Fukushima

Throughout the semester our group chose to follow the Fukushima Nuclear disaster and what actions are being taken to prevent future spills while monitoring the precautions TEPCO is taking to clean up the nuclear spill. A lot of the time it seemed as though the Japanese government was trying to keep information on the spill quiet, and didn’t necessarily want any other involvement from outside organizations to help the situation. I don’t think this worked in their favor especially since there were multiple spills after the initial disaster that they didn’t prepare for.

Our group chose to divide the assignment up by giving each person a specific week to turn in their blog post. This was extremely convenient since our group wasn’t able to meet as often as we wanted to. We influenced each other’s work by sharing certain articles that we thought were interesting. I thought this was an effective way of sharing information because certain group members would have busier weeks than others so sharing the information allowed me to catch up the group members who were unable to research the disaster for the week and vice versa. This way we were able to keep each other on track.

            This assignment taught me that sometimes group work is not as easy as everyone just meeting up on a weekly basis. Each individual has different schedules and responsibilities so finding a medium between that is difficult, however I think our group did a good job of working around our inability to meet up. Also, I learned about an issue I probably would not have paid much attention to if it weren’t for this blog. Initially I chose Fukushima so that I could learn about something I had little knowledge of so I now have a better understanding of nuclear reactors and radiations spills that I did not previously have.

Final Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Blog Post

On March 26, 1971 Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) began operating their first nuclear power reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station.  On March 11, 2011 a powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the coast of Japan, severely damaging TEPCO’s Fukushima nuclear power plant.  Our group covered any new developments throughout the semester ranging from the dangers of contaminated water, the impact on the environment, the process of dismantling and decommissioning the power plant, and the overall management of the disaster.

Researching the topic of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster was a fascinating and enlightening experience.  There were typically several new developments each week, and it came down to deciding on which direction to focus that week’s blog post.  Each member of the group conducted online research individually, but would occasionally share interesting and relevant stories with the other members of the group either before or immediately at the end of class, or sometimes through email.  Our grouped worked quite well together, and we easily agreed to a schedule whereby one member of the group would write the post for the week.  We would then all be able to access the file on Google Docs for proofreading, or to add any additional information we had found during our own research, prior to it being posted on the blog. 

Starting with only a vague idea of how badly the tsunami damaged the Fukushima nuclear power plant, I learned much more than I could have imagined.  It was both educational and alarming to discover just how hazardous the situation has been.  What I personally found to be most surprising was how TEPCO was allowed to build a nuclear power plant on the coast of Japan, in an area known to have powerful earthquakes, without the proper safety measures in place.  It was also clear that more often than not, TEPCO was unable to manage the disaster on its own, even making careless mistakes such as overfilling a water storage tank and releasing more contaminated water into the ocean.  

Final Post - Sinead Gilman

Throughout this course, my group has been following the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. Much of our focus was on the clean up of the nuclear spill, as well as Japan's and the rest of the world's response. Japan - and the rest of the world, for that matter - until recently was uneasy to say the least regarding the seriousness of the radiation and its effects.  Although TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) has urged the public that they are taking measures and that progress in the clean up is being made, they are still having serious issues regarding Reactors one, two, and three that suffered damage during the earthquake and tsunami and are still dangerously radioactive. Similarly, we looked at the governments' role throughout the disaster, and last month we found they they could no longer keep their promise in reducing green house gases. 

Since we couldn't continue to meet every week, each member would research on their own regarding that week's Fukushima news. We created a Google Doc and compiled our information, as well as made edits and fixed any loose ends. One group member was assigned to make sure everything was perfectly in place and after everyone had contributed and looked the document over online, that one member would submit the final post. I believe this was the best way possible to work together even with busy schedules such as ours. 

Before taking this course, I knew very little about Fukushima. I knew that there had been a nuclear accident involving an earthquake and a tsunami, but that was the extent of my general knowledge. I had always been interested in world news, and even though I did and do care very much about what's happening outside of my United States bubble, I never found myself seeking to learn more about what was going on around me. This assignment taught me the importance of regularly keeping up on current events, and learning what their effect might have on me. Fukushima is still one of the biggest issues in our world news today, and it seems that many people in our country still do not know the basics of this monumental catastrophe. I was happy this was chosen to be a group project. My group was always very on task and we were there for one another if we missed anything. I enjoyed my topic and my group equally. 

