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In the media, you hear predictions that the events in the damaged nuclear power plants could be "the next Chernobyl", but this sounds like hyperbole to me. Are the events at those nuclear reactors comparable to Chernobyl? And what are the most likely outcomes of these events?

Here are two of about a hundred articles mentioning or comparing the Japanese incident to Chernobyl (thanks to @Dogmafrog): Forbes and CBS.

Barry Harrison
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James H. Kelly
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  • Can you add some quote of people claiming this in the media? It would allow better answers, but either corroborating or refuting their arguments. As written, your question is a bit vague. – Borror0 Mar 13 '11 at 20:20
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    @James I have significantly reworded your question, if I accidentally changed the meaning you can easily rollback my edits. It would also be very interesting if you could find a link to the claims in the media about the similarity to Chernobyl. – Mad Scientist Mar 13 '11 at 20:24
  • As such, I've removed my down vote - the question in this form is now appropriate for the site. – Sklivvz Mar 13 '11 at 20:27
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    Here are three of about a hundred articles mentioning or comparing the Japanese incident to Chernobyl, posted on behalf of Mr Kelly. http://blogs.forbes.com/williampentland/2011/03/11/risk-of-nuclear-catastrophe-escalates-in-japan-worse-than-chernobyl/. http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=666012&publicationSubCategoryId=63. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20042532-503543.html –  Mar 13 '11 at 22:39
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    I found this description simple to understand and very enlightening: http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/ – MindDetective Mar 14 '11 at 15:05
  • @Fabian - thanks for the edit. I'm new here and trying to get a handle on appropriate questions. As edited, the meaning is about the same. – James H. Kelly Mar 14 '11 at 20:15
  • @Borror the media here has been claiming this for 2 days now, constantly replaying the same fake charts and "experts". – jwenting Mar 15 '11 at 13:13
  • The question could be improved by links to the claims. – Russell Steen Mar 15 '11 at 15:59
  • @mind detective. That article was great, thanks. As a side note, did anyone else see CNN yesterday when the anchor and meteorologist both admitted they were baffled about how wind currents impacted fallout. The anchor (Eliot Spitzer) said something like "I thought it was radiation like xrays, I didn't know those beams could get picked up by the wind." And the meteorologist answered "yea, I just read about that yesterday". I should link that video to failblog.org. –  Mar 15 '11 at 16:10
  • @Russell, should I paste the links found by @Dogmafrog into the question or is it enough that they're here in the comments? – James H. Kelly Mar 15 '11 at 20:19
  • I would, links in comments tend to get hidden because not all comments show all the time. – Russell Steen Mar 15 '11 at 22:54
  • Someone with a following should Tweet this, Facebook this sumbit this to Digg, etcetera. Huge chance it might blow up; this the best compilation of this kind of material I've come across on the net so far. Relevant + nuclear = lots of views and lots of new users. – Uticensis Mar 16 '11 at 02:34
  • (Not me, I'm not a real big fan of social networking in general). – Uticensis Mar 16 '11 at 02:35
  • Closed because this question would only be relevant to a specific moment in time. – Sklivvz Apr 13 '11 at 09:57
  • Feel free to open a topic in meta to discuss this. – Sklivvz Apr 13 '11 at 10:03
  • I'm reopening now, as this is a question about an ongoing event please comment on or correct out-of-date information you see. – Mad Scientist Apr 15 '11 at 06:16
  • Related: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9522/is-fukushima-reactor-no-4-on-the-verge-of-catastrophic-failure-that-will-destro – John Lyon Nov 13 '13 at 09:43

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The information in this answer is no longer accurate, events at Fukushima have progressed further after this answer was written.

The Chernobyl incident was in a different kind of nuclear reactor, and involved a graphite fire and other problems which couldn't occur at this light water reactor in Japan. Worst case scenario seems to be a catastrophic explosion in one of the reactors housing facilities, destroying the reactor casing and exposing the radioactive material to the atmosphere (I suppose the REAL "worst case" would be a very large explosion scatters portions of the core, but I doubt that's possible in this case). That would increase atmospheric radiation in the local area, probably for a few kilometers. Radiation outside of the immediate area would likely not be immediately fatal. This would last until the reactor could be sealed. As evacuations have already begun it seems the personnel at the plant would be the most in danger.

