Fukushima Nuclear Accident Part II

 

Energy policy

Prior to the accident, over 25% of domestic electricity generation in Japan used nuclear power and Japan had set a fairly ambitious green house gas (GHG) reduction target of 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, which involved increasing the share of nuclear power in electricity generation from 30% to 50%.  However, this plan was abandoned and the target was revised to a 5.2% emissions increase by 2020 following the accident, alongside a focus on reducing dependence on nuclear power in favor of improved thermal efficiency in fossil fuel energy use and increasing the share of "renewables". The contribution of nuclear energy dropped to less than one percent following the accident and all nuclear reactors in the country were shut down by 2013.  This resulted in an increase in the share of fossil fuel energy use, which had increased to ~94% by 2015 (the highest of any IEA member state, with the remaining ~6% produced by renewables, an increase from 4% in 2010). The required fossil fuel imports in 2011 resulted in a trade deficit for the first time in decades which would continue in the following decade.

In the immediate aftermath, nine prefectures served by TEPCO experienced power rationing. The government asked major companies to reduce power consumption by 15%, and some shifted their work hours to smooth power demand. As of 2013, TEPCO and eight other Japanese power companies were paying approximately 3.6 trillion JPY (37 billion USD) more in combined imported fossil fuel costs compared to 2010 to make up for the missing power.

Elections

On 16 December 2012, Japan held a general election. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had a clear victory, with Shinzō Abe as the new Prime Minister. Abe supported nuclear power, saying that leaving the plants closed was costing the country 4 trillion yen per year in higher costs. The comment came after Junichiro Koizumi, who chose Abe to succeed him as premier, made a statement to urge the government to take a stance against using nuclear power. A survey on local mayors by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in 2013 found that most of them from cities hosting nuclear plants would agree to restarting the reactors, provided the government could guarantee their safety. More than 30,000 people marched on 2 June 2013, in Tokyo against restarting nuclear power plants. Marchers had gathered more than 8 million petition signatures opposing nuclear power.

Previously a proponent of building more reactors, Prime Minister Naoto Kan took an increasingly anti-nuclear stance following the accident. In May 2011, he ordered the aging Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant closed over earthquake and tsunami concerns, and said he would freeze building plans. In July 2011, Kan said, "Japan should reduce and eventually eliminate its dependence on nuclear energy".

International impact

In May 2011, UK chief inspector of nuclear installations Mike Weightman traveled to Japan as the lead of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expert mission. The main finding of this mission, as reported to the IAEA ministerial conference that month, was that risks associated with tsunamis in several sites in Japan had been underestimated.

In September 2011, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said the Japanese nuclear disaster "caused deep public anxiety throughout the world and damaged confidence in nuclear power". Following the accident, the IAEA halved its estimate of additional nuclear generating capacity to be built by 2035.

In the aftermath, Germany accelerated plans to close its nuclear power reactors and decided to phase out the rest by 2022. German media coverage conflated the casualties of the earthquake and tsunami, with casualties of the nuclear incident. Belgium and Switzerland also changed their nuclear policies to phase-out all nuclear energy operations, but have undone these plans since. Italy held a national referendum, in which 94 percent voted against the government's plan to build new nuclear power plants. In France, President Hollande announced the intention of the government to reduce nuclear usage by one third. However, the government earmarked only one power station for closure – the aging Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant on the German border – which prompted some to question the government's commitment to Hollande's promise. Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg stated Fessenheim will be the only nuclear power station to close. On a visit to China in December 2014 he reassured his audience that nuclear energy was a "sector of the future" and would continue to contribute "at least 50%" of France's electricity output. Another member of Hollande's Socialist Party, Christian Bataille, said that Hollande announced the nuclear curb to secure the backing of his Green coalition partners in parliament.

China continued developing nuclear power in the decade following. In 2015, China had hoped to have 400–500 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050 – 100 times more than it had in 2015.

The number of nuclear power plant constructions started each year worldwide, from 1954 to 2013. Following an increase in new constructions from 2007 to 2010, there was a decline after the Fukushima nuclear accident.

New nuclear projects were proceeding in some countries. The consulting firm KPMG reported in 2018 that 653 new nuclear facilities were planned or proposed for completion by 2030. In 2019, the United Kingdom was planning a major nuclear expansion despite some public objection. Russia had similar plans. In 2015, India was also pressing ahead with a large nuclear program, as was South Korea. Indian Vice President M. Hamid Ansari said in 2012 that "nuclear energy is the only option" for expanding India's energy supplies, and Prime Minister Modi announced in 2014 that India intended to build 10 more nuclear reactors in a collaboration with Russia.

Radiation effects in humans

Coastal seawater contamination by caesium-137, from 21 March until 5 May 2011

Radiation exposure of those living in proximity to the accident site was estimated at 12–25 millisieverts (mSv) in the year following the accident. Residents of Fukushima City were estimated to have received 4 mSv in the same time period. In comparison, the dosage of background radiation received over a lifetime is 170 mSv. Very few or no detectable cancers are expected as a result of accumulated radiation exposure. Residents who were evacuated were exposed to so little radiation that radiation-induced health effects were likely to be below detectable levels. There was no increase in miscarriages, stillbirths or physical and mental disorders in babies born after the accident.

Outside the geographical areas most affected by radiation, even in locations within Fukushima prefecture, the predicted risks remain low, and no observable increases in cancer above natural variation in baseline rates are anticipated. — World Health Organization, 2013

Estimated effective doses outside Japan are considered to be below (or far below) the levels regarded as very small by the international radiological protection community. Canadian academic studies failed to show any significant amount of radiation in the coastal waters off Canada's west coast. The report's author received death threats from supporters promoting the idea of a "wave of cancer deaths across North America".

The World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations (UN), and researchers from other groups were particularly concerned about thyroid cancer as a result of the radiation. In January 2022, six such patients who were children at the time of the accident sued TEPCO for 616 million yen after developing thyroid cancer. The scientific consensus suggests that the increase in detectable thyroid cancer fell within statistical background noise due to the screening effect, and that the cancers did not have chromosomal aberrations consistent with exposure to ionizing radiation, except for that caused by CT scans.

Leukemia, breast cancer, and other solid cancers were studied by the WHO. Increase in lifetime cancer relative to baseline risk for infants was reported because these represent an upper bound for the cancer related health risks. The WHO notes that a large increase in thyroid cancer is partially due to extremely low baseline rates.

Linear no-threshold models (LNT)

LNT models estimate that the accident would most likely cause 130 cancer deaths. However, LNT models have large uncertainties and are not useful for estimating health effects from radiation, especially when the effects of radiation on the human body are not linear, and with obvious thresholds. The WHO reports that the radiation levels from the accident were below the thresholds for deterministic effects from radiation.

Radiation effects in non-humans

On 21 March 2011, the first restrictions were placed on the distribution and consumption of contaminated items. However, the results of measurements of both the seawater and the coastal sediments led to the supposition that the consequences of the accident, in terms of radioactivity, would be minor for marine life as of autumn 2011. Despite caesium isotopic concentrations in the waters off Japan being 10 to 1000 times above the normal concentrations prior to the accident, radiation risks are below what is generally considered harmful to marine animals and human consumers.

Marine life has been tested for cesium and other radionuclides since the accident. These studies found elevated levels of cesium in marine life from 2011 to 2015. Migratory pelagic species are also highly effective and rapid transporters of pollutants throughout the ocean. Elevated levels of Cs-134 appeared in migratory species off the coast of California that were not seen prior to the accident.

In April 2014, studies confirmed the presence of radioactive tuna off the coasts of the Pacific U.S. Researchers carried out tests on 26 albacore tuna caught prior to the 2011 power plant accident and those caught after. However, the amount of radioactivity is less than that found naturally in a single banana. Cs-137 and Cs-134 have been noted in Japanese whiting in Tokyo Bay as of 2016. "Concentration of radiocesium in the Japanese whiting was one or two orders of magnitude higher than that in the sea water, and an order of magnitude lower than that in the sediment." They were still within food safety limits.

In June 2016, the political advocacy group International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, asserted that 174,000 people have been unable to return to their homes and ecological diversity has decreased and malformations have been found in trees, birds, and mammals. Although physiological abnormalities have been reported within the vicinity of the accident zone, the scientific community has largely rejected any such findings of genetic or mutagenic damage caused by radiation, instead showing it can be attributed either to experimental error or other toxic effects.

In February 2018, Japan renewed the export of fish caught off Fukushima's nearshore zone. According to prefecture officials, no seafood had been found with radiation levels exceeding Japan safety standards since April 2015. In 2018, Thailand was the first country to receive a shipment of fresh fish from Japan's Fukushima prefecture. A group campaigning to help prevent global warming has demanded the Food and Drug Administration disclose the name of the importer of fish from Fukushima and of the Japanese restaurants in Bangkok serving it. Srisuwan Janya, chairman of the Stop Global Warming Association, said the FDA must protect the rights of consumers by ordering restaurants serving Fukushima fish to make that information available to their customers, so they could decide whether to eat it or not.

