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Write 5 pages thesis on the topic the explosion at the fukushima nuclear power plant

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Write 5 pages thesis on the topic the explosion at the fukushima nuclear power plant. Despite intensive efforts to cool and shut down the reactors, a number of hydrogen explosions occurred. In addition, many workers were exposed to radiation during the course of emergency response activities. Although Japanese officials initially estimated the disaster as Level 4 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), the intensity of the accident eventually rose to Level 5 and 6 (World News Inc, 2012).

Evidently, the tsunami was the main cause of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. Japanese government argued that the 13-meter high devastating tsunami waves were higher than the Tokyo Electric Power which supplies electricity to run the plant. As a result, authorities could not take any effective measures to prevent the catastrophe or to protect the reactor cores from sustaining extreme damage. Although the magnitude 9 earthquake did not damage the key facilities at the plant, the resulted flooding caused “simultaneous loss of multiple safety functions” (Times Live, 2011). In order to get a detailed view of the underlying causes of the disaster, it is necessary to describe the accident in all the 6 Units in Fukushima nuclear plant.

Unit 1 of the Fukushima nuclear power plant is a “General Electric BWR 3 rated 460 MW electric (1380 MW thermal)” (Nuclear Engineering International, 2011). At the time of the earthquake, Unit 1 was generating electricity and the earthquake caused the automatic shutdown of the Unit. However, the resulted tsunami damaged the emergency core cooling system. As Holt et al (2012) reported, the reactor vessel’s water levels drastically dropped and reached a level below the top of the hot fuel. Similarly, steam reacted with zirconium fuel cladding and produced huge amounts of hydrogen. It is the main cause of the hydrogen explosion that occurred at the upper part of the reactor building (ibid). Nearly after 12 hours, the pressure inside the primary containment doubled to the designed level. At the same time, radiation from the plant increased sharply. Scientists believe that overpressurization might have led to the leaking of hydrogen from the primary containment into the upper building structure.

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