Japan catastrophe sends shock
waves By Victor Kotsev
As the situation at the Fukushima nuclear
plant continues to deteriorate, increasing panic
has gripped Japan and the world. By early
Thursday, last-ditch attempts to prevent a
full-blown disaster appeared desperate, and fears
about the status of spent fuel at the plant added
to speculation that the authorities were
withholding vital information about the scope of
the catastrophe.
The signs of distress to
the plant struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake last
Friday are everywhere; foreigners are leaving the
island nation en masse. In North America, which is
down wind from Japan, frantic buying led to a
shortage of potassium iodide and Geiger counters.
A number of countries, including Germany and
China, halted operations at older reactors and/or construction
plans for new nuclear power
plants, pending an exhaustive review, and it now
appears that a major debate on the future of
nuclear energy will follow.
The wider
geostrategic consequences of the crisis are only
beginning to emerge, and speculation ranges from a
new economic recession to repercussions in the
Persian Gulf and global energy markets.
On
Wednesday, authorities admitted that the inner
container vessel of a second reactor - number 3,
running on a mix of plutonium and uranium fuels -
may have ruptured, and extraordinarily high levels
of radiation at the plant halted for a brief
period of time all efforts to relieve the troubled
reactors. Reports indicate that the army is
becoming increasingly involved in dousing the
fires; on Thursday, Japanese military helicopters
were sent to dump sea water on the plant, at great
personal risk for the pilots. without any clear
results. [1]
The Japanese government
turned to the United States with an appeal for
help even as American military personnel were
ordered to stay clear of the plant. Nuclear
operators stationed at Fukushima reportedly sent
their families farewell messages, adding to the
sense of a deja-vu with the Chernobyl catastrophe
(where the army was similarly forced to intervene,
helicopters flew through highly radioactive clouds
in brave attempts to contain the meltdown, and
firefighters and nuclear engineers sacrificed
their lives).
Moreover, accusations
surfaced that the Japanese authorities were
withholding important information about the
meltdown. According to many experts, the
30-kilometer safety perimeter set up around
Fukushima is grossly inadequate.
American
officials characterized the radiation levels as
"extremely high',' and warned all American
citizens to stay at least 80 kilometers away from
the damaged plant. The New York Times writes,
"American officials concluded that the Japanese
warnings were insufficient, and that, deliberately
or not, they had understated the potential threat
of what is taking place inside the nuclear
facility."
Though, according to the
official narrative, only "small amounts" of
radioactive material have reached Tokyo, a sense
of gloom hangs over the capital, 240 kilometers
from Fukushima. Sources on the ground report a
subtle shift in government messages: while up to
now the authorities have claimed there was no
danger to people there, more recently they started
saying that there was no "immediate" danger. In a
culture known for very carefully measured
statements, this speaks volumes.
Some of
the panic, at least internationally, is clearly
excessive. A nuclear fallout map that surfaced
this week and caused distress by predicting high
levels of pollution in North America appears to be
a hoax, since most of the radiation would
dissipate within a few days and over a few hundred
kilometers of distance. [2]
Even so, the
map captured more or less accurately the wind
patterns that would deliver at least some
radioactive dust to the United States and Canada.
[3] This prediction is bolstered by anecdotal
evidence and by what appears to be a declassified
map of nuclear fallout from a "small" Chinese
nuclear test in 1966. [4]
More precise
predictions of the fallout patterns are hard to
come by; early on Thursday, The New York Times
quoted a United Nations report that confirmed the
above projections. "The agency declined to release
its Japanese forecast," the American newspaper
wrote, adding that it obtained it "from other
sources".
Meanwhile, grave additional
concerns arose as some of the attention shifted
from the reactors themselves - where the situation
is bad enough as it is - to spent nuclear fuel
stored at the plant. On Wednesday, the chairman of
the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Gregory Jaczko, pointed to reactor number 4, where
spent fuel had ignited and caused explosions
alongside major radiation pollution. According to
most experts, the stored fuel can be almost as
dangerous as the active rods themselves.