In February 2022, Japan suspended the sale of black rockfish from Fukushima after it was discovered that one fish from Soma had 180 times more radioactive Cesium-137 than legally permitted. The high levels of radioactivity led investigators to believe it had escaped from a breakwater at the accident site, despite nets intended to prevent fish from leaving the area. Forty-four other fish from the accident site have shown similar levels.

Investigations

Three investigations into the accident showed the man-made nature of the catastrophe and its roots in regulatory capture associated with a "network of corruption, collusion, and nepotism." A New York Times report found that the Japanese nuclear regulatory system consistently sided with, and promoted, the nuclear industry based on the concept of amakudari ('descent from heaven'), in which senior regulators accepted high paying jobs at companies they once oversaw.

In August 2011, several top energy officials were fired from their jobs by the Japanese government; affected positions included the Vice-minister for Economy, Trade and Industry; the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and the head of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

In 2016 three former TEPCO executives, chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and two vice presidents, were indicted for negligence resulting in death and injury. The three pleaded not guilty, and in September 2019, the court agreed.

NAIIC

The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) was the first independent investigation commission by the National Diet in the 66-year history of Japan's constitutional government.

The chairman highlighted that it was foreseeable and preventable. The commission's findings included that the government and TEPCO lacked the sense that they were the ones responsible for protecting society. "They effectively betrayed the nation's right to be safe from nuclear accidents." The commission argued that the accident had particularly Japanese characteristics because its causes were linked to "conventions of Japanese culture" such as obedience, "reluctance to question authority", and groupism.

The Commission recognized that the affected residents were still struggling and facing grave concerns, including the "health effects of radiation exposure, displacement, the dissolution of families, disruption of their lives and lifestyles and the contamination of vast areas of the environment".

ICANPS

The purpose of the Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations (ICANPS) was to identify the accident's causes and propose policies designed to minimize the damage and prevent the recurrence of similar incidents. The 10 member, government-appointed panel included scholars, journalists, lawyers, and engineers. It was supported by public prosecutors and government experts and released its final 448-page investigation report on 23 July 2012.

The panel's report faulted an inadequate legal system for nuclear crisis management, a crisis-command disarray caused by the government and TEPCO, and possible excess meddling on the part of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's office in the crisis' early stage. The panel concluded that a culture of complacency about nuclear safety and poor crisis management led to the nuclear accident.

Remediation and recovery

IAEA team examining Unit 3

To assuage fears, the government enacted an order to decontaminate over a hundred areas where the level of additional radiation was greater than one millisievert per year. This is a much lower threshold than is necessary for protecting health. The government also sought to address the lack of education on the effects of radiation and the extent to which the average person was exposed.

In 2018, tours to visit the accident area began. In September 2020, The Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum was opened in the town of Futaba, near the power plant. The museum exhibits items and videos about the earthquake and the nuclear accident. To attract visitors from abroad, the museum offers explanations in English, Chinese, and Korean.

Fuel removal

TEPCO plans to remove the remaining nuclear fuel material from the plants. TEPCO completed the removal of 1535 fuel assemblies from the Unit 4 spent fuel pool in December 2014 and 566 fuel assemblies from the Unit 3 spent fuel pool in February 2021. TEPCO plans to remove all fuel rods from the spent fuel pools of Units 1, 2, 5, and 6 by 2031 and to remove the remaining molten fuel debris from the reactor containments of Units 1, 2, and 3 by about 2050. Plant management estimated the ongoing intensive cleanup program to both decontaminate affected areas and decommission the plant will take 30 to 40 years from the accident.

Treating contaminated water

As of 2013, about 400 metric tons (390 long tons; 440 short tons) of cooling water per day was being pumped into the reactors. Another 400 metric tons (390 long tons; 440 short tons) of groundwater was seeping into the structure. Some 800 metric tons (790 long tons; 880 short tons) of water per day was removed for treatment, half of which was reused for cooling and half diverted to storage tanks. Ultimately the contaminated water, after treatment to remove radionuclides other than tritium, has to be discharged into the Pacific ocean. TEPCO created an underground ice wall to block the flow of groundwater into the reactor buildings. A $300 million 7.8 MW cooling facility freezes the ground to a depth of 30 meters. As of 2019, the contaminated water generation had been reduced to 170 metric tons (170 long tons; 190 short tons) per day.

In February 2014, NHK reported that TEPCO was reviewing its radioactivity data, after finding much higher levels of radioactivity than was reported earlier. Groundwater collected in July 2013 contained 5 MBq (0.12 millicuries) of strontium per liter (23 MBq/imp gal; 19 MBq/U.S. gal; 610 μCi/imp gal; 510 μCi/U.S. gal) not the 900 kBq (0.02 millicuries) (4.1 MBq/imp gal; 3.4 MBq/U.S. gal; 110 μCi/imp gal; 92 μCi/U.S. gal) that were initially reported.

On 10 September 2015, floodwaters driven by Typhoon Etau prompted mass evacuations in Japan and overwhelmed the drainage pumps at the stricken power plant. Hundreds of metric tons of radioactive water entered the ocean as a result. Plastic bags filled with contaminated soil and grass were also swept away by the flood waters.

As of October 2019, 1.17 million cubic meters of contaminated water was stored in the plant area. The water is being treated by a purification system that can remove radionuclides, except tritium, to a level that Japanese regulations allow to be discharged to the sea. As of December 2019, 28% of the water had been purified to the required level, while the remaining 72% needed additional purification. However, tritium cannot be separated from the water. As of October 2019, the total amount of tritium in the water was about 856 terabecquerels, and the average tritium concentration was about 0.73 megabecquerels per liter.

A 2020 committee set up by the Japanese Government concluded that the purified water should be released to the sea or evaporated to the atmosphere. The committee calculated that discharging all the water to the sea in one year would cause a radiation dose of 0.81 microsieverts to the local people, whereas evaporation would cause 1.2 microsieverts. For comparison, Japanese people get 2100 microsieverts per year from natural radiation. IAEA considers that the dose calculation method is appropriate. Further, the IAEA recommended that a decision on the water disposal must be made urgently. Despite the negligible doses, the Japanese committee is concerned that the water disposal may cause reputational damage to the prefecture, especially to the fishing industry and to tourism.

In 2021, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority warned that the some of 3,373 waste storage containers for the radioactive slurry were degrading faster than expected. Due to the fact that transferring the slurry to a new container was very time consuming, this posed an urgent problem.

Tanks used to store the water were expected to be filled in 2023. In July 2022, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority approved discharging the treated water into the sea. Japan said the water is safe, many scientists agreed, and the decision came weeks after the UN's nuclear watchdog approved the plan; but critics say more studies need to be done and the release should be halted. In August, Japan began the discharge of treated waste water into the Pacific Ocean, sparking protests in the region and retaliation from China, who blocked all imports of seafood from Japan. Discharges were planned to occur over the subsequent 30 years to release all the water. A US State Department spokesperson supported the decision. South Korea's foreign minister and activists from Japan and South Korea protested the announcement. In April 2023, fishers and activists held protests in front of the Japanese embassy in the Philippines in opposition to the planned release of 1.3 million tons of treated water into the Pacific Ocean.

Compensation and government expenses

Initial estimates of costs to Japanese taxpayers were in excess of ¥12 trillion ($110 billion inflation adjusted). In December 2016 the government estimated decontamination, compensation, decommissioning, and radioactive waste storage costs at ¥21.5 trillion ($200 billion inflation adjusted), nearly double the 2013 estimate. By 2022, ¥12.1 trillion had already been spent, with ¥7 trillion on compensation, ¥3 trillion on decontamination, and ¥2 trillion on decommissioning and storage. Despite concerns, the government expected total costs to remain under budget.

In March 2017, a Japanese court ruled that negligence by the Japanese government had led to the Fukushima accident by failing to use its regulatory powers to force TEPCO to take preventive measures. The Maebashi district court near Tokyo awarded ¥39 million ($400,000 inflation adjusted) to 137 people who were forced to flee their homes following the accident. On 30 September 2020, the Sendai High Court ruled that the Japanese government and TEPCO are responsible for the accident, ordering them to pay $9.5 million in damages to residents for their lost livelihoods. In March 2022, Japan's Supreme Court rejected an appeal from TEPCO and upheld the order for it to pay damages of ¥1.4 billion ($12 million) to about 3,700 people whose lives were harmed by the accident. Its decision covered three class-action lawsuits, among more than 30 filed against the utility.

On 17 June 2022, the Supreme Court acquitted the government of any wrongdoing regarding potential compensation to over 3,700 people affected by the accident.

On 13 July 2022, four former TEPCO executives were ordered to pay ¥13 trillion ($95 billion) in damages to the operator of the power plant, in the civil case brought by TEPCO shareholders.

Equipment, facility, and operational changes

A number of nuclear reactor safety system lessons emerged from the incident. The most obvious was that in tsunami-prone areas, a power station's sea wall must be adequately tall and robust. At the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, closer to the epicenter of the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the sea wall was 14 meters (46 ft) tall and successfully withstood the tsunami, preventing serious damage and radioactivity releases.

