Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Fukushima Disaster - Final research paper


Research Paper – 2


Abdul Rahman Al Ali – S980010553

           

Fukushima

Introduction


        Fukushima had a strong impact on Japan. It was one of the largest nuclear plant facilities, but in March 2011, the plant took significant damage from an earthquake that was rated a 9.0 on the Richter scale. Since this event, the world has witnessed various workers try to prevent any exposure or damage to people around the plant, and that has been rather difficult. Though the majority of these problems started after being struck by a natural disaster, there could have been some kind of precautions taken before this disaster. Japan has a well-known history of natural disasters such as earthquakes. Despite how strong the earthquake was, the outcome scenario of such disaster should have been anticipated. Also, the controlling measurements should have been investigated and  practiced to tackle and limit the radiation exposure upon failure of the station. From the time it was decided to build Fukushima plant until the disaster took place, there were many lessons and ethical principles that could have been considered or used when addressing problems and solutions.

Explain the issue


Japan imports most of its fossil fuel requirement as it lacks the natural resources. Therefore, the idea behind building and utilizing nuclear plants such as Fukushima was more sustainable,  cheaper and efficient on the long run in spite of the higher risk involved. Dealing with such technology must not neglect the history of the climate change in Japan and the likelihood of having earthquakes and tsunami waves that caused the accident. Fukushima has worked with Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to distribute energy for the country since World War II. TEPCO has expanded its various ways of generating energy to water, fuel, and nuclear. Many companies worked together for this nuclear plant project but TEPCO was supposed to cover the maintenance side. The accident took place on Friday, March 11, 2011  after the sudden Tohoku earthquake (Magnitude =9) followed by a high tsunami wave (40 m) that covered the northeast side of Japan where Fukushima plant was located. The accident  caused over (15000) causalities, over (6000) injuries and more than (2000) missing individuals. The natural strike left the reactors in Fukushima three nuclear units in unstable condition causing the fuel rods to melt down inside the cores. In such cases, the radioactive material are vented to atmosphere or dumped in the sea before the temperature further increases and cause explosion.  The station operating managers delayed the use of sea water pouring inside the reactors to protect them which eventually resulted in the total failure of the units. In addition, many controlling actions from the engineers were improperly done which contributed to the accident.

 

Examine the ethical issues involved and the different ways of looking at the problem


       Being that they were ensuring that the facility would run under certain provisions, TEPCO has not withheld their earthquake standards with Fukushima. It is possible that this could suggest falsified paper work or bad reports submitted but that needs to be taken into account by their office in the midst of this recovery. The law should work to eradicate the radiation effects from within the people first because there is a plan available for the plant that will better executed within time. The people should earn more concern to show that the plants end is not as much of a loss. TEPCO has also just confirmed that they would take responsibility. Because of relevant history with the project, it seems as though they should. In 2002, the company was suspected of falsifying 29 cases of safety repair records. These same needed safety repairs could have prevented the meltdown sparked initialized from the earthquakes.

Kiyoshi Kurokawa wrote in the report released 4th of July 2012 in Tokyo, “It could and should have been foreseen and prevented. And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response.” Because of these events, many of Japan’s atomic plants are also looking for an improvement of earthquake standards as well. The operators reported combined losses of 1.6 trillion yen ($20 billion) in the year ended March owing to safety shutdowns of the country’s 50 reactors and higher fuel bills when they started up gas and oil-fired plants. (Inajima, Adelman, and Okada) Though the company is at a loss, it should still be in their best interest to fix what has occurred for the people it affects the most.

The system is also set up for the company rather than the people in its vicinity. (Willacy) The various businesses involved are more in a better stand monetarily than the actual people that were affected by this disaster. People with more to savor and opportunities of safety should work to help. There is one thing that the public can do as of now. TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant, is handing out "temporary compensation" payments - money handed out to victims of the meltdowns, but which must be repaid. Aslihan Tumer, Green peace's international nuclear project leader, says some of the companies are continuing to profit from the reactor. "General Electric designed Fukushima Mark 1 reactor, and both GE, Hitachi and Toshiba built and continued servicing the reactor, and they are also still making, in some cases, money out of the cleaning efforts, as well as the contamination." With the operator TEPCO effectively nationalized, the Japanese taxpayer is now picking up most of the compensation bill for the disaster. (Willacy) I can see where this is for the businesses end benefit. The businesses do not want to lose large amounts of money without knowing it can earn it back. Though the residents were given this temporary compensation that must be repaid, it could be very well used for their health, but at what cost? Treating radiation in a home and for multiple people can be expensive. Citizens that possess and use for work are at more of a disadvantage. As more contamination is found in the country, sales of producing milk are banned, leaving these citizens without any way to generate income.

