Earthqake's Effect on Japanese Nuclear Reactors

As the aftershocks of the massive 8.9 earthquake shudders in the distance of the Pacific ocean, much of Japan has drastically been reduced down to nothing but a pile of wet rubble. However what most effected by the massive earthquake-tsunami combo were the nuclear reaction power plants scattered throughout the island. Early reports Friday night stated that multiple nuclear reactors had exploded, causing much more destruction on top of the devastating death toll already reported in Japan.

So how did this happen, what were the causes of it, and how could it have been prevented? Well as Dylan Renyolds of CNN news reports in his "Q&A: What Has Quake Done to Japanese Nuclear Reactors?" an exploration of the structure of these power plants is needed to understand the basics of this atrocity.

The reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant were hit hard this past week, all of them being boiling-water generators. The fuel inside each one is comprised of Uranium 235 which then undergoes nuclear fission. Because of this reaction, massive amounts of heat are given off, causing the  water to steam. The steam is then used to power a turbine in order to generate electricity.

Now these power plants have an automatic "earthquake-proof" feature that are designed to shut down all reactors in use and flood the systems with water to cool them down before further instruction. However because of the Tsunami, the water generators were flooded by the massive waves, causing them to malfunction. Ironic, I know.

So as you can very well guess, the three out of the six nuclear generators that were up and running last week overheated as a part of their earthquake warning feature; and due to the lack of the available water cooling system as a result of the Tsunami, the power plant exploded.

Nature's wrath.

• Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday that the plant operator confirmed there was no damage to the steel container housing the reactor, just that an explosion due to a massive build-up of heat occurred
• Associate Fellow for Energy Malcolm Grimston stated that he believed the explosion had been caused by a build-up of pressure inside the inner containment of the reactor, and didn't have any direct result with the physical nuclear reactors themselves."Because they lost power to the water cooling system, they needed to vent the pressure that's building up inside. My suspicion is that as the temperature inside the reactor was rising, some of the metal cans that surround the fuel may have burst and at high temperature, that fuel cladding can react with water to produce zirconium oxide and hydrogen. That hydrogen then will be part of the gases that need to be vented. That hydrogen then mixes with the surrounding air. Hydrogen and oxygen can then recombine explosively. So it seems while the explosion wasn't directly connected with the nuclear processes, it was indirectly connected, because the hydrogen was only present because of what was going on in the reactor core." (Click here for the full story)

Be it a pressure build-up or an extreme rise in temperature, Japan's nuclear plants are still at risk of major catastrophic occurrences. As rescue efforts are still underway, much focus is on the thousands of displaced citizens and their well being. I completely agree, but special attention should and must be given to the nuclear reactors in Japan if a catastrophe is to be avoided.