FInal Fukushima Blog Post - Matthew Slasten

During the Semester, my group tracked the developments following the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. We found that the international community holds fears that the radioactive wastes from the damaged plant have and will make their way into the Pacific Ocean, effectively spreading toxic wastes worldwide. Their fears seem to be legitimate, as evidence continues to show that toxic debris has been making its way across the Pacific Ocean to North America. To make matters worse, every other week reports come out of accidents and setbacks on clean-up efforts. These setbacks have been so bad that they have sparked the Japanese Prime Minister to ask the world for intellectual help. TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), on the other hand, keeps ensuring the international community that it has clean-up efforts under control and has recently undertaken a 40-year clean-up plan to remove radioactive fuel rods from damaged reactor buildings. Only time will tell if they are successful. As for now, the international community continues to watch and continues to hold their breath.

To accurately track the developments regarding Fukushima, we kept ourselves updated by searching online for recent events relating to the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. We would send each other articles that we thought were interesting and eventually one person would be assigned to take the lead that week on writing the Blog. We keep the rough draft of the Blog Post on Google Docs, where each group member had access to edit typos and add to any areas that seemed to be missing. By Friday, we would do a final read through and one of the group members would submit it. This process really gave everybody flexibility because we couldn’t all meet at the same time. It would also ensure confidence that the group was in agreement on the Blog post.

Overall, this project challenged me to follow a world event and critically assess the implications of each new development. From the past couple of months, I learned that the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster is far from being over. It may not be at the forefront of the top news stories, but it is still causing lasting effects. Radioactive wastes don’t just go away, so the cleanup and the aftermath of this disaster will continue to plague Japan and possibly the world for years to come. And even worse, no one knows what the lasting effects will be and what the most effective cleanup efforts should be. Only time will tell. As for researching as a group, I think that it went well. I really enjoyed knowing that all of the pressure wasn’t on me to do the work and that I had partners that could catch what I missed. Working with a group also gave me the drive to do my part and make sure my tasks were completed on time. I am very glad that I chose to work with this group and that I chose this topic.

Final Post

            Throughout the semester of blog posts, my group has covered the seemingly endless cleanup of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster.   We focused on the attempts to cleanup and prevent further radiation leak, which has proven to be a daunting task for TEPCO.  Another area of concern was the response of the Japanese government and the statements released.  A common theme since the disaster occurred is uncertainty, of how much radiation has leaked and the effects that this radiation will have.  While this ambiguity is present, the statements released have been ones of reassurance that all is fine.  Our group further evaluated the role of the government in the cleanup efforts, specifically whether the government is capable of handling the cleanup, especially with the heavy funds required for the upcoming 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and the reconstruction needed after multiple storms, such as Francisco.  While our blog requirements are finished, the cleanup in Japan is far from over. 

            Our group worked really well and efficiently.  Each week, we independently researched for interesting and relevant articles on the cleanup efforts in Japan and shared the information we obtained.  We had a rotating schedule of who was to write the blog post for the week, which was done on a Google doc.  The other members in the group would then have the opportunity to edit the post.  Once all viewed and agreed on the blog post, it would be uploaded on or before Friday.  The conduction of our group allowed all to take part in the uploading of blog posts, while catering to everyone’s busy schedule.  It was an efficient way to ensure that our posts were quality work and submitted on time each week.

             At the beginning of the year, I knew very little about the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster.  I knew of the disaster, the very basic facts and that I should probably pay more attention to it.  Researching the meltdown has led to a better understanding of nuclear energy, the benefits and the drawbacks, and a realization of the interconnectedness of the world.  Even though I am a great distance from other countries in the world, in this case, Japan, the events in those countries can have an impact on my life and visa-versa.  The blog assignment also taught the importance of the media, and the necessity of not only paying attention to current events, but also the necessity of retrieving information from reliable sources.  Finally, I learned the complications of working in a group, such as the difficulty in finding time to meet, but how they were outweighed by the benefits of group work.  Each member has a different way of thinking and brings different ideas to the table, which leads to a well rounded product in the end.   

High Hopes, Big Disappointments? Only Time Will Tell.

