Have you checked out my latest channel Business Blaze? It's interesting business stories with a dose of ridiculousness thrown in. Check it out here: ru-vid.com/show-UCYY5GWf7MHFJ6DZeHreoXgw
Based on your Accounts between UKs Windscale, Soviets'/Ukraine's Chernobyl, and Japan's Fukushima Daiichi- Sir Simon: Which of them is the worst of them all, in terms of root nature of the catastrophe, technology, purpose, location, cleanup, and aftermath?
Those workers risked their lives in order to prevent a disaster and when that happened, they were blamed even though they did everything they could do and this is so upsetting.
As doctors say, the best medicine is prevention, enough isn't enough when it comes to a radiological disaster my friend. To those nuclear meltdowns we don't know about and we're prevented cheers! But if a leak happened, they tried, still wasn't enough though.
Mr3344555 yeah but the workers did not cause this disaster- Tepco did by failing to elevate and build high enough flood defences in a country that is famous for tsunamis- in fact and I can’t remember where I say this but I’ve heard that the facility was meant to have been built with 10 meter flood defences from the get go, but tepco opted out. If you’re at work and your managers fail to order a food delivery and now you are open with low produce are you to blame for something you had no control or decision over?
Mr3344555 like there were nuclear plants that were closer to the epicentre of the earthquake and tsunami, but these did not meltdown because the flood defences were high enough.
thats actually bs. these reactors were not damaged by either quake or tsunami - they had a backup battery power supply that was able to run the cooling systems for some time. the whole trick was to restore the grid power supply before these batteries run out of juice. it sure was quite a task. non the less in many other power plants, hit by exactly the same tsunami, their operators have succeeded. it sure didn't help that workers were evacuated every time there was an alarm about the slightly increased levels of radiation. it was a race against time - every minute was priceless and every time they were running to mommy hours were being wasted. later on, on top of it, some moron came with a brilliant idea to send all workers home so only high-ranked engineers were left on site. how gallantly... problem was all personnel who was skilled and experienced in manual work was sent home, with only the office workers remaining on site. this was all hands on deck type of situation - and the people most needed for this kind of job were sent home. no wonder they didn't make it. there is a chance they could have saved this reactor. if only anyone there had the balls to make tough decisions. If liquidators at Chernobyl had a Japanese mentality this cleanup would be still ongoing... a certain tunnel underneath the reactor would never have been dug. in these sorts of situations, people have to do what has to be done - not cry about the risks.
Yeah, it is especially messed up considering it is not their fault that the greedy pricks that they work for wouldn't allow them to damage the plant to stop it. Rarely, are employers blamed for the conditions they put their workers under in Japan.
@@LP4ever088 The thing is that even though people have said they could not have foreseen this being an issue that's bullshit. Candu reactors use a syphon system that ensures that if the water in the reactor boils off it will automatically be replaced with or without power and that system has been used since 1969. There is also a relief valve in case of excessive pressure. There have been minor accidents where the valve released a bit of steam but nothing that would cause danger to the local population. Of course, no accident is best but minor releases of steam are better than an explosion and meltdown. What a stupid system. Totally the fault of the people in charge.
@@LP4ever088 Adding seawater to the reactor coolant system ends any chance of ever using that system/reactor in the future. With a new nuclear power plant costing upwards of $10 Billion. Our Emergency Response Manager informed us that the site manager at the second TEPCO site ignored the command to not use seawater. As a result that site did not have a meltdown.
I would say scrapping together a generator out of car batterys is amazing what they did is heroic while being angry at the company is justified the workers should get medals.
@@Sergiblacklist That kind of ingenuity always amazing me. One of my favorites is a guy that put out a fire in house by using his snowblower to throw snow through the bay window and onto the fire. Also love your first name. It’s the best.
@@Sergiblacklist even then it wasn't even the company's fault, no one could have predicted the earthquake and tsunami, a 50ft wave is ridiculous and a 9 earthquake is enough to fuck up any country
No. Your wrong. The reason they didnt use saltwater is because, in short, it would quickly destroy the cooling system via impurities and salt buildup. He phrased it in a very misleading way.
Damn.. This was already 8 years ago, ... Geez. What a sad day in history. I can honestly say I didnt know the workers did so much to try to prevent it - so much was focused on the negatives. Brave souls..
Filiolus Because they wouldn’t have had to if nuclear energy was never built and if Tepco had a brain and kept those robots for that disaster instead of insisting that a tsunami or earthquake will never happen again.
