Fukushima: Now a level 7, but nothing changes
April 14th, 2011
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Around 1939, a lot of people started to get very excited because a new term was being tossed around. A conflict which had developed between the UK, France and Germany over the German invasion of Poland started to be called “World War II.” The largest previous conflict was not retroactively re-named “World War I.” This was a big deal because it was now officially acknowledged that the hostilities were on par with the huge European war that had happened two decades earlier.
Of course, it doesn’t really matter. World War II in fact turned out to be much larger than World War I, but not because of the name. They could have called it “The Great Patriotic War,” as the Russians do or they could have called it “The War of 1939.” It would not matter.
This is not the first time that terminology has gotten people hot and bothered and it won’t be the last. Politicians have been asked if they consider the Israeli West Bank Barrier to be a “wall or fence” as if that matters. When it was discovered that Pluto was actually one of many small kiper belt objects many objected ferociously to it being downgraded from “planet,” despite the fact that it changes neither the size nor orbit of Pluto.
Well, now it’s official, Fukushima is now a “level 7″ and the media seems to be going nuts, acting like this means it is at least as bad as Chernobyl and probably worse.
Let me just try to make a point here: It doesn’t really change anything. The designation, officially known as the International Nuclear Event Scale is at least somewhat arbitrary. I have no idea why Japanese officials waited this long to decide that the events constituted a level 7, but now they did. Since level 7 is officially the highest, it encompasses all events of Fukushima scale and higher. Therefore, it one thousand reactors suddenly exploded and in the process their cores were ejected directly into sports stadiums filled with thousands of spectators, it would be a level seven, since there is no level 8.
Level 7 on the INES scale is considered “severe.” I don’t think you can dispute that this event (which has killed noone, by the way) is about as severe as an accident can get at a modern nuclear plant. Multiple reactors have lost all primary and secondary cooling, secondary support structures were severely damaged in a series of explosions, the cores have partially melted and spent fuel pools lost cooling. It doesn’t get much more “severe” than that.
Did I mention nobody has died?
Still, it could be disputed whether or not Fukushima truly rises to a level 7. One of the criteria is the release of radioisotopes with “widespread consequences” to health and enviornment and requiring mitigation or emergency response. In this case, many were evacuated and restrictions were places on food and water supplies. Whether or not that was truly necessary is another question. The levels of radioactivity have, at least in a few circumstances, reached dangerous levels, but only if an individual were in the most high level areas for an extended period of time. Iodine-131 levels have also reached levels where health consequences could be possible, at least locally, although the use of potassium iodine and evacuations are likely to prevent that.
I should add that this is not the first time that I have questioned the INES. Personally, I think the events Three Mile Island did not really justify a rating of 5 and probably should have been a 3.
Fukushima could be a 6 or a 7. It’s a bit of a judgment call. However, whatever you decide to call it, it’s not Chernobyl. There’s been no core explosion, there’s no danger of continued criticality, there’s nowhere near the level of radioisotopes released. There has not been a primary containment failure.
Did I mention nobody has died?
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 10:49 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Nuclear, Obfuscation, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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April 14th, 2011 at 11:30 pm
To the extent that this scale is of any use at all, I too would have moved it up to a 7 within the week. Having said that I really wonder what practical use the INES is except as a post event classification. Otherwise it seems to only have significance to media types looking to whip up interest.
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April 15th, 2011 at 1:36 am
If an accident receiving the highest rating doesn’t kill anyone and causes no lasting environmental consequences, then it rather makes a mockery of INES.
BTW, you should really mention nobody has died (from radiation that is).
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April 15th, 2011 at 2:33 am
Hell yes. Just one word to help keep things in perspective: Bophal.
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April 15th, 2011 at 3:29 am
Looking at each reactor the highest of any individual reactor is 5. I wonder if the fact that they are close together plays quite a part in allowing a level 7 rating. If for example they had been each 5 miles apart along the coast would we be looking at multiple level 5 events despite the net effect being virtually the same?
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April 15th, 2011 at 3:57 am
Josh said:
I would rather say that it makes a mockery of all anti-nuclear doomsayers. If this is the worst, and it didn’t do more then that, then it’s the proverbial sock which which they can put in it!
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April 16th, 2011 at 8:39 am
It’s a ridiculous rating system. It’s like if I had a rating system for assessing the severity of fires, and have a class 1 fire be a spark, a class 2 a match or candle flame, a class 3 a small paper fire and anything more severe than that a class 4. Saying that something is a ‘class 4 fire’ under such a scheme tells you nothing about the severity of it; a grass fire and the SN 1987A supernova explosion would both qualify as class 4 fires.
What would be truly absurd would be if under such a scheme, the media attempted to insinuate that a grass fire was as bad as a supernova, because they’re both ‘class 4 fires’.
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April 16th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Arcanyn said:
Uh, isn’t a supernova basically a kind of fusion explosion or a star collapsing and then exploding in a burst of energy that comes from the star’s fusion energy? I’m not an expert on it, but I’m prettyb sure it’s not actually a fire (like where hydrogen or carbon or something combines with oxygen).
But either way point taken. Grass fire or the Great Chichago fire might be a better comparison.
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April 16th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Engineering Edgar said:
That’s true of a Type I supernova (where a white dwarf in a binary system with a giant accretes enough matter from its neighbor that it ignites carbon fusion), but not of a Type II supernova (where a single massive star accumulates an iron core which collapses when it exceeds the Chandrasekhar limit). A Type I supernova is a thermonuclear explosion, while a Type II supernova is powered by gravitational collapse.