Nuclear power station operators around the world began to install passive autocatalytic recombiners ("PARs"), which do not require electricity to operate. PARs work much like the catalytic converter on the exhaust of a car to turn potentially explosive gases such as hydrogen into water. Had such devices been positioned at the top of the reactor buildings, where hydrogen gas collected, the explosions would not have occurred and the releases of radioactive isotopes may have been less.

Unpowered filtering systems on containment building vent lines, known as Filtered Containment Venting Systems (FCVS), can safely catch radioactive materials and thereby allow reactor core depressurization, with steam and hydrogen venting with minimal radioactivity emissions. Filtration using an external water tank system is the most common established system in European countries, with the water tank positioned outside the containment building. In 2013, TEPCO installed additional filters, vents, and other safety systems at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

For Generation II reactors located in flood or tsunami prone areas, a 3+ day supply of back-up batteries has become an informal industry standard. Another change is to harden the location of back-up diesel generator rooms with water-tight, blast-resistant doors and heat sinks, similar to those used by nuclear submarines.

Upon a station blackout, similar to the one that occurred after the back-up battery supply was exhausted, many constructed Generation III reactors adopt the principle of passive nuclear safety. They take advantage of convection and gravity to ensure an adequate supply of cooling water to handle the decay heat, without the use of pumps.

As the crisis unfolded, the Japanese government sent a request for robots developed by the U.S. military. The robots went into the plants and took pictures to help assess the situation, but they couldn't perform the full range of tasks usually carried out by human workers. The accident illustrated that robots lacked sufficient dexterity and robustness to perform critical tasks. In response to this shortcoming, a series of competitions were hosted by DARPA to accelerate the development of humanoid robots that could supplement relief efforts. Eventually a wide variety of specially designed robots were employed (leading to a robotics boom in the region), but as of early 2016, three of them had promptly become non-functional due to the intensity of the radioactivity.

Prior warning

On 5 July 2012, the NAIIC found that the causes of the accident had been foreseeable, and that TEPCO had failed to meet basic safety requirements such as risk assessment, preparing for containing collateral damage, and developing evacuation plans. At a meeting in Vienna, Austria, three months after the accident, the IAEA faulted lax oversight by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, saying the ministry faced an inherent conflict of interest as the government agency in charge of both regulating and promoting the nuclear power industry. On 12 October 2012, TEPCO admitted that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants.

Tsunami studies

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned of a risk of losing emergency power in 1991 and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency referred to that report in 2004, but took no action to mitigate the risk.

In 2000, an in-house TEPCO report recommended safety measures against seawater flooding, based on the potential of a 15 meters (49 ft) tsunami. TEPCO did not act due to concerns about creating anxieties over the safety of the nuclear power plant.

In 2002, the government earthquake research headquarters estimated that a tsunami up to 15.7 meters (52 ft) could hit the power station. These findings were supported by the cabinet office's own findings which stated that the 5.6 meters (18 ft) forecast by TEPCO did not cover the full range of possibility. TEPCO's in-house 2008 study identified an immediate need to better protect the facility from flooding by seawater which cited the 15.7 meters (52 ft) estimate from the 2002 study.

In 2009, the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center urged TEPCO and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to revise their assumptions for possible tsunami heights upwards, based on his team's findings about the 869 Sanriku earthquake, but this was not seriously considered at the time.

Unit 1 EDG disabled by flooding in 1991

On 30 October 1991, one of unit 1's EDGs failed as a result of a condensate coolant leak in the turbine building, as reported by former employees in December 2011. A TEPCO report in 2011 detailed that the room was flooded through a door and some holes for cables, but the power supply was not cut off by the flooding. An engineer reported to superiors the possibility that a tsunami could damage the generators. In response, TEPCO installed doors to prevent water from leaking into the generator rooms.

Venting systems

American nuclear scientists identified manually activated venting systems to be riskier than a passive approach five years prior to the accident. The venting system for unit 3 had several issues before its explosion. By 2011, new reactor designs used passive venting systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident

Fukushima Nuclear Accident Part I

 

On March 11, 2011, a major nuclear accident started at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The direct cause was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in electrical grid failure and damaged nearly all of the power plant's backup energy sources. The subsequent inability to sufficiently cool reactors after shutdown compromised containment and resulted in the release of radioactive contaminants into the surrounding environment.  The accident was rated seven (the maximum severity) on the International Nuclear Event Scale by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, following a report by the JNES (Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization). It is regarded as the worst nuclear incident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which was also rated a seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, "no adverse health effects among Fukushima residents have been documented that are directly attributable to radiation exposure from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant accident". Insurance compensation was paid for one death from lung cancer, but this does not prove a causal relationship between radiation and the cancer. Six other persons have been reported as having developed cancer or leukemia. Two workers were hospitalized because of radiation burns, and several other people sustained physical injuries as a consequence of the accident.

Criticisms have been made about the public perception of radiological hazards resulting from accidents and the implementation of evacuations (similar to the Chernobyl nuclear accident), as they were accused of causing more harm than they prevented. Following the accident, at least 164,000 residents of the surrounding area were permanently or temporarily displaced (either voluntarily or by evacuation order). The displacements resulted in at least 51 deaths as well as stress and fear of radiological hazards.

Investigations faulted lapses in safety and oversight, namely failures in risk assessment and evacuation planning. Controversy surrounds the disposal of treated wastewater once used to cool the reactor, resulting in numerous protests in neighboring countries.

The expense of cleaning up the radioactive contamination and compensation for the victims of the Fukushima nuclear accident was estimated by Japan's trade ministry in November 2016 to be 20 trillion yen (equivalent to 180 billion US dollars).

Background

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant consisted of six General Electric (GE) light water boiling water reactors (BWRs). Unit 1 was a GE type 3 BWR. Units 2–5 were type 4. Unit 6 was a type 5.

At the time of the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011, units 1–3 were operating. However, the spent fuel pools of all units still required cooling.

Materials

Many of the internal components and fuel assembly cladding are made from a zirconium alloy (Zircaloy) for its low neutron cross section. At normal operating temperatures (~300 °C (572 °F)), it is inert. However, above 1,200 °C (2,190 °F), Zircaloy can be oxidized by steam to form hydrogen gas or by uranium dioxide to form uranium metal. Both of these reactions are exothermic. In combination with the exothermic reaction of boron carbide with stainless steel, these reactions can contribute to the overheating of a reactor.

Isolated cooling systems

In the event of an emergency, reactor pressure vessels (RPV) are automatically isolated from the turbines and main condenser and are instead switched to a secondary condenser system which is designed to cool the reactor without the need for pumps powered by external power or generators. The isolation condenser (IC) system involved a closed coolant loop from the pressure vessel with a heat exchanger in a dedicated condenser tank. Steam would be forced into the heat exchanger by the reactor pressure, and the condensed coolant would be fed back into the vessel by gravity. Each reactor was initially designed to be equipped with two redundant ICs which were each capable of cooling the reactor for at least 8 hours (at which point, the condenser tank would have to be refilled). However, it was possible for the IC system to cool the reactor too rapidly after shutdown which could result in undesirable thermal stress on the containment structures. To avoid this, the protocol called for reactor operators to manually open and close the condenser loop using electrically operated control valves.

After the construction of Unit 1, the following units were designed with new open-cycle reactor core isolation cooling (RCIC) systems. This new system used the steam from the reactor vessel to drive a turbine which would power a pump to inject water into the pressure vessel from an external storage tank to maintain the water level in the reactor vessel and was designed to operate for at least 4 hours (until the depletion of coolant or mechanical failure). Additionally, this system could be converted into a closed-loop system which draws coolant from the suppression chamber (SC) instead of the storage tank, should the storage tank be depleted. Although this system could function autonomously without an external energy source (besides the steam from the reactor), direct current (DC) was needed to remotely control it and receive parameters and indications and alternating current (AC) was required to power the isolation valves.

In an emergency where backup on-site power was partially damaged or insufficient to last until a grid connection to off-site power could be restored, these cooling systems could no longer be relied upon to reliably cool the reactor. In such a case, the expected procedure was to vent both the reactor vessel and primary containment using electrically or pneumatically operated valves using the remaining electricity on site. This would lower the reactor pressure sufficiently to allow for low-pressure injection of water into the reactor using the fire protection system to replenish water lost to evaporation.

On-site backup power

Station operators switched the reactor control to off-site power for shutdown, but the system was damaged by the earthquake. Emergency diesel generators (EDG) then automatically started to provide AC power.  Two EDGs were available for each of units 1–5 and three for unit 6.  Of the 13 EDGs, 10 were water-cooled and placed in the basements about 7–8 m below the ground level. The coolant water for the EDGs was carried by several seawater pumps placed on the shoreline which also provide water for the main condenser. These components were unhoused and only protected by the seawall. The other three EDGs were air-cooled and were connected to units 2, 4, and 6. The air-cooled EDGs for units 2 and 4 were placed on the ground floor of the spent fuel building, but the switches and various other components were located below, in the basement. The third air-cooled EDG was in a separate building placed inland and at higher elevations. Although these EDGs are intended to be used with their respective reactors, switchable interconnections between unit pairs (1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6) allowed reactors to share EDGs should the need arise.