@@YahshuaSavesByYahuah nuclear energy is second only to wind in carbon emissions and provides electricity around-the-clock. Not only that but when built to adequate safety standards it won't fail like Fukushima. We can see the result of adequate safety in the Onagawa nuclear facility which was closer to the epicentre than Fukushima but was not damaged by either the earthquake or tsunami.
@@YahshuaSavesByYahuah Petroloum/oil for electricity is stupid expensive, so that will never be compareable. Also more than 1.000.000 times the people have died from oil, coal and gas powerproduction pollution, than from pollution from nuclear facilities. Wind, solar and hyrdro where possible, and nuclear as the backbone, is the only way to lower co2 emissions.
I remember hearing a story about old folks near the area refused iodine tablets so that younger people could have them instead. They said they’d already had a full life and sacrificed themselves to radiation so the next generation wouldn’t be as affected. That is some serious solidarity, which is always something Ive admired about the Japanese.
@@L0dGnew safety regulations emerge to prevent issues like this happening again. Sucks how safety's often written in blood, but it's true for far more than just nuclear. Hopefully we figure out a safe way to harness it tho! Nuclear has a ton of potential.
It doesn't surprise me they had a plan C for a situation like that one. My father is a quality control consultant and has worked multiple times with japanese companies. Once he told me that a company he worked for had requested nails from a Japanese company and asked for no more than 1 nail to have faults per package. Once they received the nails, the japanese had sent another small package with the faulty nails with a note attached saying "we worked really hard to make the faulty nails, we hope they are what you expected". In other words, failure wasn't even in their vocabulary
Meanwhile Tepco's CEO, CFO and all the other C O's sit back in their comfy offices and homes and watch while their staff literally die trying to save the plant. Classy.
Uranium alone isn't very dangerous. You can hold a chunk of uranium ore in your hand and not even get cancer from it. It's the daughter particles created during nuclear fission that are dangerous. Also, Uranium 234 has a half life of 25k years but uranium 235 is what is used in reactors which has a half life of 700 million years.
an unpopular opinion, but i strongly maintain that nuclear energy is far better than carbon based alternatives. many scores of people die every year from the carbon cycle (coal miners, residents nearby the power plant, and ultimately- all those affected by greenhouse gas which may be everyone eventually)
TODarkschnider420 solar and wind are so wildly insufficient on a national scale that it's not even worth comparing to coal. it's a nice supplemental mechanism, but no serious country can rely on it solely for national grid supply.
@@adambaum9401 you are 1000% correct. There is no possible way for any renewable energy resource to power a city such as New York which uses 11 billion Watt hours of electricity per day. How many thousand square miles of solar collectors and windmills does anyone think it would take to provide that power? Also take a quick peek at how much power a steel mill, aluminum foundry, or any other major industrial facility consumes per day. if I was to recommend anything to be changed in the future it would be the funding levels that we are barely providing to significant fusion research. There is simply no question in my mind that fusion power is the ultimate in safe and affordable power in the future.
Need to be far more selective about where you build a nuclear plant though and a country that is so frequently beset by earthquakes and tsunamis ain’t it.
J Andrews absolutely but the same goes for every crucial infrastructure. if a natural gas power plant exploded in a tsunami the death and environmental toll would be catastrophic
Its easy to say that now once it has happened, but if you asked anyone before Fukushima “what are the chances of a top 5 earthquake in history hitting within the next 40 years” I think the majority would have said they where slim. But after Fukushima all new nuclear powerplants are built with these types of disasters in mind, so you have little to fear about something like this happening again.
@@victorvanrijn3993 Actually they HAD to have done a risk assessment on the site BEFORE even building the reactor there. This risk assessment did indeed show strong evidence for very high tsunamis hitting that area historically. They already knew the area was prone to this before even building the site and thus they built a sea defence wall to protect it from tsunamis, however they built the wall too low to be a reliable defence in order to cut costs! way before the disaster geologists warned the walls were too low and in fact there was a project planned and lined up to rebuild strong and higher defence walls for 2014 before the tsunami hit in 2011. So yes, they KNEW.
Tepco wanted to skimp and save money by building an inadequate sea wall, and skimp on the cost of providing to backup diesel generators with adequate flood protection. Now Tepco wants to skimp by dumping highly dangerous partly-treated, but still heavily contaminated water, directly into the Pacific Ocean. Now the Japanese government is skimping and allowing other nuclear plant in Japan to restart, rather than accepting a fact that the seismic instability in Japan makes the country completely unsuitable for using nuclear power. The only sensible strategy for Japan now is to concentrate on renewable energy system and energy storage systems.