“Even if it is not safe, I need my fields for my work. I have no other place to go. I don’t even want to think about escaping from my land,” He told the New York Times. “I can’t keep going for too long,” said Kenzo Sasaki, 70, who estimates that he is losing nearly $31,000 — not including the cost of feeding his herd — for every month as banning the milk sales  continues.

Across town, Shoichi Abe, 62, milks about 30 cows in his own dingy barn. He has been unable to sell his 1,100 pounds of daily production since the March 11 earthquake damaged the milk-processing plant at the local farm co-op. Now the government has extended that prohibition indefinitely. Mr. Abe said, “It’s costing us 70,000 yen a day” — about $860. (Willacy) As if money was already short, some citizens may not have access to drinking water. Residents were advised not to drink the tap water. After radioactive iodine was detected in Tokyo’s water supply the government issued a warning that infants should not consume the city’s tap water there. This announcement was made after water with 210 Becquerel’s of radioactive iodine per kilogram was found in water from a treatment plant in Katsushika Ward in Tokyo. The safe limit for infants is 100 Becquerel's of radioactive iodine per kilogram, and 300 for adults Becquerel's per kilogram.

The safe limit and fears about spreading contamination from a crippled nuclear plant led to a panicked rush to buy water in Tokyo. So much bottled water was bought it became scarce nationwide, Japanese authorities considered a plan to import bottled water from overseas. (Hayes) Countries that have citizens with jobs that affect a percentage of the other citizens working should definitely receive some help. You had a purpose to provide something essential but if that is no longer possible for you by law, it should not be held against you by law either. There should be more to do with regards to Public Safety. Utilitarianism would show support of the public being served because the majority of people would acquire the happiness and benefit of the situation. The people of the city need to be helped after understanding that they did nothing wrong and the building has its issues. In the eyes of virtue ethics, there are the cardinal virtues to encounter.  If this situation was to occur on US soil, though I would hope not, various health evacuations and protocol will be taken into account while trying to act quickly for first exposure.  That was done similarly in Japan but there is not a FEMA within their government for the people in the meantime. There must be some kind of justice done towards the people of that town seeing that it is not fair they are without necessary natural resources.

Give your own position and explain why?


      With regards to the future, Japan wants to build an offshore wind farm to replace the nuclear plant. Wind power is going to be a lot safer than nuclear power, but the main hope is that it will suffice the prior market. Over the next two years, the Japanese government will continue taking incremental steps to prove the floating offshore turbine technology, testing three additional types of floating turbine technology. The best-performing turbine type may then be chosen to power a larger offshore wind farm – up to 1,000 MW – located off the Fukushima coastline. (Del Franco) Japan has done research on wind power with America in the past and agrees that there could be positive results from doing so. The hope is that these wind turbines will help overcome and outperform the work done with nuclear power. Depending on how this is accomplished and if this is accomplished, there will be more effort put towards the wind farm.

Japan has had a strong economic fall within the country. Financially, the cost of damages and recovery is still being calculated and the repairs that are trying to be met currently. The failure of the Fukushima plant was a terrible event affecting many lives and much more, but hopefully there can be some real aid given by the country and health studies. Two years ago, I had a chance to visit Japan as part of academic gathering to witness the Japanese industrial technology in many fields that is related to our study. The trip was arranged by the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi and one of the leading companies in Japan in that produces energy. During the trip, I noticed the impact of the Fukushima accident on most of the areas and plants that we visited. As we were told by many high-rank officials in the energy sector, the Japanese Emperor issued a direct law to  conserve energy in most of the industrial and domestic working places. The indoor temperature of most of the places that we stopped by was controlled not less than (24 degrees). Many of the multi-stories buildings used solar panels on the roofs and the tilted surfaces  to lower the dependency on other energy resources such as fossil and nuclear. Most of the offices had automatic lighting sensors. Even the domestic cooking oil was collected from the houses and the restaurants to be recycled to produce bio-fuel. It seemed that the government enforced many regulations to further reduce the need of nuclear energy. I had a short discussion with one of the senior engineers that we met during this trip about the nuclear energy scheme in Japan. Surprisingly, he indicated his astonishment when he learned that the UAE is developing a peaceful nuclear program as an energy alternative. He mentioned how catastrophic the impact of Fukushima accident on Japan and questioned why the UAE bother to implement such dangerous technology when it has enough fossil fuel. I responded that the natural resources are diminishing all over the world not to mention the green house effect that results from using them. I also mentioned that the UAE has the right to establish another form of energy resource such as nuclear plant as long as it abides by the highest safety standards and work ethics related to it. That surely involves learning of the nuclear accidents such as Fukushima and enforces the best risk management procedures in case of any failure. Finally, I think that the people who were responsible about Fukushima Plant failed to outweigh the value of the Japanese people over maintaining the plant and setting up the best methods to predict and control the emergency scenarios. 



