The Fukushima Conundrum and Mistakes from the Past

Greetings my well regarded readers, all several of you, I hope that you are in your own way contributing towards assisting the people in those areas devastated by political intransigence, current war, natural disaster and technological malfeasance. If not may I humbly suggest giving to either the International Red Cross or a similar reputable organisation if you can. For many parts of the globe it has been an exceedingly grim month and has reminded us that as humans, it really does pay to look realistically to the past as a way of preventing foreseeable errors of the future. The current meltdown at the TEPCO reactors at Fukushima is I think a prime example of ignoring past lessons, because they were perhaps too unpalatable to accept.

Here I wish to speak out about our history with nuclear power generation. Unlike some I do not claim to speak with qualifications in nuclear science or research. While I have frequently contributed information to articles about the problems of nuclear power, I speak from a position of having studied how humans, both individuals and organisations, interact with complex areas of technology.

Now as we know the reality of nuclear potential was made clear to the world on the 6th of August 1945 when the B-29 Superfortess Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. As many historians and philosophers have repeated since then, on that day the world changed. The following wiki article has a reasonable report and links of the event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay

Since then the morality, ethics and rational of nuclear warfare have been endlessly argued, from MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) to the tactical employment of nuclear weapons on the battlefield ie ‘small’ nuclear rockets and artillery shells. Having trained for this nuclear battlefield in the Reserves some decades ago I can honestly say I’d have a better chance of survival going Over the Top at Passchendaele or the Somme. The 1960’s British film The War Game gives a very accurate and chilling view of the consequences that I was trained for in the late 1970’s. Since it is going to come up in any discussion of nuclear power I will deal with use of the nuclear bomb in the Second World War.

1. The intended target was originally Hitler’s Germany in response to the information the Allies had gained on the Nazi nuclear program and their use of the V1 and V2 rockets. Now there is a scary thought.

2. The operation of the strategic policy of the Imperial Japanese Army for the Home Islands protection ordered a last man-last bullet defence, plus the extensive use of Kamikaze operations. It succeeded, but not in the way it was intended. Instead it convinced the US political administration and Allied military command that any ground invasion of the Japanese Home Islands would have cost millions of lives, both Allied and Japanese. Thus other means of ending the war were to be seriously considered.

3. Politically, socially, culturally and historically the Japanese military elite could not admit or accept that they had lost the war. According to the evidence their efforts at negotiation were half hearted, evasive and disjointed, while their admissions of reality were at best based wholly on an out-moded mythology and ideology. One that refused to accept the current strategic and tactical facts of consistent defeat in military and technological areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

4. Sadly I also have to say that on the Allied side human nature played all too great a part in the deployment of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. After all that effort and expense both the military and political administration wanted to see what they’d got. That wonderful human attribute of curiosity, it has been both a blessing and curse. I will present a rather bleak assessment of the human propensity to poke the hornet’s nest. In light of the strange 1950’s-80’s definitions of a ‘winnable war’, it is perhaps better that it was first used earlier rather than much more devastatingly later during the tensions of the Cold War.

Technology, Mistakes and Human Nature

Now having very briefly reviewed the warfare aspect of nuclear technology, we will examine the current situation. While the nuclear industry constantly stresses the yawning gulf between the peaceful and military employment of the atom, in public perception that separation is irrelevant.

The promotional films of the peaceful atom in the 1950’s are now viewed as blatantly false propaganda, anyone with any doubts should check out the documentary Atomic Café on YouTube.

Now for decades advocates of the nuclear industry have said repeatedly it is a viable perfectly safe technology for power generation. This message is as of the other day still being proclaimed by experts like William Tucker. In a perfect world this may be so, however the entire flaw in this argument is a simple word ‘perfect’. Such as in the following; perfect construction, perfect engineering, perfect maintenance, perfect operation, perfect supervision and perfect preparation for disaster. In this ‘perfect environment’ developed by perfect humans we obviously can’t have shoddy construction dictated by ‘rigid five year plans’, tight budgets or corrupt contractors. There can be no provision for faulty spare parts, incorrect engineering specifications or sloppy fabrication. Of course all nuclear engineers and technicians are fully trained with the best tools, equipment and communication. Then all operators aren’t suffering from overwork, illness, imposition of unrealistically tight deadlines and an idiot for a supervisor. Of course all these difficulties can be compounded by poor initial design and flawed concepts. For the final clincher we are always accurately able to predict all geophysical movements and their effects. If only this were so.
In all of the past nuclear reactor incidents we have had a selection of all of the above real life ‘imperfections’ as a quick example of some incidents will show.