... Fukushima Dai'ichi disaster happened because of a tsunami. The accident was made hugely worse by inadequate nuclear reactor design, inadequate see wall protection, and inadequate protection for diesel standby generators against flooding. Tepco and the Japanese deny any responsibility for the incompetence that was shown. Westinghouse takes no responsibility for a lousy reactor design requiring control rods to be actuated upwards rather than gravity driven, and an intermediate spent fuel pool at the top of the reactor buildings. This is insane reactor design for a seismically-active installation environment.
Simon please we need many, MANY more stories like this. How I mean that: your voice and words chosen are in my opinion one of the best in combination for telling stories people can "feel" and I find worthy of the time spent to listen. Thanks for every video in top 10 and the many other topical channels/videos you might do in the future. If I ever had a choice growing up on what or how one of my teachers acted I without question could have appreciated a teacher with your mannerisms .
@@geographicstravel Can you do a video about Fukushima, Chernobyl, and nuclear energy that is based on facts, or put a disclosure notice at the beginning of all videos mentioning that what is mentioned in videos is based on reports by mainstream media, or is completely made up, not based on verified facts. The only facts really found in this video were that Fukushima is located in Japan, and that there was an earthquake that caused a tsunami in 2011.
The fact that the workers assumed responsibility for the incident and worked tirelessly to lessen the damage as well as some of the citizens who are willingly sacrificing their lives to clean up and restore their home says a lot about the Japanese as a whole. They deserve the utmost respect.
@@LegendFTP legend is a moniker that gets conferred on a person by others not one that a person grabs for themselves. Most people who think of themselves as legends are just the opposite. The workers that essentially killed themselves to save the plant are legends, you are the exact inverse of a legend.
Im not so sure about who is responsible. The blasts were caused by cracks in the walls - leaking cooling water from used material containers. Its really hard to build the building to overcome 9.0 magnitude earthquake.
I was in Japan during this. I watched it happening live and sat through every one of those earthquakes…and I knew almost nothing of what was happening at the plant. They never told us anything. The air of keep everyone calm and not panicking was very strong. I learned a lot about the situation and the workers from this and I am eternally grateful to them and to you for sharing. I still have a hard time watching/reading anything about that whole incident, but something about Simon telling it always makes things a lot easier to handle. The decade of time that’s passed since then also helps some. Anyway, remember, folks, tell those in your life how you feel about them and live your best every day, because you never know what the next one will bring.
FINALLY! Someone who understands that the reactors did NOT explode! So sick of reading ignorant comments or watching people say that in videos. The reactor containment vessels did EXACTLY what they were designed to do. The only reactor to ever explode was Chernobyl!
@@user-be6rk1zd4j Exploding happens during a meltdown. The luck here was only the reactors inside the vessels only melted. If it was a full scale meltdown then things could have changed
This video made me very emotional. My husband was supposed to be assigned to work in that area (not in the actual plant) but I dissuaded him from going that March because the birth of our son was close. He didn't go despite it meaning missing a financial opportunity for our small family. Another co-worker went instead of him. Weeks later the disaster happened. Thankfully his co-workers managed to get out but not after a lot of hardship. 😢💔
Those employees are god damn heroes. I want to say I would do the right thing and help control it, but I imagine that between the earthquake, then the tsunami and now the reactor failing I may very well have just bailed.
It breaks my heart that instead of just accepting that this was a freak accident caused by a natural disaster, people just have to find someone to blame and of course they pick the people that did everything they could and literally risked their lives to keep this from being any worse. Not every bad thing has to be somebody's fault. Sometimes bad things just happen. It takes a week mind to fail to accept that and my heart goes out to the workers who gave their health to try and mitigate this disaster.
Simon, the reactors themselfs didnt explode, like in Chernobyl ... what exploded was hydrogen gas wich has acumulated in reactor building, wich is above the reactor itself.
The Chernobyl reactor did explode from steam inside the reactor. Then there was a secondary bigger explosion 2-3 seconds later probably from hydrogen, causing the reactor lid to pop off and reactor hall roof to open up, sending all the radioactive dust out...
The hydrogen gas that exploded in both cases originated from the lack of cooling to the reactor core. The overheating and lack of cooling means the resulting super hot pressurised steam oxidises the zirconium present in a lot of reactors, which is where the hydrogen gas comes from initially. This means the hydrogen gas is inside the reactor, and so it is the reactor itself that explodes.