The power station was also equipped with backup DC batteries kept charged by AC power at all times, designed to be able to power the station for approximately 8 hours without EDGs. In units 1, 2, and 4, the batteries were located in the basements alongside the EDGs. In units 3, 5, and 6, the batteries were located in the turbine building where they were raised above ground level.

Fuel inventory

The units and central storage facility contained the following numbers of fuel assemblies:

Reactor fuel assemblies 400 548 548 0 548 764 N/A

Spent fuel assemblies 292 587 514 1331 946 876 637

New fuel assemblies 100 28 52 204 48 64 N/A

Earthquake tolerance

The original design basis was a zero-point ground acceleration of 250 Gal and a static acceleration of 470 Gal, based on the 1952 Kern County earthquake (0.18 g, 1.4 m/s2, 4.6 ft/s2). After the 1978 Miyagi earthquake, when the ground acceleration reached 0.125 g (1.22 m/s2, 4.0 ft/s2) for 30 seconds, no damage to the critical parts of the reactor was found. In 2006, the design of the reactors was reevaluated with new standards requiring the reactors to withstand accelerations ranging up to 450 Gal.

Venting systems

In the event of an emergency, operators planned to pump water into the reactors to keep them cool. This would inevitably create steam which should not be very radioactive because the fuel would still be in the primary containment vessel. Therefore, the steam would manually be released by venting valves to prevent a high pressure explosion.

Accident

The height of the tsunami that struck the station approximately 50 minutes after the earthquake.

A: Power station buildings

B: Peak height of tsunami

C: Ground level of site

D: Average sea level

E: Seawall to block waves

Earthquake

The 9.0 MW earthquake occurred at 14:46 on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter off of the east coast of the Tōhoku region. It produced a maximum ground g-force of 560 Gal, 520 Gal, 560 Gal at units 2, 3, and 5 respectively. This exceeded the seismic reactor design tolerances of 450 Gal, 450 Gal, and 460 Gal for continued operation, but the seismic values were within the design tolerances of unit 6.

Upon detecting the earthquake, all three operating reactors (units 1, 2, and 3) automatically shut down. Due to expected grid failure and damage to the switch station as a result of the earthquake, the power station automatically started up the emergency diesel generators (EDGs), isolated the reactor from the primary coolant loops, and activated the emergency shutdown cooling systems.

Tsunami and loss of power

The largest tsunami wave was 13–14 m (43–46 feet) high and hit approximately 50 minutes after the initial earthquake, overtopping the seawall and exceeding the plant's ground level, which was 10 m (33 ft) above sea level.

The waves first damaged the seawater pumps along the shoreline, 10 of the plant's 13 cooling systems for the emergency diesel generators (EDGs). The waves then flooded all turbine and reactor buildings, damaging EDGs and other electrical components and connections located on the ground or basement levels at approximately 15:41. The switching stations that provided power from the three EDGs located higher on the hillside also failed when the building that housed them flooded. One air-cooled EDG, that of unit 6, was unaffected by the flooding and continued to operate. The DC batteries for units 1, 2, and 4 were also inoperable shortly after flooding.

As a result, units 1–5 lost AC power and DC power was lost in units 1, 2, and 4.  In response, the operators assumed a loss of coolant in units 1 and 2 and developed a plan in which they would vent the primary containment and inject water into the reactor vessels with firefighting equipment.  Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the utility operator and owner, notified authorities of a "first-level emergency".

Two workers were killed by the impact of the tsunami.

Reactors

Unit 1

The isolation condenser (IC) was functioning prior to the tsunami, but the DC-operated control valve outside of the primary containment had been in the closed position at the time to prevent thermal stresses on the reactor components. Some indications in the control room stopped functioning and operators correctly assumed loss of coolant (LOC). At 18:18 on 11 March, a few hours after the tsunami, operators attempted to manually open the IC control valve, but the IC failed to function, suggesting that the isolation valves were closed. Although they were kept open during IC operation, the loss of DC power in unit 1 (which occurred shortly before the loss of AC power) automatically closed the AC-powered isolation valves to prevent uncontrolled cooling or a potential LOC. Although this status was unknown to the plant operators, they correctly interpreted the loss of function in the IC system and manually closed the control valves. The plant operators would continue to periodically attempt to restart the IC in the following hours and days, but it did not function.

The plant operators then attempted to use the building's fire protection (FP) equipment, operated by a diesel-driven fire pump (DDFP), to inject water into the reactor vessel. However, the reactor pressure had already increased to many times greater than the limit of the DDFP. Additionally, the team detected high levels of radiation within the secondary confinement structure, indicating damage to the reactor core, and found that the primary containment vessel (PCV) pressure (0.6 MPa) exceeded design specifications (0.528 MPa). In response to this new information, the reactor operators began planning to lower the PCV pressure by venting. The PCV reached its maximum pressure of 0.84 MPa at 02:30 on 12 March, after which it stabilized around 0.8 MPa. The decrease in pressure was due to an uncontrolled vent via an unknown pathway. The plant was notified that Okuma town completed evacuation at 9:02 on 12 March. The staff subsequently began controlled venting. Venting of the PCV was completed later that afternoon at 14:00.

At the same time, pressure in the reactor vessel had been decreasing to equalize with the PCV, and the workers prepared to inject water into the reactor vessel using the DDFP once the pressure had decreased below the 0.8 MPa limit. Unfortunately, the DDFP was found to be inoperable and a fire truck had to be connected to the FP system. This process took about 4 hours, as the FP injection port was hidden under debris. The next morning (12 March, 04:00), approximately 12 hours after the loss of power, freshwater injection into the reactor vessel began, later replaced by a water line at 09:15 leading directly from the water storage tank to the injection port to allow for continuous operation (the fire engine had to be periodically refilled). This continued into the afternoon until the freshwater tank was nearly depleted. In response, injection stopped at 14:53 and the injection of seawater, which had collected in a nearby valve pit (the only other source of water), began. Power was restored to units 1 (and 2) using a mobile generator at 15:30 on 12 March.

At 15:36, a hydrogen explosion damaged the secondary confinement structure (the RB). The workers evacuated shortly after the explosion. The debris produced by the explosion damaged the mobile emergency power generator and the seawater injection lines. The seawater injection lines were repaired and put back into operation at 19:04 until the valve pit was nearly depleted of seawater at 01:10 on the 14th. The seawater injection was temporarily stopped in order to refill the valve pit with seawater using a variety of emergency service and JSDF vehicles. However, the process of restarting seawater injection was interrupted by another explosion in unit 3 RB at 11:01 which damaged water lines and prompted another evacuation. Injection of seawater into unit 1 would not resume until that evening, after 18 hours without cooling.

Subsequent analysis in November 2011 suggested that this extended period without cooling resulted in the melting of the fuel in unit 1, most of which would have escaped the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) and embedded itself into the concrete at the base of the PCV. Although at the time it was difficult to determine how far the fuel had eroded and diffused into the concrete, it was estimated that the fuel remained within the PCV.

Computer simulations, from 2013, suggest "the melted fuel in Unit 1, whose core damage was the most extensive, had breached the bottom of the primary containment vessel and had even partially eaten into its concrete foundation, coming within about 30 cm (1 ft) of leaking into the ground". A Kyoto University nuclear engineer said with regard to these estimates: "We just can't be sure until we actually see the inside of the reactors."

Unit 2

Unit 2 was the only other operating reactor which experienced a total loss of AC and DC power. Before the blackout, the RCIC was functioning as designed without the need for operator intervention. The safety relief valves (SRVs) would intermittently release steam directly into the PCV suppression torus at its design pressure and the RCIC properly replenished lost coolant. However, following the total blackout of Unit 2, the plant operators (similar to Unit 1) assumed the worst-case scenario and prepared for a LOC incident. However, when a team was sent to investigate the status of the RCIC of unit 2 the following morning (02:55), they confirmed that the RCIC was operating with the PCV pressure well below design limits. Based on this information, efforts were focused on unit 1.  However, the condensate storage tank from which the RCIC draws water was nearly depleted by the early morning, and so the RCIC was manually reconfigured at 05:00 to recirculate water from the suppression chamber instead.

On the 13th, unit 2 was configured to vent the PCV automatically (manually opening all valves, leaving only the rupture disk) and preparations were made to inject seawater from the valve pit via the FP system should the need arise. However, as a result of the explosion in unit 3 the following day, the seawater injection setup was damaged and the isolation valve for the PCV vent was found to be closed and inoperable.

At 13:00 on the 14th, the RCIC pump for unit 2 failed after 68 hours of continuous operation. With no way to vent the PCV, in response, a plan was devised to delay containment failure by venting the reactor vessel into the PCV using the SRVs to allow for seawater injection into the reactor vessel.

