Case study Fukushima Summaries +
lecture notes of week 1,2,3,4,5,6
The summaries are mostly copied from the documents and not paraphrased. Do not
copy and paste from this document on the exam!!
Summaries missing from this are Kushida and Aldrich, because Kushida is just an
overview of the accident and Aldrich is too long to summarize.
Week 7 had a guest lecture that is not on the exam and the discussion, which is why
it is not relevant here.
This document is three documents added together (Week 1&2 + Week 3&4 + Week
5&6), which is why the page numbers don’t make sense sorry about that.
The structure of a week is as follows:
Week number:
Readings for lecture 1
Notes for lecture 1
Readings for lecture 2
Notes for lecture 2
Etc.
Good luck on the final!! :))
,
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2
Week 1
Lecture 1 (Bartolucci): Case study
introduction
Disaster = “a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any
scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and
capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and
environmental losses and impacts”
Disaster risk = Hazard x Exposure x Vulnerability
Earthquake = “describes both sudden slip on a fault, and the resulting ground shaking
and radiated seismic energy caused by the slip, or by volcanic or magmatic activity, or
other sudden stress changes in the earth”.
Tectonic plates theory:
The Earth’s outermost layer is fragmented into about 15 major slabs called tectonic
plates. These slabs form the lithosphere (between the crust and the mantle).
Tectonic plates move very slowly relative to each other (few centimeters per year)
but this still causes a huge amount of deformation at the plate boundaries, which in
turn results in eathquakes.
An earthquake is the result of sudden movement along faults within the Earth.
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 1
, The movement releases stored-up ‘elastic strain’ energy in the form of seismic
waves, which propagate through the Earth and cause the ground surface to
shake.
Such movement on the faults is generally a response to long-term deformation
and the buildup of stress.
Japan is located on the so called ‘Ring of Fire’, which is the edges of the pacific plate.
Next to Japan is a convergent margin, where the Pacific plate goes under
(subduction) the Eurasian Plate.
Seismic waves
There are body waves and surface waves.
Body waves go trough the interior of the earth. P-waves and S-waves are both
body waves.
P-waves move 60% faster than S-waves, because P-waves are
compression waves and therefore move easier through the earth’s surface
than S-waves which are shear waves.
Surface waves go along the surface of the planet, rippling it like water.
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 2
, Mercalli scale = based on observable earthquake damage.
Outdated, because damage can vary depending on wealth and the way buildings
are build.
Richter scale = magnitude (size) is determined using the logarithm of the amplitude
(height) of the largest seismic wave calibrated to a scale by a seismograph.
Three problems:
1. Magnitude on the scale doesn’t go past 6.
2. Created specifically for a Wood-Anderson seismograph.
3. Created for California.
So now we use the Moment Magnitude scale (Mw) = moment is a physical quantity
proportional to the slip on the fault multiplied by the area of the fault surface that slips.
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 3
, Moment (M0)= Rigidity x area of fault surface x fault displacement
It is related to the total energy released in the earthquake the moment can be
estimated from seismograms.
The hypocenter is the point within the earth where an earthquake rupture starts.
The epicenter is the point directly above it at the surface of the Earth.
Previous disasters in Japan:
The Great Kanto earthquake, September 1 - 1923
Mw: 7,9, 142.800 death
The Great Hanshin earthquake (Kobe earthquake), January 17 - 1995
Mw: 6,9, 6000 death
This was a turning point for earthquake engineering, from this point new buildings
had to be build according to strict rules.
Showa Great Sanriku tsunami (Sanriku earthquake), March 2 - 1933
Mw: 8,4, 1522 death (42% in water)
Japan vs Disasters
Japan is considered the most prepared country regarding safety management.
1. They have early warning systems.
Seismography and tsunami warning systems.
2. Building codes.
Amendment to the building standard laws (1981), introduced as a result of
the devastating 1978 quake that struck Miyagi (M=7.4).
The earthquake resistance definition is as follows: “for the often
occurring mid-size earthquakes (magnitude 5~7), the building should
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 4
, suffer no more than a slight amount of cracks and should continue to
function as normal. For the rare and large earthquakes with a magnitude
7 or higher and a Shindo scale of upper 6 or higher,
the building should not collapse”.
3. Disaster trainings.
There is a ‘bonsai’ book, meaning disaster prepardeness and there is bosai
no hi (disaster prevention) day on september 1st.
Augmented reality is also used to make people more aware of the danger
and teach them how to respond.
The fukushima disaster is also called 3/11 (march 2011), a triple disaster.
First an earthquake, then a tsunami and lastly a nuclear disaster.
It is also called a Natech disaster = A natural hazard triggering technological disaster.
Or a Cascading disaster = extreme events in which cascading effects increase in
progression over time and generate unexpected secondary events of strong impact.
Timeframe
2.46 pm: Earthquake
Higashi nihon daishinsai (Great east Japan earthquake), March 11 - 2011.
Magnitude of 9,0 Mw, lasting 6 minutes and having over a 1000 after shocks.
3::35 pm: Tsunami
Wave heights of 3,5 to 12 meters, a 40 meter run up, travelling speed of 700 km/h,
561 km2 of the coast flooded and 90% of deaths were due to drowning.