@@AenonarThe hydrogen explosion theory was proven false, no one actually knows what caused the Chernobyl reactor to explode. There are several theories, but no definitive answers. Steam was present in the reactor, but steam alone isn’t enough to cause an explosion.
Thanks for the amazing information presented in this video! I am absolutely LOVING this channel so far! Can't wait to see what places are covered in the future. Well done, Simon and crew!
People like the liquidators of Chernobyl and the workers of Fukushima are so often forgotten about. Such unsung heroes and they deserve better. We can only dream to be as courageous and selfless as they are. I hope those that have already perished in these incidents rest in peace. It’s the least they deserve
I never realized just how bad the catastrophic chain reaction of events were. I just remember seeing that one exploded on the news and my parents started FREAKING out
I knew there were a few employees that stayed behind and were exposed to a massive amount of radiation. But I had no idea the lengths the TEPCO employees went to try to prevent a meltdown: car batteries, pumping water from a stream, laying all that cable. These people were unbelievably brave heroes.
I find it a very "HUMAN" thing to do when they effing blamed the people who were trying to SAVE everybody else's lives for something NOBODY had any control whatsoever - or even foreseen. It's very human, and also very disgusting. They tried to do everything in their ken to not make the situation worse - and should have been hailed as heroes for making sure the rest of Japan didn't become a radioactive wasteland.
Always like your videos, but there is an error. Nuclear fission comes to a near complete stop as soon as the control rods are inserted, but the waste products that build up in the fuel rods are still very active, and the only way to control them is to keep the rods cool. They are not activated by neutrons, but spontaneously decay and release energy because they are inherently unstable in their atomic structure.
Other errors include talking about how liquidators are going to die terrible deaths because of exposure to HIGH levels of radiation. TEPCO has a document discussing cumulative exposure doses between March 2011 and September 2015, 100 mSv - 1 person 75-100 mSv - 191 people 50-75 mSv - 233 20-50 mSv - 267 10-20 mSv - 186 5-10 mSv - 129 1-5 mSv - 145 1 or less - 51 TOTAL # of people - 1,203 Maximum [mSv] - 102.69 Average [mSv] - 36.49 "The international limit for radiation exposure for nuclear workers is 20 millisievert (20 mSv, or 2 rem) per year, averaged over five years, with a limit of 50 mSv in any one year, however for workers performing emergency services United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidance on dose limits is 100 mSv when "protecting valuable property" and 250 mSv when the activity is "life saving or protection of large populations."" "The workers wore hazmat suits and hazmat masks, carrying dosimeters that alerted at 80 millisieverts. Each worker had to stop the operation once the dosimeter alerted." Compared to Chernobyl, which UNSCEAR measured in Grays, there were 134 patients exposed to 0.8-16 Gy, 106 survived!! One survived VERY severe [6.5-16 Gy], 15 severe [4.2-6.4 Gy], 49 [2.2-4.1 Gy], and 41 [0.8-2.1 Gy]. LiveScience mentions this, "Soon after the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, dozens of cleanup workers at the plant were exposed to radiation levels as high as 8,000 to 16,000 mSv, the equivalent of 80,000 to 160,000 chest X-rays. This led to at least 134 workers developing serious radiation sickness and caused 28 deaths." If the majority of people at Chernobyl were able to survive up to 8,000 mSv, then the staff at Fukushima Daiichi are most likely going to survive. I'm not suggesting that it was completely safe for the staff at Fukushima. I am only trying to provide accurate information to counter the fear mongering this and sister channels are responsible for. Also, "After applying the J-value to the Fukushima scenario, we found that the amount of life expectancy preserved by moving people away was too low to justify it. If no one had been evacuated, the local population’s average life expectancy would have fallen by less than three months. The J-value data tells us that three months isn’t enough of a gain for people to be willing to sacrifice the quality of life lost through paying their share of the cost of an evacuation, which can run into billions of dollars (although the bill would actually be settled by the power company or government). The three month average loss suggests the number of people who will actually die from radiation-induced cancer is very small. Compare it to the average of 20 years lost when you look at all radiation cancer sufferers. In another comparison, the average inhabitant of London loses 4.5 months of life expectancy because of the city’s air pollution. Yet no one has suggested evacuating that city." "Even relatively high doses of radiation cause far less harm than most people think. Careful, large, and long-term studies of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki offer compelling demonstration. Cancer rates were just 10 percent higher among atomic blast survivors, most of whom never got cancer. Even those who received a dose 1,000 times higher than today’s safety limit saw their lives cut short by an average of 16 months." The staff who helped clean up Fukushima are shunned not because of the accident, but because of the irrational fear that radiation is contagious [which is not true]! 