Windscale, Sellafield Reactor

The Windscale or Sellafield disaster had at its core a very flawed design for cooling and operation of a reactor. It used air flow to maintain the reactor temperature and baffles in the chimney to trap any radioactive particles. The wiki article explains enough design, operation and engineering problems to give any person nightmares. Major nuclear contamination was only avoided by a combination of luck and bravery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire

Three Mile Island

After the event operators in the control room admitted that all the switches and dials looked the same. In a crisis it was not easy to identify which was the most important readings to respond to. In fact one switch had an empty coke can over it to indicate this was a vital control. In the end an inquiry found that a contributing factor of the disaster was a single stuck valve and human error. The clean up coast was cited as one billion US dollars. Dare I say design didn’t allow for human operators, or the provision of faulty parts in a free market system?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

Chernobyl

Simply put the ‘five year plan’ ideology rewarded results on paper and in physical form. The effectiveness and reliability of the finished project where ‘never’ put to question. Any significant criticism or critical review was a one way ticket to Siberia. So this reactor as many other Soviet period projects suffered from ongoing flaws from the start. This was compounded during the crisis by the kind of planning and supervision that relied upon the ideology that soviet engineers and equipment was perfect and that reporting failure or problems was a poor career choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster



Fukushima
Even in the face saving culture of Japan, where reporting problems and errors to those higher up in the hierarchy is a public admission of shame, as well as being socially unacceptable, Tepco is in a class of its own. The revelation a few years ago that one or more of its workers were in the habit of transporting radioactive water in a bucket, was to say the least concerning, let alone the other more serious problems that Tepco didn’t want to talk about.

Acceptable Risk and Real Maths
Only today on the BBC a professor of risk management at Cambridge has stated that we are essentially hyperventilating over a minor problem and cites a reel of statistics for radon and background radiation and the results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prove his point, as to the overwhelming safety of nuclear energy. All I can say to this is a very famous quote from the ninetieth century British prime minster Benjamin Disraeli ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

I am afraid the elastic science of risk assessment was frequently used to justify the ‘acceptable casualty’ rates for any nuclear exchange by the military hierarchy on both sides of the Cold War. Carl Sagan amongst other ‘real scientists’ proved this was an deadly earth threatening misconception. Unfortunately the soft and uniquely flexible maths of statistical analysis tends to fail when put up against the hard solid physics of the half life of radioactive isotopes. Especially plutonium.



Reactor in an Earthquake zone?  No Worries!

Then there are the manifest errors of building a reactor in a known frequently active fault zone with large tsunamis within living memory. Hard maths and even our now dated knowledge of geology in the 1980’s told us that a severe earthquake was bound to affect the Fukushima site within the span of a current human lifetime. So given that and that the cooling system failed, the ‘design parameters’ for earthquake proofing were seriously flawed. Another problem that has occupied recent media attention is the pool containing spent fuel rods, as is becoming apparent it poses a serious risk that goes beyond ‘risk assessment’ since it contains far more fuel rods than are supposed to be present.

As an example of the effects of this ‘regulatory omission’ I believe a quick visit to the following blog would be beneficial:

http://byelizabethcat.blogspot.com/2011/03/memories-of-chernobyl.html



The Fukushima Heroes
Currently the safety of a large enough area of Japan and its population is reliant on a very small crew of workers and volunteers. I fear they will suffer similar ‘casualties’ to those at Chernobyl. I somehow doubt that they will be comforted by the statistical improbability of their dying of radiation sickness. Or that their actions will not contribute to the overall protection of any significant proportion of the people of Japan.

This is a simple equation and no amount of supposed scientific malfeasance or management chicanery is going to change the steady tick of radioactive decay. As I said earlier it is an imperfect world, so it is the height of folly to rely upon a range of modern management and technical myths based upon an impossible perfection.
Regards from the good doctor and may all our prayers go towards those physically dealing with this real world crisis.

New Blog for Tudor Mystery Series

To all my dear fans and devoted readers, it is with both pleasure and trepidation that the good doctor announces a splitting of his blog. The publishing of his first two Tudor novels is imminent. On Prognostications and Pouting (pleasurable reading for the discerning devotee) we’ve had the search for a cover, which included the diverting headless bimbos theme. An introduction to the Tudors part 1 (A Modern Family) and a number of snippets from the first two Tudor novels, The Cardinals Angels and The Queens Oranges scattered amongst the blog posts. So my loyal readers considering that I’m also about to continue my posts on the two world wars along with more reports on the onward march of EBooks. I believe it is time to create a Tudor period blog, where aficionados of our favourite early modern royal dynasty can in the comfort of their own parlours view the foibles, politics and dynastic bloodletting of Henry VIII’s Court and the Reformation. All this from the viewpoint of the lowly and reluctant Red Ned Bedwell apprentice lawyer at Grays Inn and his rather forthright ahh ‘associate’ Meg Black apprentice apothecary, heretical book smuggler and occasional barber surgeon. Along with her brother Rob and the grim faced family retainer Rodger Hawkins, they find themselves entangled in the deadly schemes of the powerful.

Thus to survive Ned Bedwell has to become a Pursuivant, the Tudor equivalent of a detective. Now Ned’s no stranger to many of the doubtful pastimes of the Liberties of London and notorious Southwark. Where he has a reputation as ‘Red Ned’ victor of Canting Michael’s deadly baiting pits at Paris Gardens. However he needs more than street cunning and luck at the dicing table to manoeuvre his way through the perilous pitfalls and plots of Tudor murder, treachery and intrigue. Luckily Ned has the feisty Meg Black to ‘advise’ him, that’s if he can trust her or she isn’t running some secret heretical scheme that could also get them all hung or burnt at the stake.

So go to the new blog site http://rednedtudormysteries.blogspot.com/
and feel free to read the prologue of The Cardinal’s Angels. Also within the month I will have a Red Ned short story The Liberties of London ready to roll out, the front cover, prologue and first chapter will be previewed on this site.