For the want of a nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Proverb, Author Unknown

I’d like to direct your attention to the most important place on earth. It’s not Washington, DC, or Moscow, or Beijing. It’s not Tehran or Damascus or Bagdhad. It’s not even an entire city, but our fates hang on it.

The most important place in the world is a large concrete box about 100 feet above ground level located next to the #4 reactor in Fukushima, Japan. It contains, for the moment, water and hundreds of zirconium clad nuclear fuel rods. The #4 spent fuel pool was damaged by the earthquake and aftershocks of March 11^th last year, and by a hydrogen gas explosion. It is in rough shape. Workers have temporarily reinforced it with steel beams, but all of the observers I have read doubt that the structure would survive another moderate earthquake.

Unfortunately, the earthquake that precipitated this situation has weakened the fault line along the east coast of Japan in the Fukushima area. European seismologists have concluded that the major after shock known as the Iwaki event (magnitude 7) was caused by this weakening. It is virtually certain that another earthquake of this magnitude will occur in the next two or three years.

 What then? The #4 pool will crack open and lose its cooling water, perhaps even spilling fuel rods to the ground. The rods will overheat almost immediately and the zirconium cladding will start them burning like radioactive road flares. That in itself will be a major release, spreading radioactive iodine, cesium, strontium, and uranium in the resulting aerosol. The secondary effect will be the evacuation of the Fukushima site, rendering all work on the other five reactors impossible. Even robots can’t survive such high levels of radiation. These already compromised units will lose their jury rigged cooling schemes, resulting in cascading exposures and fires across the entire site. After 30 days or so the common spent fuel pool next to reactor #4 will lose enough water to expose its rods to the air, with the attendant road flare effect.

From an article in Japan Forum:

“Based on U.S. Energy Department data, I assume a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Daiichi site, nearly all of which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 - roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daiichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).”

Consider that for a minute. Eighty-five Chernobyls. Half the world’s cumulative exposure to Cesium-137 over the past 65 years, except that it is released in a month.

What happens to Japan depends upon the wind at the time of the release. Japan was lucky in its misfortune last year as the wind was from the west, blowing most of the radioactivity out over the Pacific. Winter winds from the northwest would drive the plume right into Tokyo. Southern summer winds would drive the plume up the island and over Hokkaido. In any event it would cut off the northern half of Japan from the south with a radioactive no-go zone. Where the cloud goes in the world depends on the nature of the release (steam vs. fire vs. explosion) and the vagaries of seasonal winds.

The problem for the Japanese authorities is that the crane for removing the fuel rods from the #4 pool was destroyed. In fact, the hardware is mostly in the pool, lying on top of the fuel rods. Removal of the rods isn’t scheduled to start until the end of 2013, and it is predicted to take a decade. In the meantime we are relying on the magnanimity of the Pacific tectonic plate. In other words, pure luck.

A few grim questions occur to me.

Evacuate Tokyo? How? To where?

How could Japan function as a nation and an economy after being irradiated and cut in half?

What would the world economy look like if Japan becomes a failed state?

When the ultra-hot radioactive gases from the fire plume up into the jet stream, what happens to Hawaii and the west coast of the U.S.? Or, depending on the wind and altitude, what happens to eastern China and the Korean peninsula? It would all have to fall out somewhere.

There are a number of voices around the world calling for an international effort to stabilize Fukushima. The Japanese government is downplaying the risks and resisting outside interference. Apparently even the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) is making money providing people (with Yakuza debts) to work in the high radiation zones. The emphasis seems to be more on cost control and political damage control than physical damage control. This can’t continue. An earthquake could hit Fukushima tomorrow, next week, six months from now, or two years from now. As the situation now stands the consequences would be world altering.

We need to pressure our government to put pressure on Japan on the following fronts:

• To push aside Tokyo Electric Power Co. and their efforts at cost containment
• To accept foreign assistance and expertise
• To design and deploy emergency containment measures now, in advance of any seismic event

This would be in parallel with:

• A first priority effort to seismically stabilize the Fukushima site
• Acceleration the transfer of radioactive material to dry cask storage

Write or call your senators and representatives:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm