Japan's Nuclear Crisis

Last week one of the largest earthquakes on record shook Northern Japan and triggered a devastating tsunami.  The damage is extensive: so few roads and runways are open that even humanitarian supplies have been seriously delayed.  But the greatest fear of the country isn’t the washed out roads or flattened villages.  It’s an invisible phenomenon with huge historical significance to the Japanese: the threat of nuclear radiation is rising like a ghost recalled from the past.

Nuclear power doesn’t make many headlines these days.  Until last Friday, nuclear plants have been considered in many parts of the world to be the best economical solution to growing power needs.  Japan has 55 nuclear reactors, providing approximately a quarter of the country’s power.  Advancing nuclear technologies have made power more efficient and seemed to invalidate radiation risks illustrated so horrifically by incidents at Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island.  But it is clear that innate nuclear power risks, however diminished, remain.

Japanese security personnel at the nuclear complex.  Photo credit cnn.com.

 The setting for the nuclear showdown in Japan is the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex.  Although this reactor, as well as two others, ceased operations as soon as the magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit, consequent damage to the structure has destabilized the normal cooling operation of the plant and lead to an atomic crisis.  Three hydrogen gas explosions have already rocked the plant, providing evidence that the fuel rods are at above normal temperatures.  Japanese authorities have already announced that steam from a nuclear cooling pond (used to cool the fuel rods) has been released into the atmosphere, meaning that some radiation has already leaked from the plant.  At this point, quantities of released radiation are unknown, but could rise dramatically if cooling of the reactor core is unsuccessful or a breach in the reactor wall occurs. 

But what is the real danger of nuclear radiation?  Unlike other forms of radioactive materials, such as those used commonly in hospitals and industry, nuclear materials are very heavily controlled throughout the world, and for good reason.  Nuclear materials, such as plutonium and uranium, give off neutrons at extremely high energy levels as their nuclei decay.  This kind of radiation easily passes through most matter, but can affect body tissues enough to cause serious medical problems. Short-term nuclear exposure can cause infections, hair loss, and fevers, and in extreme cases, organ failure and death.  Long-term exposure can cause cancer, tumors, and genetic damage.  Even shielded nuclear radiation sources can emit gamma radiation, which brings other health risks. 

The nature of this nuclear crisis, as well as many related scenarios, requires the use of a combination of radiation detectors all working together to minimize risks.  Our products are designed for just this.  In case of a radiation release, a perimeter could be set up using small, handheld MiniRad-D devices.  These pager-sized radiation detectors can sense radiation from tens of meters away.  The MiniRad-D could also be used to check personnel leaving the nuclear zone to determine if decontamination is needed.

The MiniRad-D is self-calibrating and uses a high-sensitivity scintillation detection system.

 The Rad-D unit is ideal for placement in unmanned locations to monitor ambient changes to radiation levels.  The system requires no maintenance and sophisticated neutron detectors can be configured into the system as well as gamma detectors. 

At the forefront of the crisis, specialized equipment designed for finding and identifying the type of radiation is needed.  The high-energy nature of nuclear radiation tends to saturate detectors and is hard to differentiate from gamma radiation.  Special neutron detector systems, such as the Helium-3 gas-filled tubes used by D-tect Systems in both the Rad-ID and Rad-D systems, sort out gamma rays and detect and identify neutron radiation.  The Rad-ID also contains a combination of detector types to find radiation over a wide range of energies, and from large amounts of radiation to sources emitting just above background radiation.

The Rad-ID can identify over 110 radioactive isotopes.

 We hope for the best in the Japan’s current nuclear crisis and that future wise decisions will mitigate the risks involved with nuclear power.