On March 11, 2011, the Tohoku-Pacific earthquake and the resulting tsunami on the northeastern shore of Honshu created conditions that would ultimately result in the destruction of two-thirds of the generating capacity and severe contamination of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant complex. The full extent of the radiological contamination is not yet known but areas up to 40 km from the site are now contaminated with serious social and food supply implications. Containing and cleaning up this accident will require a sustained effort over many years and at a substantial economic cost to Japan. This event has significant implications for nuclear electric power generation plans in Japan and is already having an impact worldwide on the nuclear power generation industry.
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The Japanese Community at Caltech are collecting donations to send to relief organizations in Japan to aid victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.
Video and audio recordings of 30 March 2011 lecture This lecture gives an overview of the design and safety features of the BWR Mark I reactors, the progression of events, the engineering science of severe accidents in nuclear power plants, and the status of the reactors at that time.
English language version(PDF 22 Mb) These are an expanded version of the slides used in the lectures. There is much more technical information in the slides than in the March 30 or April 7 talk, particularly about severe accidents, hydrogen generation, the radiological consequences, and constrasting this accident with TMI and Chernobyl. Revised and updated 30 Sept 2011.
My updates to the slides are coming to an end although the situation continues to evolve with significant developments being reported each day. There are now over 200 slides describing what has reported up to the end of May and the presentation has grown an index so it can be navigated. This is a good point to freeze this presentation for many reasons. There are a number of official inquires in progress and many organizations that will be producing reports in the coming months and years. In addition, a large amount of data is being released by Tepco and the inevitable sorting out of conflicting information is in progress. Clarifying what actually took place between 11 and 19 March will require substantial investigation over an extended period of time. There is extensive coverage of this on the www and my slides will become progessively less relevant and inevitably incorrect regarding many details - particulary the accident progression early on in the crisis.
The most recent update (13 July) added two dozen slides on clean-up activities in May-July and links to the comprehensive report from Japan as well as the work of other agencies (IAEA, US NRC).
Japanese language translation (partial) (PDF 58 Mb) of the 9 April Version of the slides.
Youtube video of JPL (7 April) version of talk.
News and nuclear power plant safety information sources:
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