The following morning (15 March, 06:15), another explosion was heard on site coinciding with a rapid drop of suppression chamber pressure to atmospheric pressure, interpreted as a malfunction of suppression chamber pressure measurement. Due to concerns about the growing radiological hazard on site, almost all workers evacuated to the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant.

Unit 3

Although AC power was lost, some DC power was still available in unit 3 and the workers were able to remotely confirm that the RCIC system was continuing to cool the reactor. However, knowing that their DC supply was limited, the workers managed to extend the backup DC supply to about 2 days by disconnecting nonessential equipment, until replacement batteries were brought from a neighboring power station on the morning of the 13th (with 7 hours between loss and restoration of DC power). At 11:36 the next day, after 20.5 hours of operation, the RCIC system failed. In response, the high-pressure coolant injection (HPCI) system was activated to alleviate the lack of cooling while workers continued to attempt to restart the RCIC. Additionally, the FP system was used to spray the PCV (mainly the SC) with water in order to slow the climbing temperatures and pressures of the PCV.

On the morning of the 13th (02:42), after DC power was restored by new batteries, the HPCI system showed signs of malfunction. The HPCI isolation valve failed to activate automatically upon achieving a certain pressure. In response, the workers switched off HPCI and began injection of water via the lower-pressure firefighting equipment. However, the workers found that the SRVs did not operate to relieve pressure from the reactor vessel to allow water injection by the DDFP. In response, workers attempted to restart the HPCI and RCIC systems, but both failed to restart. Following this loss of cooling, workers established a water line from the valve pit to inject seawater into the reactor alongside unit 2. However, water could not be injected due to RPV pressures exceeding the pump capability. Similarly, preparations were also made to vent the unit 3 PCV, but PCV pressure was not sufficient to burst the rupture disk.

Later that morning (9:08), workers were able to depressurize the reactor by operating the safety relief valves using batteries collected from nearby automobiles. This was shortly followed by the bursting of the venting line rupture disk and the depressurization of the PCV. Unfortunately, venting was quickly stopped by a pneumatic isolation valve which closed on the vent path due to a lack of compressed air, and venting was not resumed until over 6 hours later once an external air compressor could be installed. Despite this, the reactor pressure was immediately low enough to allow for water injection (borated freshwater, as ordered by TEPCO) using the FP system until the freshwater FP tanks were depleted, at which point the injected coolant was switched to seawater from the valve pit.

Cooling was lost once the valve pit was depleted but was resumed two hours later (unit 1 cooling was postponed until the valve pit was filled). However, despite being cooled, PCV pressure continued to rise and the RPV water level continued to drop until the fuel became uncovered on the morning of the 14th (6:20), as indicated by a water level gauge, which was followed by workers evacuating the area out of concerns about a possible second hydrogen explosion similar to unit 1.

Shortly after work resumed to reestablish coolant lines, an explosion occurred in unit 3 RB at 11:01 on 14 March, which further delayed unit 1 cooling and damaged unit 3's coolant lines. Work to reestablish seawater cooling directly from the ocean began two hours later, and cooling of unit 3 resumed in the afternoon (approximately 16:00) and continued until cooling was lost once more as a result of site evacuation on the 15th.

Unit 4

Unit 4 was not fueled at the time, but the unit 4 spent fuel pool (SFP) contained a number of fuel rods. 

On 15 March, an explosion was observed at unit 4 RB during site evacuation. A team later returned to the power station to inspect unit 4, but were unable to do so due to the present radiological hazard.[8]: 44  The explosion damaged the fourth-floor rooftop area of Unit 4, creating two large holes in a wall of the reactor building (RB). The explosion was likely caused by hydrogen passing to unit 4 from unit 3 through shared pipes.

The following day, on the 16th, an aerial inspection was performed by helicopter which confirmed there was sufficient water remaining in the SFP. On the 20th, water was sprayed into the uncovered SFP, later replaced by a concrete pump truck with a boom on the 22nd.

Unit 5

Unit 5 was fueled and was undergoing an RPV pressure test at the time of the accident, but the pressure was maintained by an external air compressor and the reactor was not otherwise operating. Removal of decay heat using the RCIC was not possible, as the reactor was not producing sufficient steam.  However, the water within the RPV proved sufficient to cool the fuel, with the SRVs venting into the PCV, until AC power was restored on 13 March using the unit 6 interconnection, allowing the use of the low-pressure pumps of the residual heat removal (RHR) system. Unit 5 was the first to achieve a cold shutdown in the afternoon on the 20th.

Unit 6

Unit 6 was not operating, and its decay heat was low. All but one EDG was disabled by the tsunami, allowing unit 6 to retain AC-powered safety functions throughout the incident. However, because the RHR was damaged, workers activated the make-up water condensate system to maintain the reactor water level until the RHR was restored on the 20th. Cold shutdown was achieved on the 20th, less than an hour after unit 5.

Common Spent Fuel Pool

On 21 March, temperatures in the fuel pond had risen slightly, to 61 °C (142 °F), and water was sprayed over the pool. Power was restored to cooling systems on 24 March and by 28 March, temperatures were reported down to 35 °C (95 °F).

The town of Namie (population 21,000) was evacuated as a result of the accident.

Radionuclide release

Quantities of the released material are expressed in terms of the three predominant products released: caesium-137 (137Cs), iodine-131 (131I), and xenon-133. Estimates for atmospheric releases range from 7–20 PBq for 137Cs, 100–400 PBq for 131I, and 6,000–12,000 PBq for xenon-133.  Once released into the atmosphere, those which remain in a gaseous phase were simply diluted by the atmosphere, but those that precipitate eventually settled on land or in the ocean. Approximately 40–80% of the atmospheric 137Cs was deposited in the ocean. Thus, the majority (90~99%) of the radionuclides deposited were isotopes of iodine and caesium, with a small portion of tellurium, which almost fully vaporized out of the core due to their high vapor pressure. The remaining fraction of deposited radionuclides were of less volatile elements such as barium, antimony, and niobium, of which less than a percent evaporated from the fuel.

In addition to atmospheric deposition, there was also a significant quantity of direct releases into groundwater (and eventually the ocean) through leaks of coolant which had been in direct contact with the fuel. Estimates for this release vary from 1 to 5.5 PBq 137Cs and 10–20 PBq 131I. 

According to the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, the release from the accident represents the most important individual oceanic emissions of artificial radioactivity ever observed. The Fukushima coast has one of the world's strongest currents (Kuroshio Current). It transported the contaminated waters far into the Pacific Ocean, dispersing the radioactivity. As of late 2011, measurements of both the seawater and the coastal sediments suggested that the consequences for marine life would be minor. Significant pollution along the coast near the plant might persist, because of the continuing arrival of radioactive material transported to the sea by surface water crossing contaminated soil. The possible presence of other radioactive substances, such as strontium-90 or plutonium, had not been sufficiently studied. Recent measurements show persistent contamination of some marine species (mostly fish) caught along the Fukushima coast.

Consequences

Evacuation

Immediate response

In response to the station blackout during the initial hours of the accident and the ongoing uncertainty regarding the cooling status of units 1 and 2, a 2 km radius evacuation of 1,900 residents was ordered at 20:50. However, due to difficulty coordinating with the national government, a 3 km evacuation order of ~6,000 residents and a 10 km shelter-in-place order for 45,000 residents was established nearly simultaneously at 21:23. The evacuation radius was expanded to 10 km at 5:44, and was then revised to 20 km at 18:25. The size of these evacuation zones was set for arbitrary reasons at the discretion of bureaucrats rather than nuclear experts. Communication between different authorities was scattered and at several times the local governments learned the status of evacuation via the televised news media. Citizens were informed by radio, trucks with megaphones, and door to door visits.  Many municipalities independently ordered evacuations ahead of orders from the national government due to loss of communication with authorities; at the time of the 3 km evacuation order, the majority of residents within the zone had already evacuated.

Due to the multiple overlapping evacuation orders, many residents had evacuated to areas which would shortly be designated as evacuation areas. This resulted in many residents having to move multiple times until they reached an area outside of the final 20 km evacuation zone.  20% of residents who were within the initial 2 km radius had to evacuate more than six times.

Additionally, a 30 km shelter in place order was communicated on the 15th, although some municipalities within this zone had already decided to evacuate their residents. This order was followed by a voluntary evacuation recommendation on the 25th, although the majority of residents had evacuated from the 30 km zone by then. The shelter in place order was lifted on 22 April, but the evacuation recommendation remained.

Fatalities

Of an estimated 2,220 patients and elderly who resided within hospitals and nursing homes within the 20 km evacuation zone, 51 fatalities are attributed to the evacuation. One worker at the power plant died 4 years later of lung cancer, having been exposed to 74 mSv since the accident. However Geraldine Thomas claimed "there is a vanishingly small chance that this man’s lung cancer was as a result of the radiation he was exposed to".

