Editor's note: This story originally ran on March 4, , and we're reposting it for the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster to give readers a sense of the technology being employed to fix this enormous problem, which continues today. To learn more about the ongoing cleanup efforts, read Japan's latest report, issued to the International Atomic Energy Agency earlier this month.
As we drive north from Tokyo, the city fades to a picturesque landscape of rolling hills and tiny villages. Fixing Fukushima is a CNET multipart series that explores the role technology plays in cleaning up the worst nuclear disaster in history. Japan's Fukushima Prefecture, ravaged by a massive earthquake and a series of tsunamis that leveled buildings and dragged boats, cars and the lives of thousands inland, is beginning to recover eight years later.
At the decommissioned Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, an army of robots has been enlisted to aid in the cleanup effort -- going into radioactive hotspots too dangerous for humans. The company that owns the facility, Tokyo Electric Power Co. But the visible recovery is undermined by the invisible; a still highly radioactive land and groundwater that continues to mix with the radioactive water of the destroyed reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.
One solution attempting to mitigate the ongoing water contamination is its ice wall, a super-cooler refrigerant being piped feet underground, freezing the ground solid and stopping the flow of fresh water towards the sea. The outer wreckage of the Unit 2 reactor, one of the most highly radioactive places at Fukushima Daiichi, so dangerous that no human can enter.
With the Primary Containment Vessel damaged, the water needed to continually cool the reactors has been leaking from inside, mixing with the fresh groundwater flowing towards the sea. A maze-like industrial landscape spreads out in front of us.
Wearing multiple layers of cotton and latex gloves, three pairs of socks and rubber boots, we walk across a rusty ground towards the most recently conceived defense: a system of super-cooled pipes that freeze the soil going down feet, stopping the outside fresh groundwater from mixing with the radioactive water within. Marine scientist Buesseler believes that the leaks pose little threat to Americans, however. Radioactive contamination, he says, quickly is reduced "by many orders of magnitude" after it moves just a few miles from the original source, so that by the time it would reach the U.
But while flounder, sea bass, and other fish remained banned for radiation risk, in the Japanese government did begin allowing sales of octopus and whelk , a type of marine snail, after tests showed no detectable amount of cesium contamination.
Buesseler thinks the risk is mostly confined to local fish that dwell mostly at the sea bottom, where radioactive material settles. However, the higher concentration of strontium that is now in the outflow poses a trickier problem, because it is a bone-seeking isotope. This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge. All rights reserved.
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Environment As the EU targets emissions cuts, this country has a coal problem. Assuming there is more than radioactive iodine in the air, what can people do to protect themselves? There is no protective agent against other cancers.
The protective measures are to evacuate, get as far away from the radiation exposure as you can so that your dose is much lower. Stay inside, don't go out and breathe contaminated air. If you do get some exposure to radioactive elements, take a shower and wash them off immediately. The radiation leak at Fukushima Daiichi appears to have increased demand for potassium iodide in the U. Is this a necessary precaution?
I have experience studying the effects of radioactive iodine on adults and, based on that, it actually looks like the adult thyroid gland is not very sensitive to the cancer-producing effects of radiation. One of the things we have learned about studying the after-effects of Chernobyl is that the kids who lived in areas of radioactive fallout who drank contaminated milk had a huge increase in thyroid cancer related to radioactive iodine.
Something on the order of 6, extra cases of thyroid cancer occurred among the children that had been exposed to increased radioactive iodine. That's sort of the concern and the reason why the Japanese are distributing potassium iodide. That's why around our own nuclear power plants we have stockpiles of potassium iodide. Still, it's not recommended that adults over the age of 40 take potassium iodide.
The benefit is miniscule because our thyroid glands are not that sensitive. Larry Greenemeier is the associate editor of technology for Scientific American , covering a variety of tech-related topics, including biotech, computers, military tech, nanotech and robots. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American.
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