Three Accidents — Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima

Nuclear power was welcomed in the middle of the twentieth century as a ‘dream energy.’ A tiny amount of fuel could generate enormous electricity, with no smoke belching from chimneys. As we have seen in earlier installments, humanity placed great hope in this new fire.

But to wield an immense power is also to take on the possibility of an immense failure. Over the course of half a century, the atomic fire posed humanity three grave questions. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi. Each accident differed greatly in its cause, its scale, and the era in which it occurred. For every one of them, this article seeks to put respect for those who were harmed and those who lost their lives first, to trace events within the bounds of the public record, and to hold to a stance that takes no particular side.

Three Mile Island — A First Warning Against Overconfidence

The first shock came in the United States. On March 28, 1979, a serious accident occurred at Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in eastern Pennsylvania.

The trigger was the shutdown of a feedwater pump in the secondary cooling system. That alone was not a fatal failure. The problem lay in the chain of malfunctions that followed, and in the operators’ inability to grasp the situation correctly. A valve meant to release coolant stuck open and did not close, the instrument readings were misleading, and no one realized that the reactor core was losing its coolant. As a result, part of the core melted, and some radioactive material was released to the outside. On the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), it was later classified as Level 5.

In the surrounding area, evacuation advisories were issued, especially for pregnant women and young children, and many residents temporarily left, some voluntarily. At the same time, the public record holds that no direct deaths from this accident have been confirmed. The health effects have been the subject of investigation and debate for many years.

Chernobyl — The Night Control Was Lost

Seven years later, the world witnessed a catastrophe on an entirely different order. On April 26, 1986, at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in what was then the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine, the reactor ran out of control and exploded.

The accident occurred in the middle of a certain safety test. Operation was continued in an unstable, low-power state, and the particular characteristics of this type of reactor combined with procedures that departed from numerous rules, so that the output surged beyond control in an instant. The reactor exploded, the building was blown apart, and the fire in the core continued to release vast quantities of radioactive material into the atmosphere over a long period. The released material rode the wind and is recorded to have reached a wide area of Europe.

The human toll was severe. According to reports such as the one the Soviet government submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 31 people — reactor staff and firefighters who fought the blaze — died immediately after the accident, and of the many workers who developed acute radiation sickness, 28 died in the months that followed and 14 more over the next decade. Across a wider region, long-term health effects and the burden of evacuation continued to be problems. Regarding the overall impact of the exposure, bodies such as the United Nations Scientific Committee have built up careful assessments, but the estimates still carry a range, and the reality is that it is difficult to speak in definitive terms.

Countless workers took on the task of bringing the accident under control, resigned to their own exposure. Even with their devotion, the harm reached a vast area over a long span of time. Chernobyl carved deep into human memory what can happen when nuclear power once loses control.

Fukushima Daiichi — Nature’s Fury and a Compound Disaster

Then, on March 11, 2011, an event arose in Japan that brought that memory back to life. At 2:46 p.m., a massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake centered off the coast of Sanriku struck eastern Japan.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant responded to the shaking itself with an emergency shutdown. But the enormous tsunami that arrived afterward changed everything. Waves reaching more than ten meters flooded the facility, and most of the power supply, including the emergency systems, was lost. In Units 1 through 3, cut off from the electricity needed to keep cooling the cores, the meltdown progressed, and the hydrogen that was generated caused the buildings to explode one after another. Radioactive material was released into the surroundings, and residents over a wide area were forced to evacuate. The accident’s rating was raised in stages from the initial provisional value, and was finally set at INES Level 7. Only two accidents have been classified as Level 7: Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi.

The Fukushima accident was a compound disaster in which a nuclear disaster overlapped with the immense natural disasters of an earthquake and a tsunami. Many people left the land where they had lived, and faced a long evacuation life and the difficulties of returning. We must reflect deeply on the weight of that suffering, and on the journey of those affected, which continues even now.

Before Questions That Have No Answer

Having passed through three accidents, the world’s choices never converged into one.

Immediately after the Fukushima accident, Germany turned its course sharply. A government that had originally taken the position of using nuclear power reversed its policy, and within 2011 set into law a plan to phase out all of the country’s nuclear power plants by the end of 2022. It was a decision that placed safety concerns above all else. On the other hand, there were also countries like France that continued to rely on nuclear power for much of their electricity, and in recent years not a few countries have shown moves to use nuclear power after raising its safety, in the context of decarbonization. Looking at the same accident, the directions taken diverged according to each country’s energy circumstances and values.

The position that promotes nuclear power has the argument that it can supply a large volume of stable, low-carbon electricity. The position that calls for abandonment has the argument that one should face directly the scale of harm when an accident occurs, and the weight of its aftermath and waste. Both arguments contain facts and concerns that deserve serious engagement. This series takes neither side.

What is certain is that the three accidents pulled the debate over nuclear power away from the simple choice between ‘dream’ and ‘nightmare.’ An immense power is inseparably bound to immense benefit and immense responsibility — that heavy recognition, one might say, is what humanity gained as the price of the accidents.

And in the very period when society stood frozen before this question, out of the crisis there was a power trying to sprout in an entirely different direction. Wind and light — energies at once commonplace and overlooked — were quietly beginning to grow.