Communication failures

The Japanese public felt that the government and TEPCO provided limited information about the accident in the early weeks. Expert analysis of the accident that was understandable to lay-persons was not given by the government or TEPCO, but by Masashi Gotō, a retired reactor vessel designer at Toshiba, the company that manufactured four of the six of reactor units. Gotō had a series of press briefings at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan starting from 14 March 2011.

There were several instances early in the accident response in which data about the accident was not properly handled. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) only sent data from the SPEEDI network to the Fukushima prefectural government and was later criticized for delaying the communication of data to the U.S. military. Additionally, the U.S. military produced a detailed map using aircraft and provided it to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) on 18 March and to MEXT two days later, but no new evacuation plans were made a week after the accident. The data was not forwarded to the Nuclear Safety Commission, but was made public by the United States on the 23rd.

TEPCO officials were instructed not to use the phrase "core meltdown" in order to conceal the meltdown until they officially recognized it two months after the accident.

Japan towns, villages, and cities in and around the Daiichi nuclear plant exclusion zone. The 20 and 30 km (12 and 19 mi) areas had evacuation and shelter in place orders, and additional administrative districts that had an evacuation order are highlighted. However, the above map's factual accuracy is called into question as only the southern portion of Kawamata district had evacuation orders. More accurate maps are available.

The Japanese government did not keep records of key meetings during the crisis. Emails from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to the Fukushima prefectural government, including evacuation and health advisories from 12 March 23:54 to 16 March 09:00, went unread and were deleted.

Mental health and evacuation side effects

In January 2015, the number of residents displaced due to the accident was around 119,000, peaking at 164,000 in June 2012. In terms of months of life lost, the loss of life would have been far smaller if all residents had done nothing at all, or were sheltered in place, instead of evacuated.

In the former Soviet Union, many patients with negligible radioactive exposure after the Chernobyl accident displayed extreme anxiety about radiation exposure. They developed many psychosomatic problems, including radiophobia along with an increase in fatalistic alcoholism. As Japanese health and radiation specialist Shunichi Yamashita noted:

We know from Chernobyl that the psychological consequences are enormous. Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years – not because of cancer, but because of depression, alcoholism, and suicide. Relocation is not easy, the stress is very big. We must not only track those problems, but also treat them. Otherwise people will feel they are just guinea pigs in our research.

A 2012 survey by the Iitate local government obtained responses from approximately 1,743 evacuees within the evacuation zone. The survey showed that many residents are experiencing growing frustration, instability, and an inability to return to their earlier lives. Sixty percent of respondents stated that their health and the health of their families had deteriorated after evacuating, while 39.9% reported feeling more irritated compared to before the accident.

Summarizing all responses to questions related to evacuees' current family status, one-third of all surveyed families live apart from their children, while 50.1% live away from other family members (including elderly parents) with whom they lived before the disaster. The survey also showed that 34.7% of the evacuees have suffered salary cuts of 50% or more since the outbreak of the nuclear disaster. A total of 36.8% reported a lack of sleep, while 17.9% reported smoking or drinking more than before they evacuated.

Stress often manifests in physical ailments, including behavioral changes such as poor dietary choices, lack of exercise, and sleep deprivation. Survivors, including some who lost homes, villages, and family members, were found likely to face mental health and physical challenges. Much of the stress came from lack of information and from relocation.

A 2014 metareview of 48 articles indexed by PubMed, PsycINFO, and EMBASE, highlighted several psychophysical consequences among the residents in Miyagi, Iwate, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Tokyo. The metareview found mass fear among Fukushima residents which was associated with depressive symptoms, anxiety, sleep disturbance, post-traumatic stress disorder, maternal distress, and distress among the employees of the nuclear plant. The rates of psychological distress among evacuated people rose fivefold compared to the Japanese average due to the experience of the accident and evacuation. An increase in childhood obesity in the area after the accident has also been attributed to recommendations that children stay indoors instead of going outside to play.

Camp Fire 2018 Part II

 

Economic impacts

The volume of insurance claims overwhelmed Merced Property and Casualty Company, a small insurer founded in 1906, to the point of insolvency (policyholders' surplus $25 million). In response to a notice given by the company, the California Department of Insurance reviewed and then placed it into liquidation. This allows the California Insurance Guarantee Association, a state guaranty association, to cover claims. The Department of Insurance will continue with a review of all insurers with a domicile in California so to determine the exposure of each to Camp Fire losses. An estimate by the Los Angeles Times of Merced Property and Casualty Company's assets and reinsurance shows that they would only be able to cover 150 homes out of the 14,000 homes destroyed in a region where they were one of the only companies that still provided fire insurance policies despite the region being categorized as a high fire-hazard severity zone by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. This is the only known instance of an insurance company becoming insolvent from a single event.

On November 16, the Chico city council passed an emergency ordinance to prohibit price gouging in Chico, by preventing the cost of rent, goods or services from being increased by more than 10 percent for six months.

The Camp Fire was the most expensive natural disaster in the world in 2018 in terms of insured losses. The firm Munich Re estimated that the fire caused $12.5 billion in covered losses and $16 billion in total losses.

PG&E bankruptcy

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Facing potential liabilities of $30 billion from the wildfire, the electrical utility that was responsible for the transmission line suspected of sparking the wildfire, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), on January 14, 2019, began the process of filing for bankruptcy with a 15-day notice of intention to file for bankruptcy protection. On January 29, 2019, PG&E Corporation, the parent corporation of PG&E, filed for bankruptcy protection. Because fire survivors are unsecured creditors with the same priority as bondholders, they will only be paid in proportion to their claim size if anything is left after secured and priority claims are paid; it nearly ensures that they will not get paid in full. PG&E had a deadline of June 30, 2020 to exit bankruptcy in order to participate in the California state wildfire insurance fund established by AB 1054 that helps utilities pay for future wildfire claims.

PG&E settled for $1 billion with state and local governments in June, 2019, and settled for $11 billion with insurance carriers and hedge funds in September, 2019. Claims for wildfire victims consist of wrongful death, personal injuries, property loss, business losses, and other legal damages. Representatives for wildfire victims said PG&E owed $54 billion or more, and PG&E was offering $8.4 billion for fire damages, Cal Fire, and FEMA. FEMA originally requested PG&E for $3.9 billion from the wildfire victims fund, threatening to take the money from individual wildfire victims if PG&E did not pay, and Cal OES had an overlapping $2.3 billion request, but they later settled for $1 billion after all wildfire victims are paid.

On November 12, 2019, PG&E in its proposed reorganization plan provided an additional $6.6 billion for the claims of wildfire victims and other claimants, increasing the amount to $13.5 billion. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), this puts the total amount for fire claims at $25.5 billion. This consists of $11 billion to insurance companies and investment funds, $1 billion to state and local governments, and $13.5 billion for other claims.

On December 6, 2019, PG&E proposed to settle the wildfire victim claims for a total of $13.5 billion, which would cover liability for its responsibility originating from the Camp Fire, Tubbs Fire, Butte Fire, Ghost Ship warehouse fire, and also a series of wildfires beginning on October 8, 2017, collectively called the 2017 North Bay Fires. The offer was tendered as part of PG&E's plan to exit bankruptcy. Wildfire victims will get half of their $13.5 billion settlement as stock shares in the reorganized company, adding to the uncertainty as to when and how much they will be paid. On June 12, 2020, because of uncertainties in the value of the liquidated stock, in part because of the financial market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, PG&E agreed to increase the amount of stock.

On June 16, 2020, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for those that died in the Camp Fire, for which it will pay the maximum fine of $3.5 million and end all further criminal charges against PG&E. This action does not alleviate PG&E of any future civil claims by victims of the Camp Fire which would fall outside the bankruptcy proceedings, as well as how existing litigation against PG&E may be handled.

On Saturday, June 20, 2020, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali issued the final approval of the plan for the reorganized PG&E to exit bankruptcy,meeting the June 30, 2020 deadline for PG&E to qualify for the California state wildfire insurance fund for utilities.

Fire Victim Trust

On July 1, 2020, the PG&E Fire Victim Trust (FVT) was established as part of the reorganization plan of the 2019 bankruptcy of PG&E to administer the claims of the wildfire victims. Also on July 1, PG&E funded the FVT with $5.4 billion in cash and 22.19% of stock in the reorganized PG&E, which covered most of the obligations of its settlement for the wildfire victims. PG&E had two more payments totaling $1.35 billion in cash that were paid in January 2021 and January 2022 to complete its obligations to the wildfire victims. For additional funding, on January 28, 2021, the FVT sued multiple PG&E contractors responsible for tree trimming, infrastructure inspections and maintenance for breach of contract and neglect, and on February 24, 2021, sued 22 former PG&E officers and directors for breach of fiduciary duty by failing to put in place policies and practices to respond to deficient tree trimming work and aging infrastructure. On September 29, 2022, the FVT announced that they had settled the lawsuit against PG&E's former officers and directors for $117 million.