 

Bibliography
·         Hayes, Jeffrey. "Impact Of Fukushima Radiation On Farmers, Food, and Water." Facts and Details. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr 2013. <http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=1753>.

·         Inajima Tsuyoshi, Jacob Adelman, and Yuji Okada. "Fukushima Disaster Was Man-Made, Investigation Finds." Bloomberg. N.p., 5 Jul 2012. Web. 10 Apr 2013. <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-05/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-was-man-made- investigation-rules.html>.


·         Willacy, Mark. "Residents paying back Fukushima compensation." ABC News. N.p., 19 Feb 2013. Web. 12 Apr 2013. <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-19/companies-not-paying-compensation-at-fukushima/4528150>.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Apollo 13 Mission

Apollo 13 Mission
The Successful Failure

Introduction:
          In their third attempt to further discover and land on the moon, the United States of America launched Apollo 13 spacecraft on Saturday, 11th of April 1970. The crew for this mission consisted of three astronauts;
§  James A. Lovell Jr. Lead Commander.
§  Fred W. Haise Jr. Pilot of Lunar Module labeled “Aquarius LM-7”.
§  John L. Swigert Jr. Pilot of Command Module labeled “ Odyssey CM-109” 
The prime purpose of this mission was to land on the Fra Mauro Highlands which were formed by a crater on the moon's surface and named after an Italian map maker who existed in the 15th century. The design of the spacecraft was made of three separable modules; the command, the lunar and the service. Apollo 13 was considered the seventh American trial to land on the moon and to collect rock samples from its surface but it never accomplished its target. The reason was attributed to a failure in the thermostatic switches in one of the oxygen tanks which caused an explosion and damaged the command and service modules. The flight which was launched from Kennedy Aerospace Center in Florida was thought to be very smooth and caused slight boredom to the controlling crew on the ground station. However, sometime on 13th April the turning point of this mission started after the explosion of the oxygen tank. Sooner After that, the smooth trip turned to extraordinary efforts to bring its crew back to earth safely. The survival attempt succeeded miraculously by incredible collaboration of the crew on board and the ground crew coordinated by the mission leader Gene Kranz who stated “Failure is not an option”. 

“Houston We have a problem”:

        The explosion in the oxygen tank not only damaged the space shuttle, it was the whistle-blowing event of the whole flight as the target was shifted to rescuing the astronauts instead of landing on the moon. The oxygen was the back bone of the shuttle since it provided the fuel, drinking water, the breathing air for the crew to survive and the power to the electronic devices along with back up batteries. In 1962, NASA had an agreement with another firm called Beech Aircraft to manufacture the oxygen tanks. As per the requested design, each tank was equipped with a heater to vaporize the liquid oxygen which is diverted to the fuel burners or to the reactors to produce energy. The heater within the tank should be controlled by a safety thermostatic switch to regulate it and prevent overheating. Three years later, Beech Association upgraded the capacity of the heater from 28 DC volts to 65 DC volts power. This upgrade didn’t take into account modifying the safety switches to the new capacity.  Prior to the launch, one of the oxygen tanks was tested by filling it and heating it to 85 F. Surprisingly, the technician who was doing this procedure couldn't tell what the exact temperature inside the tank was because the gauges were calibrated to read maximum of 85 F. Therefore, the tank continued to overheat until 1000 F and the technician failed to report any upset because he was instructed to report only if the temperature exceeded 85 F. This overheating caused damage to the Teflon insulation of the stirring fan’s wires in the tank tested (#2 for Apollo 13). Therefore, it was only a matter of time when this tank was in heating mode again to initiate the spark for the disaster. It appeared that this failure reflected mutual responsibility between Beech Association and NASA for not confirming the real design of the oxygen tanks. Moreover, the flight suffered other functional problems afterwards. As the service module was severely damaged, the command module which depended on it became crippled for losing the oxygen. The decision was made to shut off the command module “The Odyssey” and transport to the lunar module “The Aquarius” which was designed to accommodate only two astronauts for two days only. In addition, the empty space reserved to collect the rock samples within the Aquarius made it difficult for the crew to navigate their trajectory. Another problem arose as the carbon dioxide concentration reached a dangerous limit due to the astronauts exhaling. The purification scrubber for CO2 was designed in a round shape in the LM module unlike the square one in the CM which limited its ability to sustain purification for three individuals. Therefore, the ground crew had to fabricate a new device to be fitted to the round scrubber using only items that were already available with the astronauts. Such a scenario wasn't anticipated before but the new developed procedure was successful and well executed between the ground and space crews using verbal instructions only. Also, due to the shortage of power, the ground crew simulated many scenarios in the station to come up with a plan to save power supply for the space crew. As the spacecraft completed a full revolution around the lunar trajectory and entered near Earth, many settings and inputs were entered manually to the computer to prepare the shuttle for reentry. Such new procedure takes months to develop but the ground engineers had only three days to plan it. All of the efforts and collaboration between both parties involved was crowned by the splashing of the command module into the Pacific Ocean after jettisoning from the Aquarius and the service module. 