           Earlier this week TEPCO began its riskiest clean up effort at Fukushima to date. On Monday, the process of “delicately removing about 1,500 sets of radioactive fuel rods from a storage pool inside a damaged nuclear reactor building” began in Reactor Four (“Japan Starts Riskiest Work,” 2013).  After successfully removing the fuel rods, technicians will work in “finding and extracting the melted fuel within the broken reactors, [and] demolishing the buildings and decontaminating the soil” (West, 2013).  TEPCO estimates that this painstaking clean up process should take 30 to 40 years (“Japan Starts Riskiest Work,” 2013). That is assuming that there are no other mishaps and accidents, which have been plaguing cleanup efforts since 2011.

         

         TEPCO’s cleanup efforts are “costly, risky and dependent on technologies that have yet to fully develop” (West, 2013).  And as the Associated Press points out, “Nobody knows exactly how much fuel melted…or where exactly the fuel went – how deep and in what form it is” (West, 2013). It seems that many unknowns and challenges lie ahead for Japan in this cleanup effort. The project is a huge undertaking and one that the world will be watching very closely.

Japan Starts Riskiest Work at Fukushima Nuclear Plant (2013, November 18). Voice of America. Retrieved from http://www.voanews.com/content/japan-begins-removal-of-fuel-rods-from-fukushima-nuclear-power-plant/1792153.html

West, Broc (2013, November 20). Uncertainties Abound in Fukushima Decommissioning. Fukushima Update. Retrieved from http://fukushimaupdate.com/uncertainties-abound-in-fukushima-decommissioning/

Japan's Nuclear Disaster Heats Up

There was another disturbing announcement coming out of Japan this week, adding even more bad news to the already serious environmental disaster that began in March of 2011, when a 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami destroyed the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.  Japan is no longer in a position to keep the promises made in 2010 by the previous government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, which escalates global warming.  The harmful effects to our environment caused by an increase in greenhouse gas emissions are producing an alarming crisis of climate change.  Many environmental scientists agree that this “makes extreme weather events, possibly including the devastating typhoon that hit the Philippines last week, more severe and more frequent” (Tabuchi, 2013). 

This announcement coincides with international talks taking place in Warsaw this week being led by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in an attempt to reach a global agreement on reducing the ever-increasing threat of a changing climate.  Japan is one of the top five polluters in the world, and their goal had been to lower emissions a full 25 percent from what it was in 1990, and now they estimate the rate will probably increase to about three percent by 2020.  However, in just one year without nuclear power, from March 2012 through March 2013, Japan’s rate of carbon dioxide emissions has been measured at fourteen percent higher than it was in 1990.  All of Japan’s fifty nuclear reactors have been shutdown since the earthquake and tsunami damaged four out of the six reactors at Fukushima, resulting in a massive nuclear meltdown and explosions that released radioactive material into the atmosphere. 

Unfortunately, because Japan had been relying on nuclear power to provide thirty percent of its total power needs, and because they had not developed other renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power, they have no other options besides making this grim announcement, and to go on polluting our environment.  In order to make up for the energy deficit created by taking all of its nuclear power plants offline, Japan has been forced to rely on other sources of energy.  They have been importing more fossil fuels and restarting old power stations that run on either coal or gas.  Now, Japan is releasing more carbon dioxide into the environment, increasing the possibility of even more catastrophic events like Typhoon Haiyan that killed thousands of people in the Philippines and left possibly millions without shelter, food, or safe water. 

TEPCO cut corners when it built the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and is another example of an irresponsible and greedy corporation that was left unregulated and unwatched, allowing it to do whatever was most profitable at the time.  Despite the fact that it sits right on the coast of Japan, in a part of the world prone to earthquakes, safety measures were severely deficient, including a seawall designed to hold back waves up to only about nineteen feet that had no chance of keeping the tsunami, which rose to an estimated 46 feet, from crashing down over the entire site.  Now, we are all paying the price for what TEPCO failed to do when it built the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

References

Tabuchi, H. and Jolly, D. (2013, November 15). Japan backs off from emissions targets, citing Fukushima disaster. The New York Times. Retrieved November 15, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/world/asia/japan-backs-off-from-emissions-targets.html

Fackler, M. (2011, June 1). Report finds Japan underestimated tsunami danger. The New York Times. Retrieved September 2, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/world/asia/02japan.html