Initially, the Trustee, the Honorable John K. Trotter (Ret.), and the Claims Administrator, Cathy Yanni, were in charge of the FVT. On July 1, 2022, Cathy Yanni became Trustee of the FVT, replacing Justice John Trotter. Claimants are wildfire victims from the 2015 Butte Fire, 2017 North Bay Fires, and 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California. The 2017 Tubbs Fire is considered to be one of the 2017 North Bay Fires. Victims of the 2019 Kincade Fire are not covered by the FVT. Victims of the 2016 Ghost Ship warehouse fire are not covered by the FVT, but by PG&E's insurance coverage for the year 2016.

Claims for wildfire victims include real estate and personal property, personal income loss, business loss, wrongful death, personal injury, emotional distress, zone of danger, and nuisance claims. Wildfire victims will be paid in cash, funded partly from the cash portion of the settlement, and partly from 478 million shares of PG&E stock that will be liquidated into cash on a schedule and at a price that is not yet determined. Starting November 23, 2020, the FVT began issuing Preliminary Payments up to $25,000 for those with significant losses. There were 71,394 wildfire victims who filed claims by the deadline of February 26, 2021. Starting March 15, 2021, the FVT began issuing the first installment of Pro Rata Payments (partial payments) to eligible claimants. This first installment was 30% of the Approved Claim Amount for their damages, because the total amount of money available to the FVT is unknown. Starting February 15, 2022, the FVT began issuing payments with a Pro Rata of 45%, meaning that those that had already received a payment would get a supplemental payment, and payments made after February 15, 2022, would be at 45%. As of September 30, 2022, there were 244,292 distinct claims that had been filed, and the FVT had distributed $5.08 billion to 49,301 wildfire victims.

Investigation

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and state utility regulators investigated Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to determine if they complied with state laws in the areas burned in the fire. The Associated Press noted the fire started near a property where PG&E detected sparks on the day before its outbreak. PG&E was convicted of a felony due to a gas pipeline explosion in 2010 and is on probation, which means penalties for subsequent crimes are enhanced. PG&E also reported damage to the Caribou-Palermo transmission line 15 minutes before flames were first reported under the wires; the same line was previously damaged in a windstorm in December 2012.

Investigators believe that the failure of a badly maintained steel hook holding up a high voltage line was a key cause of the fire. A PG&E report to CPUC on December 11, 2018, said that "it had found a hook designed to hold up power lines on the tower was broken before the fire, and that the pieces showed wear."

A distribution line in Concow malfunctioned a half hour later, which was considered as a possible second ignition source. On November 11, PG&E employees saw bullets and bullet holes on pole equipment from the Big Bend distribution line affected by that outage, and downed wires, damaged poles and fallen trees about two thirds of a mile away.

Following the fire, multiple fire victims sued PG&E and its parent company in San Francisco County Superior Court before a definite cause had been determined, accusing PG&E of failure to properly maintain its infrastructure and equipment. In mid-May 2019, California state investigators announced that PG&E was responsible for the fire. The Cal Fire report was sent to the Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey.

The hook that failed, ultimately causing the Camp Fire, was given by the Butte County District Attorney's office to the Golden Nugget Museum in Paradise for its exhibit on the fire.

Response

First responders

While successful in evacuating nearly the entire town of Paradise, first responders were limited by an insufficient number of cell phone repeaters, which resulted in communication difficulties and reduced Internet speed: "Paradise quickly lost its equipment, the California Public Utilities Commission confirmed." The wildfire alert system was similarly hampered by damaged cell towers; 17 towers burned the first day. Many residents didn't sign up for the warnings, some neighborhoods for some reason did not receive any warnings, and the failure rate of the warnings that did get sent ranged from 25 to 94 percent.

Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T CEO, committed to fixing this problem, as AT&T added mobile repeaters to improve coverage. Two weeks into the fire, 66 cell repeaters were still damaged or out of service, and the remaining cell infrastructure was overloaded.

Only two dispatchers were on duty to field thousands of calls to 911.

Initial widespread confusion about reporting missing people limited the search for victims. The Butte County Sheriff's Office opened a call center, staffed daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., to provide and receive information and inquiries on missing persons.

The North Valley Animal Disaster Group worked with law enforcement and other shelters, rescue groups and independent operations to rescue and reunite pets and families, and established an animal shelter at the Chico Airport.

Fire resources were stretched as the fire began on the same day as the Woolsey Fire and the Hill Fire in Southern California. Camp Fire resource requests alone equalled the entire 6,000 Cal Fire full-time fire professionals. Both fires pulled resources from 17 states to respond.

By the second day of the fire, only half the fire resources had assembled. The initial response within Paradise was shouldered by Paradise's three fire engines in stations 81, 82, and 83, and the two engines at Butte County Cal Fire Station 35.

At the height of deployment, there were 5,596 firefighters (including 770 inmate firefighters), 622 engines, 75 water tenders, 101 fire crews, 103 bulldozers, 24 helicopters, and 12 fixed-wing aircraft.

On the morning of ignition, high winds limited fixed-wing air support. By that afternoon, calming winds allowed for nine fixed-wing aircraft on the fire, including five 1,200-gallon S-2 Trackers, three 3,000-gallon BAE 146s, and one 12,000-gallon DC-10 Air Tanker. Eventually, three additional aircraft were deployed from out of state, including two 1,620-gallon CL-415 Super Scoopers that arrived from their home in Washington on November 9 and a 19,600-gallon 747 Supertanker that arrived from its home in Colorado on November 11 after gaining a contract to work on federal land.

The California National Guard activated 700 soldiers to assist, including 100 military police officers from the 49th Brigade to provide security and search for remains with the assistance of 22 cadaver dogs. The 2632nd Transportation company provided haul trucks. The 140th Regiment provided air support. The 224th Sustainment Brigade constructed Alaska tents for temporary facilities.

Evacuation centers

From November 8 to December 1, an encampment formed in a vacant lot next to the Walmart store in nearby Chico. The camp was in addition to motel room vouchers from FEMA and ten shelters established by the Red Cross and churches to house evacuees. Over a hundred people had become ill with norovirus at the shelters due to poor hygiene in overcrowded centers—prompting many to camp outdoors. Volunteers from across the region came to the camp and provided services for food, shelter, and sanitation; fire refugees referred to their camp as 'Wallywood.' The camp population swelled to over a thousand people. Butte County has a persistent homeless population of 7,500 people; many reside in Chico, and some campers were revealed as resident homeless people who did not live in the fire zone. On December 1, the firefighter camp facilities at the Butte County Fairgrounds became available, whereupon the Walmart camp was closed and the field fenced off, with the remaining fifty refugees relocated to the firefighters' camp.

Mental health support

Recovery efforts included supporting the mental health of Camp Fire victims, particularly the youth. Some former residents reported survivor guilt, troubling dreams, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress.To ease the stress on fire victims, several people brought therapy dogs from the Butte Humane Society's Animal Assisted Wellness program. Lise Van Susteren summarized the burden these children bear in experiencing climate change, "These kids are at the tip of the spear."

Environmental cleanup

The Camp Fire cleanup became the largest hazardous material cleanup in state history. Due to the time required to clean up a town of nearly 30,000 people and surrounding rural metro region of another 3,000 people, and the infeasible task of developing temporary housing, residents were allowed to take up residence on their burned-out lots, which possibly exposed them to hazardous materials. Winter rains began at the end of the Camp Fire and as a result, hazardous contaminants soaked into the ground and ran into waterways which raised concerns for the drinking water. Another concern was benzene contamination from burning plastic pipes. Paradise tested sections of their water supply and initially "22 out of 24 water systems were tested" and announced as passed. Later, the Paradise Irrigation District issued a notice that the water is contaminated and cannot be used. For water tributaries within the 244-square-mile burn, "a months-long water monitoring program [sampled] surface water at least seven times through spring 2019." While heavy metals and dioxins were concerns, a more pressing public health issue was an intestinal parasite, cryptosporidium, to which bare soil provided greater access to water systems.

FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) collaborated on developing a site to process fire zone demolition and remediation debris. Of fifty potential sites within thirty miles of Paradise, they identified the 200-acre Koppers Superfund Site in Oroville as a suitable site based on an industrial zoning and a rail spur; the site ultimately was dismissed due to concerns of toxicity. After consideration, all fifty sites were rejected and instead, hazardous waste, such as electronics, car batteries, and asbestos were hauled several hours by trucks directly from the individual cleanup sites to landfills in California and Nevada.

The government procurement for cleanup was broken into several contract packages and put out to public bid to remove, process, and dispose of five million tons of materials at a cost of $3 billion:

ECC Constructors LLC, SF Bay Area, CA: Remove debris from half of Paradise, CA ($359 million).

SPSG Partners, a joint venture of Pacific States Environmental Contractors (in partnership with De Silva Gates Construction, Dublin, CA), Goodfellow Brothers Construction, and Sukut Construction, Santa Ana, CA: Remove debris from half of Paradise, CA ($378 million).

CERES Environmental Services (aka Environmental & Demolition Services Group), Sarasota, FL: Remove debris from areas outside the town of Paradise ($263 million).

