Since that tragic day of March 11, 2011 when an enormous earthquake and horrific tsunami struck the northeastern side of Japan, we have been inundated by media reports on the ongoing attempts to bring the nuclear plant into a stable condition. The technical challenge is enormous but the task is simple--keep the core and the spent fuel covered with water. While designed to withstand earthquakes of magnitude 7, the site felt a magnitude 9. While designed to withstand a tsunami of approximately 22 feet, the site was swept by a wave of 30 feet. This wall of water wiped out everything in its path; the visual devastation witnessed by the world was unimaginable. This same wave slammed the nuclear plant sites of Daiichi and Daini where 10 reactors stood bracing for the onslaught. According to reports, the plants withstood the earthquake but the wave was too much for the auxiliary equipment needed to supply power and electricity to the emergency cooling systems designed to protect the core at Daiichi. The major structures survived but what was lost was the ability to cool the core and the spent fuel pools for four of the units.
In the wake of this terrible event--we cannot call it an accident, since it was a natural disaster that needed to be managed--it has been difficult to separate media reports rooted in solid science from those peddling unfounded conjecture. Having followed the event closely, it was difficult to get reliable status reports as to what was happening and why. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) itself had difficulty for the same reasons the public did--electricity was lost, roads and highways were destroyed, communications were difficult and unreliable, and understanding the magnitude of the damage at 10 stations required time. What information was made available by the government, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and TEPCO was limited and incomplete, encouraging speculation as to what was really happening. Given whatever information was available, trained nuclear engineers could begin to assemble a picture of the events based on their technical understanding of nuclear systems and fuel behavior under various possible scenarios for these types of reactors. Even so, most of the discussion was conjecture since we did not know exactly what happened.
There was a group of "experts" that was often quoted and seen on television who would, without hesitation or qualification, give the media what they wanted to hear: scenarios of disaster, fear and unbounded "China Syndrome" core meltdown stories. When many of these faces began appearing, I did a background check on some. One often sought-after "expert" in nuclear engineering was a psychology undergraduate major with a Ph.D. in political science from a prestigious university. Another group was from an international peace organization. We also have physics professors willing to speak to nuclear engineering issues, not recognizing that quantum mechanics has little to do with net positive suction head. It is through these mouths, written words, and faces that the story of Fukushima is being told to a public that really wants and needs to understand what is going on. If only our national media would do some background checks on the people that they call upon as experts before they put them on television or quote them to inform us, we would be so much better off. Instead, they seem to find people who fit their "story line."