Ethical issues review:

      NASA began a series of extensive investigations on Apollo 13 after the successful return of its crew on 17th April, 1970. The findings revealed that there were some engineering flaws with the cryogenic oxygen tanks’ design that were neglected or not communicated properly. No adequate contingency plan was available to compensate such failure at that time. The space and ground crew had to make many swift decisions, plans, procedures and settings that were based on trust of doing the right thing as it was never practiced before.  Prior to the tank explosion, no one detected or monitored the temperature of the heater. Why was the heater capacity modified initially without adjusting its thermostatic safety switch?  Why wasn't it properly tested before the flight? Who is responsible for following up this change and securing its application?. Many questions reflected unethical behavior behind Apollo-13's failure. The scenarios that were predicted as part of risk assessment analysis for such a mission obviously neglected some minor cases like proper testing and small equipment failure. Although both crews worked very hard and endured a lot of pressure and tension to solve the situation, many actions were improvised or created after the explosion took place. Such situations should’ve been predicted beforehand taking into account how sophisticated the mission was. Overall, there were many unethical faults that contributed to this accident. On the other hand, the outcome of this accident showed a great deal of dedication, ethical commitment and responsibility from all people involved to bring the astronauts back to earth safely. No one was sure what was right or wrong when most decisions were made. The ethical responsibility was shown when one of the ground crew gave up on saving the astronauts but the mission leader Gene Kranz responded; “This is could be our finest hour”.

Conclusion:
          Many people thought that Apollo-13 mission was cursed by its number. That’s why most lifts in the western countries until today don’t include the number thirteen in them. For me, I think it was just a coincidence even though the explosion happened on April 13th.  After watching the movie that resembled this mission and gathering the information from the internet which were very impressive and thorough, I was able to identify many ethical and non-ethical actions that contributed to this successful failure. However, listing all of them may need more than 1000 words. Every small element that was installed in the spacecraft should’ve been designed and tested many times before sending the astronauts to space. The preparation for such missions should not be rushed for any reason before confirming and predicting all the risky cases and processing a plan to overcome each one. Some problems that occurred needed a solution that normally required months of planning and experimenting. The CO2 scrubber for the Aquarius took an outstanding effort from the ground crew to create a new replacement within a short time where it could’ve been avoided if it was designed like the one in Odyssey. The manufacturing of the spacecraft should’ve included spare oxygen tank or back up energy source to supply power in case of emergency. The design of the lunar module originally was created to serve as a lifeboat in case of any failure with the command module. Despite the fact that it was designed also to accommodate two astronauts only. This indicated sacrificing one of the crew and the low possibility of having the failure. Fortunately, the Aquarius played a vital role in saving the crew in spite of that mistake. Finally, I have to mention how impressive the survival mission was conducted regardless of not accomplishing the main target of the mission which testifies to NASA ingenuity.


1- Apollo-13 crew after rescue 


2- Apollo-13 spacecraft 


References:
1)      Howard, R. (Director). (2005). Apollo 13 film, USA: Universal.
2)      Apollo 13. (2014, April 24). Wikipedia. Retrieved April 28, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13
3)      TSGC | General Archive Index. (n.d.). TSGC | General Archive Index. Retrieved April 24, 2014, from http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/archive/general/ethics/apollo.html

4)      Apollo-13 (29). (n.d.). NASA Apollo Mission Apollo-13. Retrieved April 24, 2014, from http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo-13/apollo-13.html