Tetra Tech, Pasadena, CA: Test soils for contamination ($250 million). Parent company Tetra Tech EC faked soil tests in Bayview–Hunters Point, San Francisco; two company supervisors were sentenced to prison.

Offhaul contracts went to several local sites, which avoided the need for rail offhaul to out of state sites:

Waste Management; Anderson, CA: Contaminated demolition, such as ash, debris, and soil.

Recology; Wheatland, CA: Contaminated demolition, such as ash, debris, and soil.

Odin Metal; Oroville, CA: Metals, such as burned vehicles and equipment.

Granite's Pacific Heights Recycling; Oroville, CA: Concretes, such as house foundations and driveways.

Franklin Recycling; Paradise, CA: Concretes, such as house foundations and driveways.

Concrete will be shipped out of the county by truck as needed.

The Paradise Fire Safe Council is looking at putting out bids for salvage logging the 443,000 dead trees, which would otherwise be the responsibility of homeowners at a combined cost of $750 million. There are challenges—such as logging must be within a few months or the trees will begin to rot—these challenges are being tested through a pilot program.

Wildland and climate

The Los Angeles Times reported the Camp Fire burned across an area burned to bare dirt by a hot burning wildfire ten years earlier, then salvage logged; fire ecologist Chad Hanson suggested brush piles and young trees left over after the salvage logging provided fast-burning fuels aiding the fire's rapid spread. The Camp Fire was initially fueled by dry grass amid sparse pine and oak woodlands. This drove most of the post-event discussion away from timber management as a future fire-prevention solution.

The fire was largely driven by extreme weather conditions — high winds and low humidity — and spread through fuels parched by more than 200 days without significant precipitation, part of a statewide drought related to climate change.

The Sacramento Bee looked at if residential development is appropriate in the Sierra Nevada wildland-urban zones, quoting a former Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District chief, "There's just some places a subdivision shouldn't be built." Issues include if development can be safe, and if safe, what building codes and emergency response infrastructure would be needed. That discussion pointed to other Sierra Foothill communities similar to Paradise. Cal Fire states "Those kinds of geographic features are present in many foothill towns." Those features include proximity and alignment to river canyons channeling wind-fed flames over foothill communities. Visiting Professor Moritz (UC Santa Barbara) notes "if we were to go back and do the wind mapping, we would find, at some intervals, these areas are prone to these north and northeasterly [strong hot autumn wind] events."

Political

On November 10, then-U.S. president Donald Trump stated that "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor", including the Camp Fire and the concurrent Woolsey Fire in Southern California. In a tweet, he threatened to end federal assistance unless "gross mismanagement of the forests" is remedied.

Trump elaborated on his claims in an interview with Chris Wallace and during his trip to Paradise, stating "you got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest — very important" and "[Finland] spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem." Finland's president Sauli Niinistö was baffled by Trump's assertions and denied they talked about raking, leading to an Internet phenomenon of Finnish people sharing photos of themselves sarcastically raking forests with items such as house brooms and vacuum cleaners.

Some fire experts refuted Trump's claims, noting Californians were experiencing unusually dry conditions and abnormally high fire danger. Brian Rice, president of the California Professional Firefighters, described Trump's assertion about state forest management practices as "demeaning" and "dangerously wrong", noting that 60 percent of California forests are directly managed by federal agencies, primarily the United States Forest Service, which had reduced spending on forest management in recent years.

Regardless of the assertions for greater attention to raking by the President at the time, an ongoing discussion in California had revolved around the issue of increasing fire hazard due to a buildup of fuels. In 2016, prior to the Camp Fire, then Governor Jerry Brown warned that this is "the new normal", yet in September 2016, despite unanimous legislative approval, California Governor Brown vetoed Senate Bill 1463, which aimed to reduce the risk of power lines sparking fires in brush-covered and wooded areas. The key provisions in SB1463 were requirements to define in R.15-05-006 what "Enhanced mitigation measures" means and to explain how concerns of regional fire agencies were incorporated into R.15-05-006. The Governor pointed out that the bill duplicated ongoing efforts by Cal-Fire and PG&E in fire mapping power lines with R.15-05-006. Subsequent to the veto, "on January 19, 2018 the CPUC adopted, via Safety and Enforcement Division's (SED) disposition of a Tier 1 Advice Letter, the final CPUC Fire-Threat Map." See the resulting firemap here, the region that would become the Camp Fire ignition point is a Tier 2 (elevated) hazard, which is a large area that burned heavily in 2008, and much of the burn area is Tier 3 (extreme), which had never burned in recorded history.

Following the Camp Fire, the CPUC moved on a new approach to fire prevention with a vote on December 15, 2018, to improve rules governing when utilities should disable power lines to reduce the risk of fires.

US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled May 7, 2019 that the board of PG&E would be required to tour the fire area, at a hearing on the utility's violation of its criminal Federal probation for its negligence in causing the 2010 San Bruno natural gas pipeline failure and subsequent explosion. This violation of Federal probation predated the Camp Fire; after the 2017 Honey Fire, a much smaller but also in Butte County, investigators found that PG&E equipment started that fire. The company settled with prosecutors but did not properly report these events to its Federal probation officer.

Electrical infrastructure hardening

Going forward post-Camp Fire, policymakers are looking at options to harden the California energy distribution infrastructure against wildfires. A key constraint is that California is reliant on a system of centralized electrical generation with distribution to end-users. One proposal to prevent fires is underground distribution similar to modern suburban electrical distribution. In November 2018 and initiated prior to the Camp Fire, PG&E piloted in the North Bay a hardened section of electrical infrastructure.

While buried power lines will reduce the risk of sparking wildfires, however, that solution increases distribution infrastructure cost by 10 times. A suggestion to reduce cost is to harden the sections of high energy lines through high wind areas upwind of residential communities in the wildland–urban interface, in particular, around river canyons pointing to those residential areas. The State Legislature has made efforts towards this strategy, however, while PG&E piloted a segment of hardened infrastructure, PG&E also diverted half the funds intended by the Legislature for this purpose. Hardening utilities with underground placement is common, such as gas and fiber-optic, which are usually buried. Of 175,000 miles of Californian electrical infrastructure, 80,000 miles is fire-prone.

Recovery

The first two building permits were reissued for Paradise after almost five months on March 28, 2019. Local public policymakers want to promote rebuilding with higher standards for fire-resistant construction, upgraded infrastructure, and using the recommended 2009 redesigns for enhanced fire safety, which included expanded road capacity to increase evacuation capacity and to provide better access for emergency equipment. The first Certificate of Occupancy was awarded in July 2019.

The Paradise Seventh-day Adventist church was completely destroyed, as was part of its adjacent academy. Estimates were that at least 600 homes of Adventist Health employees in Paradise had been destroyed. When power was restored to the site, the church began providing free potable water to neighbors. Other places of worship were also destroyed, including Our Savior Lutheran Church, Ridge Presbyterian Church, Paradise Church of Christ, First Assembly of God, Craig Memorial Congregational Church, Paradise Foursquare, New Life Apostolic Church, Paradise Pentecostal Church of God, and Community Church of the Brethren. A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) meetinghouse and a Center for Spiritual Living were also destroyed.

A community interfaith memorial was held on February 8, 2019, at the Paradise Performing Arts Center. The event was their grand re-opening since the Camp Fire. Over a dozen faith traditions offered a free celebration of life for the lives lost in the Camp Fire. The event was broadcast by Action News Now, NBC attended by 800+ Butte County community members. The event, which promoted healing, unity, and a time for the community to reconnect was sponsored by the Chico Area Interfaith Council. Families received remembrance gifts, and there was prayer, two choirs, piano, and a tribute to each individual who lost their life. The memorial was hosted by Linda Watkins-Bennett and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Red Grammer performed his song called, "We're Made of Love", which was written for the memorial.

As of late 2023, the population of Paradise was estimated at one third of its pre-fire levels, with an average of 600 new homes being built each year.

Conspiracy theory

A conspiracy theory espoused by U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene claims that the fire was caused by a Jewish Space Laser.

In popular culture

2019 Netflix documentary titled Fire in Paradise

2019 Frontline documentary also titled Fire in Paradise

2020 documentary titled "All Its Name Implies" by filmmaker and Paradise resident Ev Duran

2020 National Geographic documentary titled Rebuilding Paradise

2020 This Old House Season 41 featured a four-episode series about families rebuilding their homes after the fire.

2021 BBC One documentary titled Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World with Greta Thunberg speaking to witnesses of the wildfires in Paradise

2021 Bring Your Own Brigade produced and directed by Lucy Walker

In 2021, LA Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke wrote a book entitled Paradise Found: A High School Football Team’s Rise from the Ashes (2021), about how the Paradise High School football team inspired the people of Paradise after the Camp Fire. The book has been optioned for a feature film adaptation to be produced by 101 Studios, who produces Yellowstone.

2025 film The Lost Bus directed by Paul Greengrass is a drama based on the real events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)