Nuclear Waste: Forever Contaminated?

Abstract

N uclear W aste : F orever C ontaminated ? B S J Andrew Wang Mention the word “nuclear” and immediately thoughts of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima are elicited. The iconic mushroom clouds and the thought of a nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War have dominated fears for a significant part of the last century. It is no wonder people cringe at the thought of nuclear power. Especially with nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima, most people are worried that anything nuclear will lead to an uninhabitable wasteland. However, there is no reason to immediately dismiss nuclear energy. Besides the fact that we are increasingly reliant on nuclear energy, it provides over 10% of the world’s energy and data from both Fukushima and Chernobyl show that the land is recoverable (“World Statistics”, 2015). Drawing upon both of these infamous nuclear disasters we will examine how nuclear waste affected the environment. shut down. However, the earthquake triggered a tsunami that prevented the emergency procedures from being activated, allowing nuclear waste to slowly leak into the environment. The danger was so great that Japan immediately ordered an evacuation of all people within 20 km to 30 km (~12.5-18.6 miles). The Fukushima Daiichi disaster still impacts Japan and cleanup remains underway to this day. This was the second largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Chernobyl happened on April 26, 1986, when a reactor exploded and sent a huge plume of radioactive material into the atmosphere and caused 31 deaths and long term effects that are still being researched today (Danzer, 2014). The public worry increased so much in both cases that people still refuse to eat food such as fruits and berries deemed safe. Moreover, Chernobyl still remains an isolated ghost town due to mass scale evacuation right after the incident and the lack of effort dont to repair it.These two events are the only ones to be rated 7, the highest rating on the INES scale, International Nuclear Event Scale, a scale determining the severity of nuclear incidents. Both of these events, while disastrous, allow us to study the effects of nuclear waste on biological systems, while spurring research into disposing of nuclear waste. Both nuclear disasters exposed radioisotopes into the environment and since it is unwise to leave radioactive isotopes in otherwise useable land, clean up is very necessary. The most important step was a mass scale evacuation of people living near the reactor Figure 1. A Schematic of the process to clean-up the topsoil around Fukushima. and for a temporary ban on food exports from the contaminated It has been almost four years since Fukushima and region. People who experience high levels of atomic radiation almost thirty years since Chernobyl, but both still remain in will develop Acute Radiation Sickness, which harms the skin the public conscience. Nuclear Energy is created by a steam and bone marrow possibly beyond repair, or develop cancer turbine, where the heat given off by a nuclear reaction, boils the in the long term. In Fukushima, to dispose of the radiation, water surrounding it, which drives the blades of the turbine. A the clean up crew used high power water pressure to wash process that does not release a significant amount of carbon off the soil or any other type of debris (Hardie, 2013). They dioxide into the atmosphere. However, the Fukushima also removed most of the topsoil, which was most likely to nuclear meltdown happened on March 11, 2011 when an be affected by radiation, through ploughing and used heating 9.0 magnitude earthquake caused the nuclear power plant to to reduce the amount of radioisotopes. The topsoil, as well 24 • B erkeley S cientific J ournal • W aste • S pring 2015 • V olume 19 • I ssue 2