40 years most of the people who cleaned up the disaster will have passed away? While this may be true, it would only be true because "A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station. The Skilled Veterans Corps, as they call themselves, is made up of retired engineers and other professionals, all over the age of 60.". Although, Keiko Kimura is a 91 year old survivor of the attack on Hiroshima. And, "The ministry announced Friday that the number of Japanese citizens who were older than 100 had risen to reach 69,785. Of that number, more than 88 percent are women." Of 50 countries and territories, Japan ranks 43 per 100,000 people for cancer. Japan also ranks in the top 5 [possibly 1st] in highest life expectancy. This could mean that those volunteers have a very good chance for seeing 100. Many of the liquidators from Chernobyl are still alive, and they received much worse doses. What is he talking about? Removing the soil? Crazy. First, the soil would need to be moistened so that radioactive particles remain on the soil, compared to flying into the air, being breathed in by clean-up workers who may not be wearing dosimeters and other protective gear. Then, the WET soil would be put in plastic bags. So they want to grow mold? It would have made more sense putting fresh soil or sand on top instead, IF the goal was to prevent particles from getting into the air. If radiation levels were the concern, there are areas around the world with naturally high levels of radiation and cancer rates aren't higher there. The only reason Fukushima was terrible was because TEPCO didn't build the seawall high enough as recommend. Onagawa, which was closer to the epicenter, had a higher wall and suffered no damage. With so much wrong information in just one video, maybe that has allowed the staff at TopTenz, Geographics, etc, to spend more time researching and creating other videos which are 99% factual. It's unfortunate that nuclear energy always winds up the subject people don't care to accurately research and discuss, especially since many [including TopTenz/Geographics] believe climate change is something that needs to be tackled now. Maybe they don't actually believe or care about the science.
@@namename9998 “I research great and this channel researched poorly” -compares to Hiroshima -doesn’t understand that Hiroshima was a single large dose of radiation and the majority of radioactivity was gone within a few months -doesn’t understand that the majority of this area is still radioactive a decade later -doesn’t understand the soil is indeed bagged 10/10 you sure showed them!
@mattfreg100 "i own you" -claims that long term dosing is worse when not even the LNT model has been able to prove that. -the world is radioactive, most areas have had their areas increased by 50%, many times lower then the highest areas of natural where people reside without increased risk. -thinks his point was that it wasnt bagged.
Thanks so much for this, Simon. I've seen so many reports on this subject, mostly with bias opinions attached to them. This is the first time I've seen and heard about the what seems like the human side of things. Thanks again, Lee 🇬🇧
Where do you get your information? What a load of bollocks. “Lethal doses of radiation?” From Wikipedia. “Despite this, there were no deaths caused by acute radiation syndrome. Given the uncertain health effects of low-dose radiation, cancer deaths cannot be ruled out.[11] However, studies by the World Health Organisation and Tokyo University have shown that no discernible increase in the rate of cancer deaths is expected” Get better sources next time.
No one at Fukashima received lethal doses of radiation, everyone involved in the cleanup received less than the maximum legal dosage per year in Europe, and only person out of thousands has had a cancer case, and it wasn’t even fatal. The government of Japan determined that the dosage was so low that the cancer was more likely to have just been bad luck, but they paid for his treatment and future healthcare anyway in court.
Loving the new channel, excellent format and information. I’d like to request a future topic of Gobekli Tepe with all of its monolithic glory and mystery surrounding its origins.
The employees were totally badass heroes as far as I'm concerned. They stayed and worked around the clock to contain the incident as best as possible instead of running away to save themselves.
Few people outside of Japan know what happened at Fukushima? Here in the US it was broadcast news for weekends and even our rather unreputable broadcast news sources are still giving updates.
You failed to mention how cheap the company was, choosing for bandaid repairs and ignoring maintenance concerns that they deemed to be too expensive even though it would put them way below safety standards.
really shows the insanity the employees went through, not even being able to return to their homes as they had been torn to shreds by the flood. Its ridiculous how they're blamed for what happened - seeing how they risked their lives to attempt to fix a catastrophe not caused by their own actions
The isolation condensers didn't fail they were mistakenly disabled by the powerplant employees when the condensers were venting steam and operating normally. The employees thought it was radioactive steam.
