Download or read book Fukushima written by David Lochbaum and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A gripping, suspenseful page-turner” (Kirkus Reviews) with a “fast-paced, detailed narrative that moves like a thriller” (International Business Times), Fukushima teams two leading experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists, David Lochbaum and Edwin Lyman, with award-winning journalist Susan Q. Stranahan to give us the first definitive account of the 2011 disaster that led to the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. Four years have passed since the day the world watched in horror as an earthquake large enough to shift the Earth's axis by several inches sent a massive tsunami toward the Japanese coast and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing the reactors' safety systems to fail and explosions to reduce concrete and steel buildings to rubble. Even as the consequences of the 2011 disaster continue to exact their terrible price on the people of Japan and on the world, Fukushima addresses the grim questions at the heart of the nuclear debate: could a similar catastrophe happen again, and—most important of all—how can such a crisis be averted?
Download or read book Fallout written by Fred Pearce and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into our complicated 8-decade-long relationship with nuclear technology, from the bomb to nuclear accidents to nuclear waste. From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, Fukushima to the growing legacy of lethal radioactive waste, humanity’s struggle to conquer atomic energy is rife with secrecy, deceit, human error, blatant disregard for life, short-sighted politics, and fear. Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, he finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created. At first, Pearce reminds us, America loved the bomb. Las Vegas, only seventy miles from the Nevada site of some hundred atmospheric tests, crowned four Miss Atomic Bombs in 1950s. Later, communities downwind of these tests suffered high cancer rates. The fate of a group of Japanese fishermen, who suffered high radiation doses from the first hydrogen bomb test in Bikini atoll, was worse. The United States Atomic Energy Commission accused them of being Red spies and ignored requests from the doctors desperately trying to treat them. Pearce moves on to explore the closed cities of the Soviet Union, where plutonium was refined and nuclear bombs tested throughout the ’50s and ’60s, and where the full extent of environmental and human damage is only now coming to light. Exploring the radioactive badlands created by nuclear accidents—not only the well-known examples of Chernobyl and Fukushima, but also the little known area around Satlykovo in the Russian Ural Mountains and the Windscale fire in the UK—Pearce describes the compulsive secrecy, deviousness, and lack of accountability that have persisted even as the technology has morphed from military to civilian uses. Finally, Pearce turns to the toxic legacies of nuclear technology: the emerging dilemmas over handling its waste and decommissioning of the great radioactive structures of the nuclear age, and the fearful doublethink over the world’s growing stockpiles of plutonium, the most lethal and ubiquitous product of nuclear technologies. For any reader who craves a clear-headed examination of the tangled relationship between a powerful technology and human politics, foibles, fears, and arrogance, Fallout is the definitive look at humanity’s nuclear adventure.
Download or read book Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety of U S Nuclear Plants written by National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants and published by National Academy Press. This book was released on 2014-10-29 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami sparked a humanitarian disaster in northeastern Japan. They were responsible for more than 15,900 deaths and 2,600 missing persons as well as physical infrastructure damages exceeding $200 billion. The earthquake and tsunami also initiated a severe nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Three of the six reactors at the plant sustained severe core damage and released hydrogen and radioactive materials. Explosion of the released hydrogen damaged three reactor buildings and impeded onsite emergency response efforts. The accident prompted widespread evacuations of local populations, large economic losses, and the eventual shutdown of all nuclear power plants in Japan. "Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants" is a study of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. This report examines the causes of the crisis, the performance of safety systems at the plant, and the responses of its operators following the earthquake and tsunami. The report then considers the lessons that can be learned and their implications for U.S. safety and storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste, commercial nuclear reactor safety and security regulations, and design improvements. "Lessons Learned" makes recommendations to improve plant systems, resources, and operator training to enable effective ad hoc responses to severe accidents. This report's recommendations to incorporate modern risk concepts into safety regulations and improve the nuclear safety culture will help the industry prepare for events that could challenge the design of plant structures and lead to a loss of critical safety functions. In providing a broad-scope, high-level examination of the accident, "Lessons Learned" is meant to complement earlier evaluations by industry and regulators. This in-depth review will be an essential resource for the nuclear power industry, policy makers, and anyone interested in the state of U.S. preparedness and response in the face of crisis situations.
