Uncertainty about nuclear power

The situation in the nuclear power plants affected by the terrible earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan on March 11 is evolving rapidly, changing all our habitual viewpoints and expectations about the potential scale of harm done to people, and on the future of nuclear technology.

If, until Monday, the reactors most affected had been two in number - nos. 1 and 3 - on Tuesday new explosions took place in reactor no. 2, with possible effects on the integrity of the container shell around the nucleus of the reactor, and reactor no. 4, which until now had been safely stopped. The latter blast took place in a spent-fuel pond though, again doubtfully, without affecting the nucleus. These two last explosions released a cloud of radioactive material detected in Tokyo and in places even farther away from Japan.

The gravity of these developments will depend on whether the leak of radioactive material into the atmosphere has been merely momentary, so that the levels of radiation will quickly diminish with the dispersion of the expelled cloud, or whether it will continue - which for the moment remains unconfirmed - in which case the effects on public health will be serious indeed.

In the absence of more precise information, which has not been forthcoming from the Japanese authorities, it may be said that the Fukushima nuclear plants have suffered considerable damage due to the exceptional violence (9 on the Richter scale) of the earthquake and the destruction caused by the tsunami, together with the total devastation of the surroundings, including the electric power grid and the access and transport facilities. However, for the moment the plants continue with the bulk of their radioactive material confined in the containment shells, though some of the fuel rods have surely melted or deteriorated.

Atomic future

The effects on the future of nuclear energy are, for the moment, difficult to predict, and will depend on ongoing developments. But it can be said that some effects are already taking place, in the sense that the disaster has put a sudden brake on the incipient debate about the desirability of nuclear energy, in a situation of energy shortage and environmental difficulties deriving from our dependence on fossil fuels, and may go so far as to entirely block its use, as occurred after the Chernobyl disaster. The anti-nuclear initiatives in Germany, which has temporarily stopped plans for lengthening the life cycles of its nuclear plants, and others throughout the European Union, tend in this direction.

In any case, it would not be prudent to make irreversible decisions that will necessarily mark the future for decades in a state of commotion and amid great uncertainty as to what has really happened in Japan. Decisions will have to be made after due consideration of the modifications that are clearly going to be necessary both in the safety of nuclear plants themselves, and concerning the locations suitable for them, as well as the very survival of this energy-producing technology.