"... wild and aggressive radioactive boars..." WOW. I've seen some documentaries about the tsunami and knew a little bit about the nuclear disaster in Fukushima but this little bit of info just blew my mind. It seems like it's directly out of a video game.
Wild boars mated with abandoned farm pigs to create a new hybrid that is aggressive and procreates *fast* and are *very* destructive. I tell my friends over there that this would be a good opportunity to open up hunting in the country to tourists to help try and reduce those numbers.
@@keilatenshi5910 I love hunting, but to be honest, it does not really work to take care of pigs. A lot of areas of the United States have pig problems and most of those areas have hunting all year long for them. Tens of thousands are killed every year if not more amd they still have problems. Hunting is a great management tool, but some animals like pigs and coyotes can be hunted day and night all year and still have thriving populations. If I still lived in Aomori Prefecture and pig hunting was open near Fukushima, I'd go do it occasionally. I'd never fly to Japan to hunt pigs though. Not that attractive of a hunt and Japan has way more awesome things to do than chase swine.
If anyone is interested.... Northern Japan is a spiritual area, and 3 months after this tsunami, these citizens experienced a massive wave of ghost sightings of people who didn't seem to know they were dead. The tsunami happened in March 2022. Starting May/June 2011, the whole affected region of Northern Japan started seeing these ghosts.. for months. Netflix's "Unsolved Mysteries" dedicated an entire episode to this particular mass-spiritual event. They said the ghosts seemed like 1) they didn't know they were dead, and 2) were lost / couldn't find their home or their family. This was probably because the tsunami had changed the landscape so much. It wiped out entire neighbourhoods. In some cases, these neighbourhoods were cleaned up and then left as barren land. So these ghosts couldn't find home. The Northern Japanese people weren't afraid of the ghosts. They had all lost someone, too. So they just helped the ghosts find their way home, or gently explain that there was a tsunami and they had died. They Unsolved Mysteries, Season 2, Episode 4 - "Tsunami Spirits".
God I remember that day like it was yesterday, I’m a huge lover of Japan and I genuinely shed tears watching this madness unfold on tv. Love from Ireland 🇮🇪
I feel like this is a fair shake at the actual story of what happened. Everyone keeps touting that they just abandoned it or the government forced them to keep trying, when this clearly shows that they did so on their own volition and out of the sense of duty to their country. The government tried to keep the populace calm, but the sense of urgency needed to assist was lost. The TEPCO workers literally lost everything to the 2011 earthquake. Their homes, their families, their jobs, their country, and their lives. They're not completely clean on this, but they're definitely not the soul source to blame. It's true that nuclear energy needs more research and more carefully placed reactors, but in all honesty research and logistics show that if they're properly maintained and if no freak disasters like this occur, they're actually cleaner and more reliable energy sources than hydro, solar, and wind combined. Reason being it takes 1 reactor built and just the exchanging of fuel and worn out parts from time to time. But the longevity of it all, in optimal circumstances (not the typical ones we have today) show that the amount of maintenance needed is less than what the other 3 sources need and there's a quasi-formulated plan for waste. Again, still needs work. But solar panels are non-recyclable as of now, hydro ends up drastically changing the environment, and wind is only as reliant as the weather. So it, as of now, on paper, is the best "clean" energy source. There just needs to be a separation between the politics, economics, and what actually matters; humanity and ethics; to make it a viable source today and technology will hopefully fill in the rest and possibly replace it. My thoughts are nuclear isn't the solution, it's a step that we have to take. Beyond that irradiated hill is probably the most reliable and cleanest energy solution we need..
Simon... You mentioned that the robots failed because of the radiation but didn’t mention that not a single human knows the depth that the reactors have melted into the Earth, nor the amount of radioactive water that continues to spill into the Pacific each day. These two facts are important also I believe.
Great top level summary of what happened! Applause! For those who are interested there are some very high level and deeply technical discussions on RU-vid regarding the intricacies of what happened. Not slamming this video because it did what it was designed to do in a short period of time. One thing that saddens me a little bit is how it is completely glossed over, somewhat understandably, that the immediate death toll of the earthquake in the tsunami was over 18,000 people. I have not seen the totals of what the ultimate death toll was after all the building and wreckages were clear. This was a major disaster even without the power plant issue.
