Is this the end of nuclear power?

On Friday 11th March 2011, an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 struck 230 miles off the coast of northern Japan. As well as triggering a devastating tsunami, the earthquake has also caused problems with a nuclear plant in Fukushima, with developments keeping the global community sitting on the edge of its seat.

Initially, the safety mechanism in the nuclear reactor worked, so of the plant’s six reactors, the three that were functional, were shut down and the control rods were put in place. However, in nuclear reactors there is a certain amount of residual heat generated by the fuel rods which still needs to be cooled. This decay heat is controlled by a cooling system, which was hit by a power cut shortly after the earthquake. The back up power systems couldn’t sustain the cooling process long enough to keep the reactor at a safe temperature leading to an increase in pressure which caused an explosion on March 12th.

This lead to an evacuation of 200,000 people within a 20km radius. However, some radiation leaked out and several people were found to have radiation exposure. The Japanese government prepared iodine for treatment to radiation exposure.

Kamran Nikbin, Professor of Structural Integrity at the Centre for Nuclear Engineering, Imperial, said: “The Fukushima reactors are facing a scenario that theoretically should have been foreseen at the design stage since the plant is built in a known earthquake region.

“However, the tsunami is unprecedented and might therefore be an event they would not have considered in the design safety levels.”

Surveys of the general public show that support for nuclear power has been gradually increasing over the past decade as memories of Chernobyl faded and the threat of climate change began to dominate headlines. There is no doubt that much of this will change following the meltdowns at several of Japan’s nuclear reactors. Will this be the final blow for what was increasingly seen as an attractive low cost, low carbon form of energy generation?

At first look, the answer would seem yes. Both the Swiss and German governments have suspended plans to increase nuclear energy capacity. Anti-nuclear environmental groups have seized on the crisis as proof of their views.

But there is increasing evidence to suggest that the public’s response has been quite mature, and not too hasty. While newspaper headlines like to play up the doomsday scenario, almost all articles are filled with quotes from nuclear experts (many from Imperial) giving a more measured account of events. British people also seem to appreciate that an earthquake followed by a tsunami is simply not a likely occurrence in the UK. This seems to represent a general trend for the public to respect the opinions of scientific experts over gut reactions.

Only time will tell what the results of this crisis will be for nuclear power, in many ways this may well prove to be the acid test for how receptive the public is to science in general.