Download or read book Legacies of Fukushima written by Kyle Cleveland and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is about the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. The disaster comprised a triple punch that began with an earthquake, which caused a tsunami, which triggered a meltdown at a nuclear plant"--
Download or read book Fall out from Fukushima written by Giulia de Togni and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-24 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how the Fukushima plaintiffs have challenged narratives of safety and risk containment produced by TEPCO and the Japanese government through offering new empirical data on risk perceptions and life choices of some nuclear evacuees. Considering the Fukushima evacuees’ disappearance from public discourse in Japan, the book engages with theoretical writings on risk, neoliberal governmentality and citizen science. Chapters draw on a wide range of anthropologically-related methodologies including socio-linguistics, participant observation, and qualitative interviews. Themes of self-governance, resistance, gender, kinship, class and social change surface throughout, setting the Fukushima experience in a broad historical, social, and comparative context. This is the first ethnographic account of the Fukushima litigation and the first extensive qualitative study documenting the worldviews and living conditions of nuclear evacuees who moved outside Fukushima Prefecture, with a particular focus on underrepresented groups (single mothers, elderly and disabled evacuees). The history of industrial disasters and the role of citizens in shaping environmental policy in Japan is also evaluated. Fall-out from Fukushima sets out to be a manifesto for understanding and supporting post-nuclear disaster societies, and will appeal to students and scholars of social, legal, and linguistic anthropology, science and technology studies, as well as Japanese studies.
Download or read book Fukushima Fiction written by Rachel DiNitto and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-05-31 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fukushima Fiction introduces readers to the powerful literary works that have emerged out of Japan’s triple disaster, now known as 3/11. The book provides a broad and nuanced picture of the varied literary responses to this ongoing tragedy, focusing on “serious fiction” (junbungaku), the one area of Japanese cultural production that has consistently addressed the disaster and its aftermath. Examining short stories and novels by both new and established writers, author Rachel DiNitto effectively captures this literary tide and names it after the nuclear accident that turned a natural disaster into an environmental and political catastrophe. The book takes a spatial approach to a new literary landscape, tracing Fukushima fiction thematically from depictions of the local experience of victims on the ground, through the regional and national conceptualizations of the disaster, to considerations of the disaster as history, and last to the global concerns common to nuclear incidents worldwide. Throughout, DiNitto shows how fiction writers played an important role in turning the disaster into a narrative of trauma that speaks to a broad readership within and outside Japan. Although the book examines fiction about all three of the disasters—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns—DiNitto contends that Fukushima fiction reaches its critical potential as a literature of nuclear resistance. She articulates the stakes involved, arguing that serious fiction provides the critical voice necessary to combat the government and nuclear industry’s attempts to move the disaster off the headlines as the 2020 Olympics approach and Japan restarts its idle nuclear power plants. Rigorous and sophisticated yet highly readable and relevant for a broad audience, Fukushima Fiction is a critical intervention of humanities scholarship into the growing field of Fukushima studies. The work pushes readers to understand the disaster as a global crisis and to see the importance of literature as a critical medium in a media-saturated world. By engaging with other disasters—from 9/11 to Chernobyl to Hurricane Katrina—DiNitto brings Japan’s local and national tragedy to the attention of a global audience, evocatively conveying fiction’s power to imagine the unimaginable and the unforeseen.
Download or read book Atomic Accidents written by Jim Mahaffey and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “delightfully astute” and “entertaining” history of the mishaps and meltdowns that have marked the path of scientific progress (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Radiation: What could go wrong? In short, plenty. From Marie Curie carrying around a vial of radium salt because she liked the pretty blue glow to the large-scale disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, dating back to the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters. In this lively book, long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy James Mahaffey looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns. Every incident, while taking its toll, has led to new understanding of the mighty atom—and the fascinating frontier of science that still holds both incredible risk and great promise.
Download or read book Station Blackout written by Charles A. Casto and published by Radius Book Group. This book was released on 2018 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan was rocked by a powerful earthquake and within an hour inundated by a devastating tsunami, on March 11, 2011. Three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima power plant experienced core meltdowns, resulting in the catastrophic release of radiation into the ground, air, and water. In Station Blackout, Chuck Casto shares his first-hand account, as the foremost authority on responding to nuclear disasters, of how he led the team that faced the challenges of Fukushima. A lifetime of working in the nuclear industry prepared him to manage an extreme crisis, lessons that apply to any crisis situation.