Ah man you missed the information on this one. You should revise this. - no reactors blew up. Not one - 3 fuel storage building blast walls were blown off the top of reactor buildings. - again. No meltdowns. No reactor blowup.... Usually your good but this one you missed.
How come the point isn't raised that the Fukushima power plant was very old. Newer power plants are significantly better for safety and perhaps some areas shouldn't have nuclear reactors if they are prone to natural disasters
Can see a backlash against TEPCO's Management , but ground zero workers? I'm certainly not an expert on Japan, but that might be a cultural deal. Believe they really tie a person to who they work for way more than we do in West. Western , just not the case unless you are are top management . I may be way off on cultural part, but those workers are heroes to me. Tsunami , city - house - family destroyed , meltdown that's either killing you quick or slow, and they fought. Hope I'd do the same.
I thin it's very cultural. Japanese sometimes take personal responsibility and honour waaay too seriously. Let's face it, the workers wrote their death certificates for trying to help fix the problems. Can't ask for more than that.
Certainly cultural. People who survived the nuclear bombings of WWII were also shunned by society despite simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time and living through it.
This is why nuclear power scares me. A regular power plant blows up, worst case scenario you have a bad fire. Nuclear plant has a accident, worse case the area is uninhabitable for decades or longer.
As a Canadian boy visiting California (1970), I met the Fukushima Mixed Choir. My uncle's world goodwill agency had brought the choir on an American tour. Despite no common language, we felt great warmth, and my left-hand chopstick use aroused fun and fascination. I ache for that busload of dear people and what they or their descendants must endure now.
And they build the sea walls around the plant at the highest ever recorded tsunami. Yes the engineers thought of that. How do you plan for a top 5 strongest earthquake ever recorded? You don’t think LA would be flattened by a 9.0. Think again.
It might have been a good idea to point out the differences in nuclear reactor design. Not all reactors are vulnerable to this type of explosion. They can still melt down, of course, like 3 Mile Island, but the consequences are not so dire. A fair number of folks don't know this and assume all reactors are equally dangerous.
",,,that no one would have anticipated." This is untrue. It was anticipated. The entire complex was designed and built to a seismic intensity level of (I believe.) R 8.3 . The entire plant and all systems. The emergency systems, the back up generators were designed to that same level. That is the core of the disaster. That consistent level of problem. Emergency systems MUST be designed to levels above the base plant,,, they are the back up system. These are US designed GE#2 nuclear power generation plants. The same design as used in the Vermont Yankee plant. And that plant carries the exact same flaws.
@@t4kut0 Whoa ! Whoa ! That is totally incorrect ! And a Highlighted reply ? (You may want to rethink that.) The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant is located in the Connecticut River Valley just north of the Massachusetts border. The big one of 1927, The spring melt of 1936,, a hurricane in 1938, 1955, a hurricane in 2011 Flood stages of 40 plus feet on two of them, more than 30 feet on the others. And there are 7 older events noted in the 1700's and 1800's Refer to NOAA historic flood crests. If anything, Vermont Yankee is more likely to have the same problem. Our records of that location only reach back 150 plus years. Japan's tsunami record reaches back a thousand years.
@@Sailor376also 1. The plant is no longer operating and all the fuel will be in dry storage in 2 years time. 2. Even it if was, there would be more risk from a Dam failure than a naturally occurring catastrophic flood. Even if there was a flood and it was a huge issue, you could use the water from the area to cool the rods because its fresh water, unlike at Fukushima so the rods would never get to the same state of danger. 3. The plant will certainly have been designed with assessments done in case of worst case scenarios for the surrounding climate. That's not to say that nature cant out do expectations, Fukushima is sad proof of that, but modern reactors designs are getting safer and safer and are built with ever more stringent redundancies that mean that even in the worst case of a Fukushima scale accident, they should be able to be shut down and contained. Technology will only get better and the Nuclear industry is pretty much the most highly regulated in the world. 4. The highlighted reply bit is just for you, your comment looks highlighted to me too. No one else sees that.
@@Sailor376also For what its worth btw, "Emergency systems MUST be designed to levels above the base plant,,, they are the back up system." I do fully agree with this. The Fukushima plant was actually designed like that. The scale of the seismic event on that day was absolutely unprecedented. If the flood wall was 1 meter higher, it the plant would have been fine. It was tragic, and unfortunate but due diligence had been done. It is a testament to these plants design that the incident wasn't much much worse considering just how catastrophic the Tsunami was.
