While in California, we had to give a 20 minute presentation on a topical research area of our choice. My presentation was about using LiDAR to measure fuel loads of forest canopies. Others spoke about native inhabitants of the Yosemite Vally, giant redwoods, and animal species. One topic that I found very interesting was presented to us by fellow classmate Jerrod. He told us of the ongoing efforts to prevent nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. I thought this was an event worth briefly discussing.
Failure at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant occurred on March 11th of 2011. It was result of the plant being hit by the tsunami triggered by the Tohoku earthquake. It is reported as the largest nuclear incident since Chernobyl.
Source.
Although I will admit, I am not religious in following news, I like to believe that when a situation has the ability to scar the planet like Chernobyl, I will be at least aware of it. Whether I should blame myself, or Brian Williams (love the guy) can be saved for another blog. I just wanted to point out some of the key details of this event, and I'll start with a map.
The green circle around fukushima is an area that was (and could be still) under radiation watch, however the main thing I wanted to point out, is that the blue colored areas on the map represent the ocean. Oceans are known to produce some wave action which can be greatly amplified by hurricanes and earthquake induced waves. I know, I am reading like a jackass. But I guess it makes me a little worried that there are people with significant sums of money who can make decisions like this that have the ability to change the planet.
I understand there are benefits to the location. A big one was the vast water supply to cool reactors. And I know that it has produced a great amount of electricity for the people of Japan. I just wish with such high stakes, they could have built the sea wall with some extra generosity. (Their sea wall was 10 meters high, while the tsunami threw a wave of 13 meters)
