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25th, a test was being prepared, to determine how long turbines would spin and supply power
to the main circulating pumps following a loss of main electrical power supply, (Chernobyl
Accident 1986). A routine shutdown was scheduled for April 26th, the day the test was to be
performed, so the operator turned off the automatic shutdown feature. Due to an obscure (at the
time) design flaw in the reactor, something went horribly wrong at the start of the test. When the
reactor operator was finally in place to shut it down, the reactor was already far too unstable to
control. Another design flaw of the reactor was that if only a few parts of the reactor were
damaged, the whole thing could be destroyed. The reactor exploded, killing two workers. In the
following month, 28 more people died due to radiation poisoning. Water was pumped into the
reactor core, as well as sand dumped over it by helicopter, to reduce the radioactive emissions.
It was then covered in concrete to reduce the radioactive emissions even further. The method
used to contain the nuclear waste at Chernobyl could be called a technological fix. A
technological fix is defined by Thomas P. Hughes when explaining James Scotts ideology that a
technological fix occurs when scientists use technology to reduce a complex, multivariable
problem in nature to an abstract, quantifiable simplification, (Hughes 166) with the result that
more problems occur that require technological fixes. This is a valid point, since eventually,
something will probably have to be done about the nuclear waste inside of the concrete
structure. No adverse health effects on humans or animals can be attributed to the nuclear
fallout with any degree of certainty. The Fukushima disaster was quite different. March 11, 2011,
an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 struck Japan (National Diet of Japan). The earthquake
damaged the connections between the Fukushima Daiichi power plant and the Shinfukushima
Transformer Substations, causing mass power outages. Due to the tsunami (which came as a
result of the earthquake), facilities were damaged which caused power to be lost to units 1,2,
and 4 of the Fukushima plant. Unit 3 later lost all power, and unit 5 lost AC power. The tsunami
severely damaged buildings, scattered debris everywhere, and made dealing with the damaged
nuclear facilities extremely difficult. It was later found that the accident was extremely
preventable, had TEPCO (the company which ran the nuclear plant) had there been adequate

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tsunami countermeasures, and measures against a severe accident that met international
standards. No deaths related to this incident officially happened due to radiation exposure. The
two disasters have many similarities and differences, but some are of much more importance
than others.
A key similarity between the two disasters - possibly the most important of all - is that the
direct causes of the accidents have never been repeated. Faulty reactor designs have never
caused a major nuclear accident since Chernobyl, and all nuclear reactors are held to much
higher safety standards, and said standards are enforced, since Fukushima. Completely
ignoring all of the great things that nuclear power does for the world, look solely at these two
accidents for now. Chernobyl and Fukushima are so commonly cited as examples of reasons
nuclear technology is a negative thing, or as an excuse for people to be scared of nuclear
power. I think that due to the circumstances, it is nonsense to look at it that way. Going back to
the child being punished analogy - have you ever heard of a child who never did the same bad
thing twice? A child who has never thrown two tantrums? A child who has never cursed twice? A
child who has never gotten into two fights? Such a child doesnt exist, and no child is held to
those standards. Nuclear technology shouldnt be held to those standards either. Yes, mistakes
were made in the past, but so much was learned from them that it is almost certain that the
same mistakes will never be made again. Admittedly, the loss of life involved in these lessons
are what push many people to take their stances on the dangers of nuclear power. I am biased
in this regard, being a technological enthusiast. I believe that the relatively small loss of life
involved in the disasters was necessary to progress in the field of nuclear power. I dont think
my view is unreasonable, though. In the early days of coal mining, workers dying in the mines
was not at all uncommon. In 1906, 1,060 people died in a mine explosion in Courrieres, France.
As awful as that disaster was, mine explosions were a necessary risk for the world to progress
to where it is today - without coal, none of the advancements that have been made in the last
century would have been possible. Likewise, nuclear disasters (which have a total death toll
several orders of magnitude lower than coal-related disasters) are a necessary risk to push the

