Light and Water in Fukushima: April 2011
4. April 2011
Light and Water in Fukushima
Arjun MakhijaniWorkers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have been trying to reestablish electricity connections to pumps so as to restart the cooling system for the reactors at the plant. According to news reports, two of the major obstacles have been
· a high radiation environment (on the order of 1,000 millisieverts per hour) due to contaminated water on the floor of the turbine buildings, and
· a lack of light in the turbine buildings, which has forced the electricians to work in the dark.
The combination of these two factors has made it exceedingly difficult to accomplish the objective and has so far frustrated it. The author recommends an approach to resolving the problems.
Arjun Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (www.ieer.org). He holds a Ph.D. in engineering (specialization: nuclear fusion) from the University of California at Berkeley and has produced many studies and articles on nuclear fuel cycle related issues, including weapons production, testing, and nuclear waste, over the past twenty years.