@@t4kut0 The plant was originally granted an extension beyond its original design life. That expired about he same time as the Fukushima trouble,, and additional extension was not granted,,, in part because of the same design a GE #2. They have very recently applied to reopen the plant. There are a couple of dams upstream,, but the impoundments are not huge. No,, the naturally occurring hurricane, melt or rain event is to be feared. the plant is sited 10 feet above any historic high water. But our history only goes back 150 years. Not enough. The Great Hurricane of 1780 dwarfs ALL hurricanes since,, I have zero doubt that larger flood events could happen in that area of Vermont and New Hampshire. And no, the assessment is on record and available. It is wholly inadequate. The cables that switch over the plant from powered to emergency power,, as in Japan,, are under the reactor,, and that was totally flooded. Fresh water gives better choices,, but not if they are under water. The Vermont Yankee Plant seismic resistance is also marginal at best. Earthquakes of 1630 (likely) and 1755 would meet or exceed dependent upon epicenter. I am not glad the plant is shuttered,, I am relieved. We could use the zero CO2 power. But that plant has many short comings. We got away with it. I am sure if you ran all of the stats,, that plant would operate to design life flawlessly, many to most times. But it has enough design short comings that 1 in 4,, or 1 in 8,,, r 1 in a 20,,, it would fail. We have learned the easy way,, Fukushima failed. Vermont Yankee is the same design. It should never be re-permitted. Never.
Those workers are true heroes for doing everything they could in a very difficult and dangerous situation to try to prevent and then lessen the impact of the disaster! They did what they could and worked night and day to save both their own lives and the lives of everyone anywhere near the reactors. If anyone is to have any blame, it would be the man who ordered them to not use sea water because he valued money higher than human lives! Unlike Chernobyl, the Fukushima disaster was down to a natural disaster that also happened to make all the emergency plans fail. No one could have foreseen it happening, and especially with it taking out all the backup plans that were in place in case of something breaking down. The one thing you can raise an eyebrow about, if anything (except the order to not use sea water) would be: Why even put a nuclear power plant in a country with so many earthquakes and related issues? You’d think it’s not really suitable to put a highly volatile nuclear reactor that’s relying on everything working properly to not kill off humanity, in a place of the world with an extreme amount of earthquakes and probably more frequent tsunamis than anywhere else. And if putting it in Japan at all, why on the coastline?! Again, the workers who risked their lives and health to try to lessen the disaster, they’re heroes and should be treated as heroes. They could have evacuated and made a run for it, but they stayed and they risked their lives every second of being at the power plant after the tsunami hit. The only one(s) that have anything to apologize for is the management that ordered the workers to not use sea water at a time where using any water would have been better than not having any cooling. Using sea water on time could maybe have made the disaster a little less bad as it would have aided the cooling of the reactor, which was or at least should have been the main concern for everyone involved. The only “wrong” the workers did was following the order to not use sea water, they could have rebelled, but I also do know that that’s not how Japanese people work, they don’t rebel, they follow orders and have the uttermost respect towards their superiors in a company (or for that matter, any person who’s older and/or have a higher rank than yourself)
....and now....a typhoon has ripped a number of these bags containing contaminated soil and detritus and swept them into the river......what now? Thank you Simon, a very interesting video....especially for highlighting the efforts of the reactor's staff and the sacrifice they and others made to help save their country and people.
please dont vilify nuclear power, this is one of the few times we underestimated the worst case scenario. the only failing is tepco not allowing the salt water on the core cause they thought they could save it. and if there is anything the nuclear community does well is learn from their mistakes and build better, unless there us so much fear-mongering from politicians/civilians that we cant implement them.
Nuclear power and aviation are probably the only two sectors in the world that go to extreme lengths to make sure that once an accident has happened, it can never happen again, anywhere else. I think that's incredibly commendable, of course, but it is frustrating to see that public opinion fails to acknowledge that.
i remember, when we heard about the Fukushima meltdown here in Philippines, a lot of people panicked cuz they thought the radiation in the air will reach Philippines. even tho the government reassure that it wont happen, a lot still panicked
The power plant workers must be recognised as heroes, they did whatever they could to avert the disaster, instead they get the blame, they could easily just evacuate but they stayed and payed price.
"Didnt use seawater to save money" No. They didnt use sea water because it would ultimately destroy the cooling system resulting in an even worse situation
CF Chupacabra thank you for saying this. I was so frustrated with everyone saying it was a cost cutting measure when the salt water wouldn’t have worked at all.