It was a black tsunami, meaning that it: “contains a lot of mud, sand and pollutants
(e.g., lead and mercury) which is dangerous to the health of those who swallow it
when they struggle to escape the waves”.
3:37 pm: Nuclear accident
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 5
, It was a level 7 severe accident according to the International Nuclear Event Scale
(INES).
Crisis management
State of emergency declared in Japan
North eastern Japan region designated a large scale disaster
Multiple government ministries and agencies were involved in the national response
All prefectures activated their local government response systems
JSDF dispatched
Evacuation
There was first a mandatory evacuation zone of 10 kilometers, which was later changed
to 20 kilometers.
With evacuation there are always problems. Some people don’t evacuate when they
have to, while other do when they don’t have to (shadow evacuees).
Volunteers
Japanese have traded in their vacations for grueling volunteer work in tsunami-ravaged
communities.
Volunteers have been tasked with shoveling mud, clearing debris and cleaning homes
flooded by tsunami.
Administrators have been overwhelmed by requests to help they've had to reject
applicants, and ask them to postpone their trips until after the holiday week (1,000/day).
Humanitarian relief
Several countries (Aus, China, India, NZ, South Korea, US) sent SAR teams other
countries and major international relief organizations such as the Red Cross and Red
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 6
, Crescent pledged financial and material support to Japan.
According to the UN general Assembly resolution 46/182 the affected country has
the sovereignty over their territory so they have the right to ask for or decline help
from certain countries.
The critics
The early warning systems underestimated the earthquake (initially thought to be
7,9), which led to underestimating of the height of the tsunami. This caused
consequences in residents reactions.
There was a leadership vacuum in TEPCO, when during this initial time of crisis
neither the chairman nor the president were at TEPCO headquarters.
There was a case of elite panic where authorities deliberately held back information on
radiation from the public to avoid panic among the population. However, this only
caused more panic, because residents didn’t know what was going on.
This nuclear disaster was a manmade disaster, not a natural disaster.
There were errors in planning and response, economic benefits were ought to be
more important than safety, TEPCO didn’t take enough responsibily and there was
‘anzen shinwa’ (safety myth), a false feeling of safety.
There are two big problems now:
1. Before bringing people back, all the contaminated soil has to be removed. This
all has to be stored somewhere and noone knows what to do with it.
2. Wastewater is released into the ocean.
Nuclear debate
The Fukushima effect = fukushima disaster has re-energized the safety controversies
that emerged after Chernobyl disaster.
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 7
, However, many nations are reconsidering the future of nuclear energy as it has
been labeled ‘green’ energy.
Similarities between the Tonga eruption and the Fukushima case:
Both were isolated for days.
The tsunami created an environmental disaster, creating the cascading disaster of a
large oil spill in Peru and a nuclear disaster in Fukushima.
Taebi, B., & Kloosterman, J. L. (2008). To
Recycle or Not to Recycle? An
Intergenerational Approach to Nuclear Fuel
Cycles. Science and Engineering Ethics,
14(2), 177-200.
Introduction
Fossil fuels are not an attractive option, however, for reasons concerning the availability
of resources and climate change it is recently largely reconsidered.
Many people consider nuclear energy at least as a serious alternative for the
transition period between fossil fuels and sustainable energy sources.
The main advantage of nuclear energy—compared to fossil fuels—is its capability of
producing a large amount of energy with relatively small amounts of fuel and a
very small production of greenhouse gases.
However, nuclear energy has serious drawbacks, such as accident risks, security
concerns, proliferation threats, and nuclear waste.
The question guiding this paper is whether spent fuel is to be disposed of directly (open
fuel cycle) or to be reused in the fuel cycle (closed fuel cycle).
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 8
, In an open fuel cycle, uranium is irradiated once and the spent fuel is considered
as waste to be disposed of directly. This waste remains radiotoxic for
approximately 200,000 years, which imposes burdens onto the future
generations.
The closed fuel cycle reuses spent fuel after irradiation to produce energy and
diminishes its toxicity and volume substantially. This fuel cycle has many long-
term benefits, but it also creates extra short-term risks.
In this paper we approach ‘‘undue burdens’’ in the light of fuel cycles and propose
intergenerational justice as a framework in order to choose between the fuel cycle:
Are we willing to transfer all risks of spent fuel to future generations,
or do we find it more just to diminish risks and hazards of our waste
to the maximum extent and accept, consequently, some additional
risks to the present generation?
These intergenerational discussions are also crucial for the future of research
investments on waste management issues. Partitioning and transmutation (P&T) is
a new technology for further diminishing the waste radiotoxicity. P&T is still in its
infancy and needs serious investments to be further developed; these investment
are justified if and only if one chooses the closed fuel cycle, of which the P&T could
be considered as an extension.
Future Rights, Present Obligations:
Intergenerational Justice
This concept of intergenerational justice was first introduced by John Rawls in 1971 as
intergenerational distributive justice, which stands for an equal allocation of social
benefits and burdens.
Justice for future implies that today’s people have obligations towards their
descendants and these obligations entail certain rights for these future
Case study Fukushima Week 1&2 9
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