Fukushima Daiichi and Icarus: The Human Factor in a Meltdown (Sv= 1J/kg.w)

Abstract

Rolf M. Sievert (1896–1956), Swedish Radiobiologist. Photo courtesy SPL/Photo Researchers, Inc. Copper Engraving of “The Fall of Icarus” (1731), by Bernard Picart. Image courtesy ©Bettmann/CORBIS BODY RADIATION TESTED. Dr. Rolf Sievert of the radiophysics department of the Caroline Institute in Stockholm, who constructed the apparatus, says the exact measurement of radiation represents the first step in its ultimate control. The New York Times; April 5, 1952 (1) Prime Minister Naoto Kan said his government was in a state of maximum alert over the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station… . A leak of the radioactive water, which measured more than 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) an hour on the surface at Reactor No. 3, could exacerbate smaller leaks of radiation detected in the seawater around the plant. The New York Times; March 30 2011 (2) The thermal Springs of Ikaria [named for Icarus] are considered as some of the most radioactive springs in the whole world [and] … the most suitable natural way for healing several diseases; some of these are: Chronic rheumatisms and several forms of arthritis, Uric arthritis, Neuralgia, neuritis, and muscle pains, etc. etc. Isle of Ikaria Holiday Brochure 2011 (3) The working personnel in the thermal spa installations are exposed to significant radiological risk due to waterborne 222Rn with a maximum dose rate up to 35 millisieverts y−1, which led to overexposure in terms of the 20 millisieverts Sv y−1 professional limits. Report on “therapeutic spas” in Ikaria, Greece, 2010 (4) The disaster which hit Japan on March 11 was unique in the atomic age: an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, followed by a meltdown. There have been other earthquakes, other tsunamis and other nuclear accidents, such as Chernobyl, but the calamitous sequence at Fukushima Daiichi had not happened before. It put a full stop to arguments both for and against nuclear energy; time had come to cope with the crisis, to monitor the site, and to gauge its effects on humans and the environment. A clear, rapid account was expected so that: “Civil society in all countries could assess the record of nuclear power and draw the conclusions (5).” It didn't quite play out that way. Japanese authorities followed the playbook of other national disasters (the BP oil spill in the Gulf, Hurricane Katrina). They went through the stages of administrative grief: Shock and Disbelief followed by Denial and Anger, Bargaining and Guilt. They issued frequent and often contradictory accounts; but pretty soon the facts of the meltdown emerged. The logs of the International Atomic Energy Agency show that the world had been watching and counting (6). On March 11, Japanese authorities claimed that the disaster had caused “no release of radiation from any of the nuclear power plants affected by today's earthquake and aftershocks.” And on March 15, they insisted that “there has so far been no release of radiation from any of the nuclear power plants.” But massive douches of seawater had failed to back up the crippled cooling systems in all functioning reactors. Hydrogen explosion followed hydrogen explosion, fires broke out to release I131 and Cesium137 into the air and seas. By March 22, it became clear what had really happened inside the plant: three of the six reactors were in advanced stages of meltdown. The zirconium alloy sheaths that surround the reactor's fuel rods had ruptured, and pellets of molten uranium dropped to the bottom of the reactors where they congealed. The core of Unit 4 landed in a cooling pond in open air after two hydrogen explosions macerated the building (6, 7). All that water added to cool the cores had overheated and needed extrusion. The pot was boiling. One month after the tsunami hit, the bad news was spelled out in becquerels and sieverts. The total radioactivity released was between 360,000 and 600,000 trillion becquerels, and at least 21 workers were exposed to over 100 millisieverts (8). These units requi