Realistically it seems there will be a detectable, potentially even dangerous release of radiation. I'd guess people will be exposed to less than 100 milirems in a very bad case (3 mile island incident released about 80 mRem). So far I think they've measured about 10-20 mRems. Leathal dose is about 500 mRems. The reactors are very probably damaged beyond repair. I would guess that the surrounding areas will be off limits for months or even years, but that's speculation. The specter of the disaster will probably cause that even if there are no real dangers.

Mad Scientist
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  • I can't up vote yet, but thanks for the answer. – James H. Kelly Mar 13 '11 at 19:22
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    How feasible it is for a nuclear reactor to "explode" literally? I would assume that there explosive materials are prohibited in the immediate vicinity of the reactor. The worse nuclear accidents that have happened so far are the reactors producing too much heat and the reactor's walls melted (i.e. meltdown, not explosion) and the heat causing combustible materials surrounding the core to catch fire instantaneously. But so far I have seen, none records the core itself exploding (correct me if I'm wrong). – Lie Ryan Mar 13 '11 at 19:36
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    Provide a reliable reference please :-) – Sklivvz Mar 13 '11 at 20:07
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    numerous things about a reactor are potentially explosive, mainly gas build up. I didn't mean to imply the actual REACTOR would explode, but something within the reactor facility which would damage the casing. Which actually happened, but didn't damage the casing. "The explosion rocked a building that houses a nuclear reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi ...the the metal container sheltering a nuclear reactor was not affected by an explosion that destroyed the building housing it." http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/03/explosion-hits-nuclear-power-plant-in-japan-in-quakes-aftermath.html –  Mar 13 '11 at 20:52
  • @Lie Well the reactor in Chernobyl did explode – more precisely, an oxyhydrogen combustion inside the reactor. Allegedly, the same cannot happen in Fukushima (but I’m hazy on the details) since hydrogen cannot build up inside the reactor – instead, it escapes into the containment building … where it blew up. ;-) – Konrad Rudolph Mar 14 '11 at 12:22
  • "How feasible it is for a nuclear reactor to "explode" literally? I " Zero, give or take a few percentage points of that number. The reactor itself (as in the radioactive core) is effectively inert. Under some conditions (and this is supposed to have happened in one of them) a chemical reaction can however generate a large volume of hydrogen gas which can of course react explosively with environmental air. – jwenting Mar 15 '11 at 13:16
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    "Detectable radiation" is a very misunderstood word - people seem to think that detectable radiation is necessarily dangerous. I like using [bananas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose) to convince them of the opposite. – RomanSt Mar 15 '11 at 13:58
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    The reactors most certainly can explode, but certainly not a nuclear explosion. It would be a high-pressure explosion. The hydrogen explosions occurred because they vented the steam in order to reduce the pressure. They do this as both a cooling mechanism and a pressure realease mechanism to prevent excessive pressure buildup so it will not explode. The containment vessels are composed of ridiculous amounts of concrete etc, so the required pressures for a breach and explosion are enormous. – horatio Mar 16 '11 at 15:01
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I think news reports take part in a natural selection process which massively favours sensationalist reports, so it's not surprising to hear a comparison to the Chernobyl power plant.

Chernobyl power plant had a positive void coefficient which is thought to have contributed to the problem. It had no containment building which the Fukushima reactor has.

For these reasons I attribute the comparison to sensationalism rather than actual high likelihood of this occurring.

RomanSt
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  • another major factor is the political leaning of most of the major press, which is heavily alligned with the anti-nuclear lobby. They WANT a disaster to use as ammo against nuclear power in general, just as they did with Chernobyl (when what happened there was both less severe in the long term than presented and impossible to replicate in reactors in the west because of the fundamental differences in reactor design that were willfully omitted from press reports). – jwenting Mar 15 '11 at 13:19
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    "most of the major press" has a specific political leaning? The anti-nuclear "lobby" has a specific political leaning? I'm skeptical. – endolith Mar 15 '11 at 16:01
  • This answer seems dated. Romkyns, is it time to delete? – Oddthinking Apr 20 '12 at 01:03
  • @Oddthinking I’ll be happy for this to get deleted iff the accepted answer gets deleted too: it’s equally dated. Besides, while this disaster was second only to Chernobyl (among nuclear disasters), the disaster at Chernobyl was far, far worse. – RomanSt Apr 20 '12 at 10:28
  • @Oddthinking To clarify, I do think both of these answers fall short of the Skeptics requirements and should both be deleted. – RomanSt Apr 20 '12 at 10:32
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No. Fundamentally they were different types of accidents.