Download or read book Fukushima Accident written by Pavel P. Povinec and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fukushima Accident presents up-to-date information on radioactivity released to the atmosphere and the ocean after the accident on the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, on the distribution of radionuclides in the world atmosphere and oceans, and their impact on the total environment (man, fauna, and flora). The book will evaluate and discuss the post-Fukushima situation, emphasizing radionuclide impacts on the terrestrial and marine environments, and compare it with the pre-Fukushima sources of radionuclides in the environment. The authors' results, as well as knowledge gathered from the literature, will provide up-to-date information on the present status of the topics. Fukushima Accident is based on the environmental and nuclear research; however, the presentation will be suitable for university-level readers. - 2013 PROSE Award winner in Environmental Science from the Association of American Publishers - Covers atmospheric and marine radioactivity, providing information on the global atmospheric dispersion of radionuclides in the atmosphere and world oceans - Examines radiation doses to the public and biota to understand the health risks to the public and ecosystems - Provides information on monitoring radionuclides in the environment – information on sources of radionuclides, their temporal and spatial variations, and radionuclide levels - Covers transport of radionuclides from different sources (e.g. nuclear power plants) as well as atmospheric simulations and modeling approaches
Download or read book My Nuclear Nightmare written by Naoto Kan and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Naoto Kan, who was prime minister of Japan when the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster began, has become a ubiquitous and compelling voice for the global antinuclear movement. Kan compared the potential worst-case devastation that could be caused by a nuclear power plant meltdown as tantamount only to 'a great world war. Nothing else has the same impact.' Japan escaped such a dire fate during the Fukushima disaster, said Kan, only ‘due to luck.’ Even so, Kan had to make some steely-nerved decisions that necessitated putting all emotion aside. In a now famous phone call from Tepco, when the company asked to pull all their personnel from the out-of-control Fukushima site for their own safety, Kan told them no. The workforce must stay. The few would need to make the sacrifice to save the many. Kan knew that abandoning the Fukushima Daiichi site would cause radiation levels in the surrounding environment to soar. His insistence that the Tepco workforce remain at Fukushima was perhaps one of the most unsung moments of heroism in the whole sorry saga."—The Ecologist On March 11, 2011, a massive undersea earthquake off Japan’s coast triggered devastating tsunami waves that in turn caused meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Ranked with Chernobyl as the worst nuclear disaster in history, Fukushima will have lasting consequences for generations. Until 3.11, Japan’s Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, had supported the use of nuclear power. His position would undergo a radical change, however, as Kan watched the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Power Plant unfold and came to understand the potential for the physical, economic, and political destruction of Japan.In My Nuclear Nightmare, Kan offers a fascinating day-by-day account of his actions in the harrowing week after the earthquake struck. He records the anguished decisions he had to make as the scale of destruction became clear and the threat of nuclear catastrophe loomed ever larger—decisions made on the basis of information that was often unreliable. For example, frustrated by the lack of clarity from the executives at Tepco, the company that owned the power plant, Kan decided to visit Fukushima himself, despite the risks, so he could talk to the plant’s manager and find out what was really happening on the ground. As he details, a combination of extremely good fortune and hard work just barely prevented a total meltdown of all of Fukushima’s reactor units, which would have necessitated the evacuation of the thirty million residents of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area.In the book, first published in Japan in 2012, Kan also explains his opposition to nuclear power: "I came to understand that a nuclear accident carried with it a risk so large that it could lead to the collapse of a country." When Kan was pressured by the opposition to step down as prime minister in August 2011, he agreed to do so only after legislation had been passed to encourage investments in alternative energy. As both a document of crisis management during an almost unimaginable disaster and a cogent argument about the dangers of nuclear power, My Nuclear Nightmare is essential reading.
Download or read book Strong in the Rain written by Lucy Birmingham and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting account of Japan's triple disaster and an insightful look into what the responses of its people reveal about the national character Blending history, science, and gripping storytelling, Strong in the Rain brings the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan in 2011 and its immediate aftermath to life through the eyes of the men and women who experienced it. Following the narratives of six individuals, the book traces the shape of a disaster and the heroics it prompted, including that of David Chumreonlert, a Texan with Thai roots, trapped in his school's gymnasium with hundreds of students and teachers as it begins to flood, and Taro Watanabe, who thought nothing of returning to the Fukushima plant to fight the nuclear disaster, despite the effects that he knew would stay with him for the rest of his life. This is a beautifully written and moving account from Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill of how the Japanese experienced one of the worst earthquakes in history and endured its horrific consequences.
Download or read book Reverberations from Fukushima written by Kerry Wilkinson and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident written by Joonhong Ahn and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on nuclear engineering education in the post-Fukushima era. It was edited by the organizers of the summer school held in August 2011 in University of California, Berkeley, as part of a collaborative program between the University of Tokyo and UC Berkeley. Motivated by the particular relevance and importance of social-scientific approaches to various crucial aspects of nuclear technology, special emphasis was placed on integrating nuclear science and engineering with social science. The book consists of the lectures given in 2011 summer school and additional chapters that cover developments in the past three years since the accident. It provides an arena for discussions to find and create a renewed platform for engineering practices, and thus nuclear engineering education, which are essential in the post-Fukushima era for nurturing nuclear engineers who need to be both technically competent and trusted in society.
