Video #1 - Japan Nuclear Problems
Thursday, January 20, 2000BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The incident that led to this report took place on September 30, at 10:35 a.m. Here's what apparently happened: Three workers at a uranium processing plant owned by JCO Company Ltd. in Tokaimura, 75 miles northeast of Tokyo, used steel buckets to pour 35 pounds of uranium into settling tanks. (The proper method would have been to slowly pipe it in). They saw a blue flash as they were setting off a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, which continued until 4:00 a.m. on October 1. The leak exposed at least 49 people to radiation and forced more than 320,000 people to stay at their homes for more than a day.
Thirty-five year old nuclear worker Hisashi Ouchi, exposed to the highest radiation, was in critical condition and had to receive a massive bone-marrow transplant. Ouchi was exposed to 17 sieverts of radiation, or 17,000 times the average annual exposure. His colleague Masato Shinohara, 39, received a transfusion of blood cells. The third worker, 54-year-old Yutaka Yokogawa, was exposed to a smaller dose of radiation than the other two and will probably survive without having to undergo either procedure.
The company blamed the workers for trying to cut corners, but critics have long thought that Japan's nuclear safety procedures were lax. They believed this to be especially so at fuel processing plants like JCO's, which do not have the same safeguards against major accidents as nuclear reactors. One industry inspector said that while government inspectors are posted full-time at the reactors, the fuel-processing plants are rarely checked after their initial licenses are granted. JCO admitted radioactive particles spewed for 13 days through an unchecked ventilator at the building where the accident took place. It was only turned off three days after iodine 131 was detected. Radioactive iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer, was blamed for the deaths of thousands of people following the 1986 reactor explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. Radiation near the Tokaimura plant had climbed to a high of 4.5 millisievert of neutrons an hour after the leak, the Science and Technology Agency said. That was up to 20,000 times above normal.
The blunder shocked scientists and prompted Greenpeace (the environmental organization) to warn radiation may have spread much further than first feared. Shaun Burnie, a research director at Greenpeace said that the presence of iodine 131 meant there would also be iodine 133. Those highly active elements with short half-lives would prevent measurement of longer-lived caesium, strontium and cobalt which should be present, with a "very serious" health impact, the Greenpeace official said. Burnie added that Japanese authorities were "criminally negligent" for failing to check the ventilator. Anti-nuclear activist Hideyuki Ban, of the Citizens Nuclear information Center, said that nearly residents are unlikely to suffer immediate health problems due to the accident: "We may need to wait 10 or 15 years before we see how many people develop cancer."
Sumitomo Metal Mining Col., the owner of JCO, was reported to be withdrawing from the nuclear business before authorities remove JCO's nuclear fuel processing license. Police are looking into possible criminal negligence by JCO. Investigations since the nuclear accident have found: *The JCO workers were doing the fuel-mixing procedure without special training. They had little knowledge of the volatility of the enriched uranium they were handling and what quantities would spark a chain reaction. *The company had distributed an illegal, secret manual instructing employees to bypass safety procedures for the sake of speed. *The workers involved in the accident were wearing just T-shirts, not required protective gear or film badges that measure cumulative exposure to radiation. Prime Minister Keizo Obushi's deputy press secretary, Akitaka Saiki, told foreign correspondents: "I think the criticism is that in the first place, the law should have covered all these privately-owned facilities. We are going to enact the law." According to Mr. Siki, the Science and Technology Agency was "not mandated by law" to inspect the site. Kyodo News quoted agency sources as saying that it plans to upgrade safety rules for facilities handling nuclear fuel to the level of nuclear power plants.
On October 8, Japan gave the accident a provisional rating of "level four," making it the nation's worst accident. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the U.S. was a level five while the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine had a level seven, the highest rating. An official at the Science and Technology Agency stated, "The investigation is ongoing and if necessary we will alter the provisional level."
An international team arrived in Japan on October 13 to investigate the accident. The three-member fact-finding team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) came on a five-day mission. Science and Technology Agency chief Hirofumi Nakasone told a news conference that: "By providing clear information on the accident, we aim to increase transparency (of the investigation) and regain international trust." An ISEA spokesman said: "It is our function to draw conclusions about what went wrong so that other states can learn what went wrong and avoid similar accidents in the future."
This accident has alerted other countries using nuclear power to the need for increased supervision of safety regulations. On October 7, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) announced in Washington that it is coordinating a review to examine the causes of and responses to the Tokaimura incident to apply lessons learned from the review to U.S. facilities.
SOURCES:
Anonymous, "Hundreds feared exposed in Japan nuclear accident: Greenpeace." Yahoo! News Asia, AFP (Agence France-Presse), October 7, 1999. Anonymous, "Police to press charges against Japan's nuclear leak plant operator." Yahoo! News Asia, AFP (Agence France-Presse), October 7, 1999. Anonymous, "U.S. Nuclear Energy Industry Has Initiated Review To Learn and Apply Lessons From Accident in Japan" Nuclear Energy Institute, Lycos, October 7,1999 Anonymous, " Japan bows to overseas inspection of nuclear disaster site." Yahoo! News Asia, AFP (Agence France-Presse), October 8, 1999. Anonymous, "Ventilator spreads radiation at Japanese nuclear accident site." Yahoo! News Asia, AFP (Agence France-Presses), October 12, 1999. Anonymous, "Japanese regulator says accident defied imagination." Yahoo! News Asia, AFP (Agence France-Presses), October 12, 1999. Anonymous, "Japan vows fast legislation on nuclear sites." Yahoo! News Asia, AFP (Agence France-Presses), October 13, 1999. Farley, Maggie, "Critics believe industry safety standards have fallen to a critical level." The Detroit News; October 10, 1999. (detnews.com). Sieg, Linda, "Japan May Upgrade Severity Of Nuke Accident." Reuters, Lycos News; October 8, 1999.
LESSON PLAN
GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: 10-12/Economics, International Relations, World History, International Bachelaureate Programs(IB), Current Events.
PURPOSE: to present activities to be used in a variety of classroom situations in order to enhance student understanding of the Japanese economy and its significance globally.
OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to:
- Explore the use of nuclear power in Japan.
- Compare and contrast the use of nuclear power in Japan with that of other countries.
- Investigate the nature of nuclear accidents and their concequences.
- Recommend appropriate practices for the use of nuclear power.
MATERIALS:
- Background information provided.
- Resources on Japan available at your school's Media Center and the Public Library System in your area.
- Background information available through Internet "search engines."
ACTIVITIES: May be assigned as group activities or as individual tasks. They may also be designed as preparation for related presentations either by individuals or groups.
- Develop a time-line listing the events which led to the Tokaimura nuclear accident.
- Conduct a "press conference" including members of the Science and Technology Agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Greenpeace, and JCO, Co. to update the public on the accident and its aftermath.
- Role play the duties of the International Atomic Energy Agency and develop recommendations for the use of nuclear power to be followed internationally.
- Write a journal entry from the point of view of a child living in Tokaimura.
- Use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the nuclear power industry in Japan to that of the U.S. Write an editorial to your local newspaper with recommendations based on your analysis about how to prevent such accidents.
- Evaluate the causes and effects of other nuclear accidents. Make recommendations based on your evaluation. (ABCNEWS.com, "Nuclear Disaster in Japan", September 30, 1999, includes a list.)
EVALUATION: Individual assignments should be graded by the teacher using established criteria. Group activities, presentations and projects may be evaluated by teachers and students using the following criteria and scale:
Content 1=Superior(A) Creativity 2=Excellent(B) Clarity 3=Good(C) 4=Fair(D) 5=Poor(F)