  • The Chornobyl accident was an excursion. Power within the reactor increased, and this increase caused more increase,* in an exponential spiral until the energy was so high that the reactor exploded in a BLEVE. The BLEVE smashed what little containment this type had, directly exposed the reactor core to atmosphere, and set it on fire. The flames and smoke carried the contents of the reactor fuel directly into the atmosphere. The energy for the BLEVE was nuclear fission that happened in that moment; though I wouldn't compare it to a "nuclear explosion" as one would find in a bomb. The consequences of radioactive decay were a footnote here.
  • Fukushima had been shut down and stopped for 24 hours. The accident happened because of the heat of radioactive decay, which occurs in the hours and days after fission stops. Reactors have several layers of systems to handle that, and each reactor had one that was working; but a problem in unit 1's system caused a string of knock-on effects which broke the cooling systems in the other units. However, raw nuclear fuel was never exposed to atmosphere, and never burned. Steam pressure did leak out of containment, and brought with it mostly gases, along with a small amount of liquid and solid materials like I-131 and Cs-137 were also carried by the gases, but nothing like Chornobyl. Later, the decay heat damaged the floor of the containment structure also, allowing other components of nuclear fuel to leach into groundwater and out to sea.

So Fukushima's releases have been of a different nature, because it was carried by gases leaking out of containment, not by fire from the core burning.

Fukushima's output tended toward gases such as Hydrogen-3 (Tritium) and Xenon-135, which have either short half-lives and disappear quickly (H-3, Xe-135 and Iodine-131), or extremely long half-lives and thus extremely low radiation (Cesium-135, which Xe-135 decays to).

Whereas at Chornobyl, the fire carrying reactor core material into the atmosphere caused releases to be tipped heavily toward isotopes like Cesium-137 and Strontium-90, with 30-year half-lives: short enough to have a dangerously high rate of radiation, but long enough to require long-term evacuation.

One of Fukushima's leaks was plain old Hydrogen-1, featured in airships like the Hindenburg. This hydrogen went "straight up", and accumulated in the lightweight "tin roof" area over the maintenance crane at the top of the buildings (outside the containment), and blew out these lightly built areas of the buildings. These explosions were captured on film and looked spectacular, but they did not blow a hole in containment, which is in the lower parts of the buildings made of concrete many feet thick. There were no cameras on Chornobyl, so no means of comparison.

As to the similar INES rating of "7", this is a case of dynamic range clipping. By fiat, the scale stops at 7. Were we to design the scale with 20/20 hindsight, Fukushima would be a 7 and Chornobyl would be an 8 or 9.

* Reactors in the BWR/PWR/VVER families are designed to be dynamically stable; an increase in power has passive side-effects which reduce power, and vice versa. However, RBMK types are the opposite, and an increase in power may have side effects which increase power further, creating a vicious circle. This is exactly what bit Chornobyl; Fukushima was fully shut down so its inherent stability-at-power was never a factor.

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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The Fukushima Daiichi incident was a second Chernobyl. Both were rated as 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale i.e. a Major Accident, the highest on the scale. By comparison, both Three Mile Island in 1979 and the Windscale fire in 1957 were rated 5, an accident with wider consequences.

At Fukushima, (according to this IAEA review) reactors 1, 2 and 3 had meltdowns and reactors 1, 3 and 4 had hydrogen explosions in the reactor buildings, releasing radioactive material into the environment and causing an evacuation eventually extending 30 kilometers in radius plus some special areas, affecting 160,000 residents.

They were both extremely serious, though the details were different, and the death toll was much lower in Fukushima, mainly because of the deaths of firefighters in Chernobyl. The 13-15,000 deaths in the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, mainly by drowning, was far higher than either.

Henry
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