The nuclear power plants' accident

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Mar 17th 2011 11:11
Yesterday, I wrote about atomic energy in my last entry, Please read it too if at all you are interested in.

By the way, I went to a nuclear power plant for study in my university, and saw the equipments including the atomic reactor during its check. The nuclear disaster make me flash back the experience, and, today, I wrote about the accident.

The nuclear power plants (NPPs) in question are located on the coast of the Fukushima in Tohoku (north west) area, Japan. Fukushima is affected by the tsunami/earthquake and The NPPs are also damaged heavily, and the Japan's worst nuclear disaster occurred. After this catastrophe, the atomic fission chain reaction was stopped by the control bar which is made by materials well absorbing the ejected atomic components inducing the chain reaction. But, after such situation, the atoms are collapsed at relatively low rate, and some energy keep evolved in forms of radial ray and heat. So, to keep it safe, we must cool it down and insulate it even after the chain reaction was stopped. if the fuel ejecting radial ray is too hot, the fuel melts the containment and come out, so it is critical for safe to cool it using water circulation. For this, the circulation system was set up, but, the tsunami carry out the backup systems during the electrical power is down. So, using pumper trucks and the marine water, the technicians have been to deal with it, even though the marine water contains some impurities and this is easily affected by the radial rays and damages the precision mechanical equipment. They've fought against also the vaporization, the increment of pressure and the emergence of the hydrogen, but the NPPs had fire and explosion. Now, It seems that the part of the fuel are melted down and many radioactive materials are leaked. In this equipment, the amount, which is more than 400 times of acceptable one in a year, was observed at once. Even now, the accident carry on, and because it is known that bolacic acid absorb the atomic contents ejected from the fuel, I heard they put it and water around the NPPs to deal with the problem. Without debt, this accident got one of the worst affairs all over the world.

The human error may not be determining factor for the serious problem, and it looks difficult to prevent it. So I'm afraid that the problem cause the ideas against NPPs themselves. As my last entry shows, NPPs have strong points and they can't be replaced for sustainable energy. Of course, aftertime, we need to check how the safe control should function, and I believe that we can overcome it, so I hope the overreaction against it would not occur.

At last, I thank you for the support of many countries to resolve the problem, and I strongly hope the accident would end soon.