The 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan Friday left several nuclear power plants unable to cool their reactors, sparking concern about a nuclear crisis in a country that is no stranger to the effects of nuclear radiation.
David Hintenlang, interim chairman of the UF Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Department, doesn’t believe the plants’ cooling problems will cause long-term damage to the country or its people.
“You see ‘nuclear’ [and] it gets big headlines as a nuclear disaster,” Hintenlang said. “For the general public, I don’t think there’s a huge radiological issue for them.”
While some workers may be at risk for potential harm either from radiation or, more likely, from structural or mechanical problems, other citizens should remain mostly safe, he said.
The impacted power plants must release some radiation-containing gases to relieve pressures in the core, but Hintenlang doesn’t expect the emissions to cause long-term damage because winds should sweep most of the gases toward the ocean.
It will probably take a couple weeks to fully cool the reactors and stop the nuclear reactions, but the plants won’t be usable again.
The plants are using saltwater to cool the cores, which can cause corrosion. Paired with the structural damage, these problems put the operations in a tough spot.
“Those plants will never operate again unless they rebuild them from the ground up,” he said.
Hintenlang said it could take years to fully disassemble the plants.
Despite the country’s post-earthquake nuclear problems, he doesn’t expect them to make Japanese people leery of nuclear power use.
“I think the Japanese people by and large accept technology and have embraced nuclear power largely because they don’t have other options,” he said.
Yasuo Uotate, a UF Japanese lecturer from Japan, said in an e-mail interview that he felt many Japanese people were uncomfortable with having nuclear power plants in the country but understood its necessity.
“Most Japanese people have never liked having nuclear power plants,” he said. “However, some towns couldn’t reject having one … [for] financial and political reasons.”
Japan’s lack of natural resources such as gas and oil also makes nuclear power an important option, Uotate said.
He said he expected the nuclear power plant problems to make Japan more cautious about building new ones, and said stricter guidelines for crisis management at plants should be implemented.
“I believe that compared with people in other nations, Japanese people are more prepared for incidents such as an earthquake and a tsunami,” he said. “However, I don’t think regular Japanese people are prepared for nuclear power plant problems.”