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April 16th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Haven’t several other scales been retro-actively made open-ended? Hurricanes or something? The only one I can think of at the moment, alas, is the Yosemite Decimal System of which part is used these days to rate difficulty of climbs.
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April 16th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
I just returned from the world IPPNW Chernobyl / Fukushima congress.
Dr. Ian Fairlie said (independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment, egrees in chemistry from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and in radiation biology from Barts Medical College in London):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KdlG0pwvfXA
His abstracts on low radiation:
http://www.tschernobylkongress.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/fairlie.pdf
Human embryo gets damaged during the 10th week of pregnancy, by Tritium – which is emitted by atomic reactors during normal mode.
Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl
Learn here why
Fukushims is a slow down Chernobyl.
Your whole blog is missing scientifically based knowledge, Ethics, moral responsibility.
Mikkai
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April 16th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
quotation:
“Did I mention nobody has died?”
What a crazy sentence.
You’re going to see massive leukemia rates in Japan in about 3 – 4 years.
You compare an atomic accident with a conventional accident, like a plane crash, by saying “Did I mention nobody has died?”
It is an upturned pyramid.
Mikkai
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April 16th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Mikkai said:
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, is not a neutral body of scientists, but a political action group that has outlived its usefulness and now struggles to find some platform on which it can stand to remain relevant.
It was founded in 1980 at the height of the Cold War in order to bridge the east-west political divide and to educate the public about the medical consequences of nuclear war, and for that work. it was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. Since however, the organization’s mission was broadened to the promotion of non-violent peacebuilding and conflict. One of its positions is a total rejection of nuclear power, under the mistaken belief that this would halt the production and development of nuclear weapons. Their position on any nuclear topic is tainted by this stand.
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April 16th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Mikkai said:
Oh really? Put your money where your mouth is then and bet on it. I want to see you back here in 3-4 years, defending or retracting that claim.
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April 16th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
@Mikkai,
How is this blog “missing” ethics or moral responsibility by discussing the merits of main stream media reporting over scientific or technical issues? The only conclusion I can draw (and you are welcome to articulate your stance further) is that you feel anyone that disagrees with your point of view is unethical and the only “morally responsible” choice is to consider Fukushima to be worse than Chernobyl despite a much smaller release of radiological material and even less release of long lived reactor products than Chernobyl and no immediate deaths (again, unlike Chernobyl). If you are going to criticize us for not having the same opinion of the lobbyist group with an agenda you hold in such high regard then perhaps you could explain what materials are present that are going to drastically increase rates of leukemia in such a short time period instead of posting youtube video links. If we wanted to watch questionable videos on youtube we’d already be there and not on this blog. I look forward to actually seeing some dialog and discourse from you instead of being labelled crazy, immoral, and unethical. Thanks!
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April 16th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Will said:
Don’t hold your breath Will waiting for anything but hollow posturing from a member of the German group Civil Initiative for a World without an Atomic Threat and a board member of The Federal Agency (for) Chernobyl (in) Germany
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April 16th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
@DV82XL, I suspected as much but I figure I’d throw out the offer rather than emulate their behavior with hit-and-run insult/attack.
I know this might seem strange but I go back and forth over the Fukushima incident as to whether it is a good event or bad event for nuclear power. We will undoubtedly learn much from this incident and sometimes I think that once some time has gone by and it’s apparent the fear mongering was baseless even to the general public that it will hopefully make them all the more skeptical and critical thinkers. Of course my pessimistic side thinks the public will only remember the fear.
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April 17th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Mikkai said:
Do you mean just like was seen around Chernobyl?
Oh wait there wasn’t a detectable increase in the population that was around Chernobyl, not in 3-4 years and not in 25 years. Not even with monitoring of over 500,000 ‘liquidators’ and millions of civilians. There was a large increase in Thyroid cancer, but that was expected because there wasn’t a timely evacuation (which happened in Japan) and the at risk population was not given KI (which was given out in Japan).
So a liar who doesn’t even know the facts wants to complain about morals and ethics? LOL.
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April 18th, 2011 at 7:21 am
Mikkai:
For some balance try broadening your knowledge base in this area to include the best available, and most credible scientific commentary such as:
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April 18th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Mikkai said:
It’s worth pointing out that the U of Western Ontario was just voted one of the top ten “party schools”. Jus’ sayin.
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April 18th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Mike said:
Forgot the link, sorry.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/University+Western+Ontario+named+party+schools/4624859/story.html
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April 19th, 2011 at 12:52 am
Mikkai said:
Seems a little early to have a “world congress” on Fukushima as compared to Chernobyl when the incident is not even entirely over and there’s been absolutely no time to collect and analyze short term, much less long term data, doesn’t it?
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April 19th, 2011 at 2:45 am
drbuzz0 said:
The “world congress” name reminds me of the World Peace Congress of the early Cold War era, a Communist front organization which according to its own documents received 90% of its funding from the Soviet Union.
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April 20th, 2011 at 11:38 am
Fukushima will not be consequence free for the environment nor the people of Japan. Its a shame that the operators have not been more open about the scale of the problems.
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April 20th, 2011 at 11:50 am
Very little if any of the area around Fukushima prefecture will need to remain off limits.
As for the operators, I think they were more interested in getting their reactors under control than in pandering to the public (and I haven’t seen any indication that the Japanese government or TEPCO have not been open about what was going on).
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