Japan’s disasters will affect U.S. policy

Although radiation leaking from a nuclear power plant in earthquake-stricken Japan remains… Although radiation leaking from a nuclear power plant in earthquake-stricken Japan remains serious, Pitt professors said that authorities are working to get the situation under control, and the crisis’ result will likely affect nuclear policy in the U.S.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake — the fourth-largest ever recorded — and the proceeding tsunami that devastated Japan on March 11 continues to make international headlines, especially as concerns continue to mount about radiation leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Northeastern Japan.

But John Metzger, a nuclear engineer and associate professor of mechanical engineering and material at Pitt, said that the radioactive gases released are below levels that could potentially harm the U.S.

More than 100 people joined Metzger’s students from his class — Fundamentals of Nuclear Engineering — as he, Helling and a few other experts from the Pittsburgh area lectured about the nuclear plant in Japan.

During the lecture, Metzger said that the Japanese did all they could to prepare for the catastrophic events.

“The Japanese are smart guys. However, they designed the plant for an 8.2 [magnitude] earthquake,” Metzger said. “The tsunami was beyond what anyone had anticipated. The Japanese are making heroic efforts.”

Much of the effort is directed toward cooling the fuel rods, Metzger said. He gave the crowd a run-down of what exactly happened to the plant during the disaster.

When the earthquake struck, three of the six boiling water reactors at the plant — the only ones running at the time — shut down, as they were designed to do.

The entire plant lost power, and the controls rods were deployed between the fuel rods to stop the nuclear reaction from occurring. However, fuel rods continue to give off enormous amounts of heat. To keep the rods from getting too hot, the rods are submerged in water..

But there was no electricity to run the cooling system. Large diesel generators that were geared up to protect the reactors failed quickly, possibly because of water intake from the tsunami.

With a no-entry zone established around the plants, emergency workers are now dropping water from aircrafts, hoping to replace moisture as it evaporates, while helping the steam escape through the ventilation system. But the water has been boiling faster than they can replace it, causing the rods to become exposed to oxygen and rapidly heat up. As temperatures have increased, the zirconium casings on the reactors cracked, releasing hydrogen and radioactive gases.

But still, others agreed with Metzler and David Helling, an adjunct professor of nuclear engineering at Pitt who said that the radioactive gases outside the plant area aren’t at dangerous levels.

“People panic at the phrase ‘increased levels of radiation’ because most of us don’t know much about radiation and what is normal,” Nijole Pollock said.

Pollock, the secretary of Free the Planet, a Pitt student environmental group, said students should educate themselves before inappropriately reacting to news, saying that the media could have something to do with the lack of knowledge students have about the recent events.

“The news coverage has been a disappointment. What I have read has offered very little in the way of numbers or the likely actual public health outcome,” Pollock said.

But though Metzger said the health risks to Americans would be minimal, he did add that the U.S. could learn from the natural disaster.

He said the events in Japan would spur safety checks in the U.S., creating a positive effect on its nuclear industry.

Eva Resnick-Day, President of Free the Planet, voiced similar sentiments. She said the events in Japan are a significant reminder of how important safety regulations are, and that the U.S. must be prepared for imminent natural disasters.

“It also acts as a reminder of the devastating and damaging effects of natural disasters, which can be mitigated if we take steps now to prepare ourselves for such inevitable disasters in vulnerable areas of our country,” she said.

Metzger predicts that one of the steps the U.S. will take is sending the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations into its nuclear power plants to check the safety analyses and confirm that all procedures are running properly.

“We’ll learn from [Japan’s] mistakes,” Metzger said.