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world into its next era - whatever that may be. When that time comes, nobody will disagree that
nuclear power was and is a good thing.
Another similarity between the two nuclear disasters is their preventability. Both
disasters, to some degree, could have been easily prevented. The Fukushima nuclear disaster
could have potentially been completely avoided, or at the very least partially avoided, if they
wouldnt have cut corners implementing safety procedures and complying with international
standards. The Chernobyl disaster could have been avoided if the reactor operator had used
the controls in the most effective way - allowing the reactor to automatically shut down before it
got too unstable. Also, if the reactor design simply wasnt faulty, the disaster would have clearly
been avoided. While not obvious, I believe that this shows great promise for the future of
nuclear power. The disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, under the right administration, didnt
have to happen at all. Now that they have happened, they weigh on everybodys mind. No one
working at a nuclear power plant will want to be a part of that team - the team that causes the
next big nuclear disaster and PR nightmare. It is more than likely that from now on, safety
standards will be met, protocols will be followed, and executives of power companies wont be
as incompetent as TEPCO, at the very least to avoid the public outrage that was aimed at
TEPCO following the Fukushima accident. Energy News Magazine, describing the Fukushima
accident, said, Worst nuclear accident in history; like two Chernobyls, (ENE Magazine).
Exaggerations in magazine articles and newspapers made TEPCO seem like public enemy #1.
This is a fate that no other power company would want to face.
One key difference between Chernobyl and Fukushima is that Fukushima probably
couldnt have been completely avoided. While it is likely that the Fukushima disaster would have
still happened (to a lesser degree), the reactor meltdowns did virtually nothing compared to the
earthquake and tsunami itself - the cause of the reactor damage in the first place. The National
Diet of Japan reported that over 150,000 people were relocated as a result of the nuclear fallout.
BBC News reported that immediately following the tsunami, over 500,000 people were left
homeless, and over 10,000 people died in the aftermath of the quake and tsunami (BBC News).

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Despite this, in the end, the nuclear fallout is what people to this day are afraid of, even though
it has had almost no effect on anything in comparison to the earthquake itself. News and
Magazine articles such as the Energy News Magazine article fed off of the same type of fear
that the movie Godzilla did to its viewers in theaters. Godzilla made unrealistic parallels to real
life seem realistic through its thought-provoking nature and the general lack of knowledge about
nuclear science in the general public. Godzilla made a giant killer reptile seem almost like a
realistic consequence of nuclear bomb testing(Godzilla). The media reporting on the Fukushima
disaster took a small part of the problem (the problem being the 9.0 earthquake), the reactor
meltdowns, and fed off of the publics lack of knowledge about radiation. They made radiation
seem like it could be the end of the world for people in Japan, while the real killer was a simple
natural disaster.
It is simply not fair to judge the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima as harshly
as so many do. The consequences of the mistakes that were made were very minimal
compared to comparable situations in industries relating to coal, oil, natural gas, or any other
source of power. Nuclear power provides unprecedentedly clean energy in very large
proportions - 10.9 percent of our electricity comes from nuclear power plants (Nuclear Energy
Institute). 10% of the worlds electricity production, and there hasnt been even 0.1% as many
deaths from nuclear disasters as those from coal, which produces about 3 times as much of the
worlds electricity as nuclear plants. Nuclear technologies also have potential to bring the human
race into an era of unimaginable progress if fusion reactors are made more efficient, as we
would have nearly unlimited power. Chernobyl and Fukushima, while being disasters, have
helped put those in charge of nuclear plants on a good path. Nuclear power has lowered carbon
emissions drastically in the last few decades, and will continue to make the world a cleaner,
better place, clearly doing more good than harm. The next step in progress for nuclear energy is
the melt down the nuclear fear; the only type of meltdown that is likely to happen in our future.

John Kropinski | Section 1

John Kropinski | Section 1

Works Cited
"Chernobyl Accident 1986." Chernobyl. World Nuclear Association, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015.

Godzilla. Dir. Ishir Honda. Perf. Takashi Shimura. Toho, 1954. DVD.

Hughes, Thomas Parke. Human-built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture.
Chicago: U of Chicago, 2004. Print.

"Japan Earthquake: Meltdown Alert at Fukushima Reactor - BBC News." BBC News. BBC
News, 14 Mar. 2011. Web. 07 Nov. 2015.

"Magazine: Fukushima Catastrophe Changed the World; Worst Nuclear Accident in History, like
Two Chernobyls;'" ENENews. ENENews, 13 Feb. 2015. Web. 07 Nov. 2015.

"Mine Explosion Kills 1,060 in France." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 07 Nov.
2015.

National Diet of Japan. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation

Commission. 2012. Web. 07 Nov. 2015.

"World Statistics." - Nuclear Energy Institute. Nuclear Energy Institute, July 2015. Web. 09 Nov.
2015.