To top off these concerns, there is a lot
of speculation about the status of spent nuclear
fuel at the rest of the afflicted reactors. For
example, information about storage pools at
reactors 1 through 3 is pointedly missing from
reports provided by the International Atomic
Energy Agency. [5] In the analysis of Kirk James
Murphy, "Fukushima Daiichi plant may contain over
600,000 spent fuel rods," accumulated over several
decades, whose ignition threatens to lead to
"Chernobyl on steroids". [6]
While it is
not immediately clear that Kirk James Murphy is a
definitive authority on the issue, numerous other
reports also suggest that there were spent fuel
tanks on top of all the reactors at Fukushima; it
is hard to imagine that the blasts that damaged
severely the structures of the first three
reactors spared these tanks. Satellite images of
the plant add weight to these suspicions and to
speculation that tons of radioactive fuel rods
might have been sent up in the air by the
explosions. [7]
The presence of plutonium,
both in spent fuel and in active fuel at reactor
number 3, is also a major source of worry. More
information on the health effects of plutonium can
be found here.
Aside from pressing concerns for human
safety, the shock waves of the nuclear meltdown in
Japan will be felt on many other levels; these
repercussions are only beginning to emerge. Amid a
massive sell-off of stocks, many have speculated
that the global economic recession might return in
force. [8] Russian analysts have suggested that if
Tokyo is spared major radiation damage, such a
scenario would be averted, but currently both the
premise and the result are open to question.
The global nuclear industry faces an
uncertain future, especially in light of
revelations that Japan ignored several warnings
that its plants would not withstand a major
earthquake. [9] "In the short term," Leon Gettler
wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald, "we can expect
what's happening in Japan to completely rewrite
the debate on nuclear power as the solution for
climate change."
Some observers are
predicting that in the long run, the catastrophe
could lead to an increasing dependence on natural
gas, which in turn would be a positive development
both for the environment and for the economy of
the United States. According to Steve LeVine
writing for Foreign Policy, "The implications are
serious for geopolitics - countries endowed with
much natural gas, such as Qatar, Australia and the
United States, will see shifts in their relative
influence. Another big shift will be in climate
presumptions - gas emits just one-third of the CO2
[carbon dioxide] as coal, and half that of oil."
If this analysis is correct - LeVine
cautions that "other analysts predict an
interregnum while safety concerns are addressed,
and then a revived nuclear buildout" - Russia
(another major natural gas exporter) would
undoubtedly benefit as well. In fact, Russia might
benefit even more than the United States. It is
even possible to foresee collusion in the long run
between Russia and Japan. The two countries are
still technically at war over the Kuril Islands,
but Japan's pressing need for energy, exacerbated
by the loss of the nuclear reactors and
instability in the Persian Gulf, might force it
closer to its former enemy. [10] In turn, Russia's
need for new technologies would almost certainly
make it prone to compromise.
Such
speculation is still far-fetched, but it is not
altogether ungrounded. (Yet more bizarre are
statements by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a Russian
politician with the reputation of a loose cannon,
who on Sunday called on the Japanese to "leave the
dangerous islands" and to settle in unpopulated
Russian territories).
American think-tank
Stratfor suggests that in the wake of the disaster
Japan might reconsider its foreign policy course:
Japan's nuclear power sector seemed
invulnerable, which no other part of its energy
infrastructure was. For Japan, a country that
went to war with the United States over energy
in 1941 and was devastated as a result, this was
no small thing ... The question is how the
political system will respond. In dealing with
the Persian Gulf, will Japan continue to follow
the American lead or will it decide to take a
greater degree of control and follow its own
path? The likelihood is that a shaken
self-confidence will make Japan more cautious
and even more vulnerable.
Beyond
Japan's reaction, the nuclear meltdown will almost
certainly have wider consequences for the Persian
Gulf crisis, and these are far from
straightforward, but will probably surface soon.
On the one hand, the disaster will likely
make the international community even less
accepting of Iran's nuclear program. On the other
hand, however, tolerance toward sabotage of Iran's
nuclear program, which both Israel and the United
States have allegedly carried out with striking
success, might plunge even lower. It might be that
the nuclear crisis will put paid to any plan to
strike Iranian nuclear installations.
Overall, at this stage it is difficult to
predict the extent of damage - much less the
precise geostrategic consequences - of Japan's
unfolding nuclear catastrophe. It appears certain,
however, that the world will not be the same in
its wake.
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