Download or read book Meltdown Earthquake Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima written by Deirdre Langeland and published by Roaring Brook Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deirdre Langeland's Meltdown explores for middle grade readers the harrowing story of the deadly earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that caused the 2011 Fukushima power plant disaster On March 11, 2011, the largest earthquake ever measured in Japan occurred off the northeast coast. It triggered a tsunami with a wall of water 128 feet high. The tsunami damaged the nuclear power plant in Fukushima triggering the nightmare scenario--a nuclear meltdown. For six days, employees at the plant worked to contain the meltdown and disaster workers scoured the surrounding flooded area for survivors. This book examines the science behind such a massive disaster and looks back at the people who experienced an unprecedented trifecta of destruction.
Download or read book Fukushima written by Mark Willacy and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 11 March 2011, Japan was rocked by the most violent earthquake in her history and one of the largest ever recorded. The quake itself was just the start of a chain of disastrous events, creating a massive tsunami that slammed the shores of north eastern Japan. Close to 20,000 people were killed or disappeared under waves that reached more than 40 metres high as they smashed their way several kilometres inland. Yet the greatest damage was caused when the tsunami surged over the seawall of Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station, resulting in a multiple core meltdown that released vast quantities of radioactivity into the atmosphere and ocean. At one stage it even threatened the evacuation and irradiation of Tokyo itself, which would have spelt the end of Japan as we know it.Fukushima is the incredible story behind the twin catastrophes of the tsunami and nuclear meltdown, seen through the eyes of witnesses and victims – from former prime minister Naoto Kan, the plant director and senior engineers of Fukushima Dai-Ichi, the elite firefighters who risked their lives to avert the ultimate nuclear nightmare, to the mother excavating the wreckage as she looked for her daughter's remains.
Download or read book Fallout written by Fred Pearce and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into our complicated 8-decade-long relationship with nuclear technology, from the bomb to nuclear accidents to nuclear waste. From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, Fukushima to the growing legacy of lethal radioactive waste, humanity’s struggle to conquer atomic energy is rife with secrecy, deceit, human error, blatant disregard for life, short-sighted politics, and fear. Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, he finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created. At first, Pearce reminds us, America loved the bomb. Las Vegas, only seventy miles from the Nevada site of some hundred atmospheric tests, crowned four Miss Atomic Bombs in 1950s. Later, communities downwind of these tests suffered high cancer rates. The fate of a group of Japanese fishermen, who suffered high radiation doses from the first hydrogen bomb test in Bikini atoll, was worse. The United States Atomic Energy Commission accused them of being Red spies and ignored requests from the doctors desperately trying to treat them. Pearce moves on to explore the closed cities of the Soviet Union, where plutonium was refined and nuclear bombs tested throughout the ’50s and ’60s, and where the full extent of environmental and human damage is only now coming to light. Exploring the radioactive badlands created by nuclear accidents—not only the well-known examples of Chernobyl and Fukushima, but also the little known area around Satlykovo in the Russian Ural Mountains and the Windscale fire in the UK—Pearce describes the compulsive secrecy, deviousness, and lack of accountability that have persisted even as the technology has morphed from military to civilian uses. Finally, Pearce turns to the toxic legacies of nuclear technology: the emerging dilemmas over handling its waste and decommissioning of the great radioactive structures of the nuclear age, and the fearful doublethink over the world’s growing stockpiles of plutonium, the most lethal and ubiquitous product of nuclear technologies. For any reader who craves a clear-headed examination of the tangled relationship between a powerful technology and human politics, foibles, fears, and arrogance, Fallout is the definitive look at humanity’s nuclear adventure.
Download or read book Use of 137Cs for soil erosion assessment written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2018-07-25 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soil erosion is the most destructive land degradation process causing removal of soil, siltation of water reservoirs and pollution of water sources. Combating erosion needs reliable data on soil erosion rates, its dynamics and spatial distribution. Collecting such data with conventional methods requires great investment and long period of time. The 137Cs method for erosion assessment can address this problem. The Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture of the IAEA has been working on this method for more than 20 years. This publication provides a brief guidance on this method. It covers major components of 137Cs method starting from its principles, the sampling strategy, gamma spectroscopic measurements, estimation of erosion rates with conversion models, data interpretation and the use of 137Cs method for erosion models validation. The publication is suitable for a wide audience such as researchers, agricultural and environmental experts, decision makers, farmers and students
