Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

Subject – IR

Context – Fukushima nuclear water to be released via undersea tunnel.

Concept –

• Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant is located in the town of Okuma, Japan. The reactor is located on the country’s east coast. It is about 220 km north-east of the capital Tokyo.
• The 2011 Earthquake, destroyed the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant’s electricity and cooling capacity. Since then, Japan is struggling with the piling-up of contaminated water from the nuclear plant.
• Japan is planning to release the contaminated water containing tritium(a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) into the ocean.
• Tritium considered to be relatively harmless because it does not emit enough energy to penetrate human skin. But when ingested tritium can create cancer risks.
• The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said it plans to build an undersea tunnel so that massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water can be released into the ocean about 1 km away from the plant to avoid interference with local fishing.

For more information on Nuclear Power Plant, please refer to this.

Terms related to nuclear Plant

Core: The central part of a nuclear reactor containing the fuel elements and any moderator.

Coolant: The liquid or gas used to transfer heat from the reactor core to the steam generators or directly to the turbines.

Critical mass: The smallest mass of fissile material that will support a self-sustaining chain reaction under specified conditions.

Criticality: Condition of being able to sustain a nuclear chain reaction.

Enriched uranium: Uranium in which the proportion of U-235 (to U-238) has been increased above the natural 0.7%. Reactor-grade uranium is usually enriched to about 3.5% U-235, weapons-grade uranium is more than 90% U-235.

Enrichment: Physical process of increasing the proportion of U-235 to U-238.

Fission: The splitting of a heavy nucleus into two, accompanied by the release of a relatively large amount of energy and usually one or more neutrons. It may be spontaneous but usually is due to a nucleus absorbing a neutron and thus becoming unstable.

Half-life: The period required for half of the atoms of a particular radioactive isotope to decay and become an isotope of another element.

Heavy water: Water containing an elevated concentration of molecules with deuterium (“heavy hydrogen”) atoms.

High-enriched uranium (HEU): Uranium enriched to 20% U-235 or more

Ionising radiation: Radiation (including alpha particles) capable of breaking chemical bonds, thus causing ionisation of the matter through which it passes and damage to living tissue.

Radioactivity: The spontaneous decay of an unstable atomic nucleus, giving rise to the emission of radiation.

Uranium (U): A mildly radioactive element with two isotopes which are fissile (U-235 and U-233) and two which are fertile (U-238 and U-234). Uranium is the basic fuel of nuclear energy.

Vitrification: The incorporation of high-level wastes into borosilicate glass, to make up about 14% of it by mass. It is designed to immobilise radionuclides in an insoluble matrix ready for disposal.