Fukushima and Three Mile Island accidents Explained

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Күн бұрын

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@Higgsinophysics 2 ай бұрын

I don't use commercial sponsors. Let's keep it that way. Support here: Per video: www.patreon.com/Higgsino One time: ko-fi.com/higgsino

@Tsarbloonba 2 ай бұрын

Hey higgsino! Itd be nice if you could link your simulation website, thanks

@Kingkoopa00 2 ай бұрын

Something to add about Fukashima. After the earthquake, and the reactors scrammed, the emergency systems were cooling the reactors down. For some unknown reason, Reactor 1 was cooling down too fast, so the operators disabled the emergency cooling system. When the tsunami hit, it was disabled. If it had been enabled, the meltdown in Reactor 1 would have possibly occurred much more slowly. Also, The backup battery systems in reactor 1 and 2 were flooded and failed, leading to increased speed of meltdown. The cooling pumps were also flooded and failed. I think the biggest lesson learned in Fukashima is the importance of the protection of the backup systems. If the generators, batteries, and pumps had been either elevated in the building, or built into water-tight bunkers, there would have been zero issues. They would have kept running and cooling the scrammed reactors. The oversight was depending on the seawall. To be fair to the operators though, the seawall was built to a level well above what was thought to be the largest tsunami possible, so they depended on that to protect the plant. The fact that the plant itself survived the earthquake with minimal damage is a testament to the designers. It was designed to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake, and it withstood a magnitude 9, ten times more powerful, with minimal damage. But the tsunami was not expected to be so enormous.

@Fu3R4 2 ай бұрын

I'd heard, and would believe, that engineers pointed out this possible scenario happening and suggested moving back up generators and pumps to higher floors. The Fukashima plant was built with Tsunamis in mind, but not to the level that had hit it. Engineers did some calculations and what not and brought up the possible issue to the board, or directors, or who eve;r the bean counters. And the idea was deemed unnecessary. Correct me if i'm wrong.

@wesleybrame6846 2 ай бұрын

International reports told fukushima operator TEPCO a tsunami significantly larger than the seawall was likely to hit and that they severely underestimated the amount a tsunami would run up the seawall and damage infrastructure in 2008. TEPCO ignored it. It was entirely the fault of TEPCO and the Japanese government.

@Rhiawhyn 2 ай бұрын

Er, yeah the wall wasn't actually made big enough for the tsunami's they expected to deal with at that point, and had been told multiple times they needed to make the wall bigger or move the backup systems up to a safe elevation. TEPCO did neither. The disaster would not have happened as bad as it did had they did either thing, and it'd have just been flooded out 'briefly' before either supplies ran out or they got external power back. You can also trace three mile islands problem down to the same ultimate root cause too. Greed on a corpos head. The valve that got stuck was known to have problems, but the manufacturer insisted it was perfectly fine and had none. Combine that with the design issues of not having state lights showing open/closed status that wasn't just 'we told it to close so it must be closed' so you knew if there was a problem with components not closing or opening... and well. You know what happened. Had the manufacturer decided that maybe they should start replacing, repairing or just plain checking the valves that are known to cause problems, TMI wouldn't have happened to the extent it did.

@FEAR_Actual 2 ай бұрын

You hit the nail on the head. I also would like to add that lessons learned from Fukushima now include the usage of FLEX systems at all major NRC oversighted reactor plants in the US, and I believe the IAEA has done the same with international reactors the world over. What I mean by this is the usage of extra backup generators, pumps and battery equipment held in offsite hardened bunkers nearby the plant specifically in case something like Fukushima happens again, to literally any plant anywhere, ever. Not only that, but there's warehouses staged in strategic locations with semi trucks loaded and ready to rip over to said plant in less than 24 hours as well. Pretty sobering to think about, but absolutely amazing level of safety we now have.

@MrChainsawAardvark 2 ай бұрын

From a standpoint of nuclear safety, the backups were in a good place. They were both out of direct line of sight (radiation almost always travels in straight lines) and shielded by earth overburden. Quite a few facilities locate their back-ups in basements like this. Unfortunately, other aspects of the site made this otherwise intelligent choice into a poor one.

@arforafro5523 2 ай бұрын

Funny how even the simulation reflects on how small the accident was in comparison to Chernobyl. Chernobyl simulation was almost a jumpscare with how quickly the particle count went out of control and turned the clicks into a very loud buzz. Here the click count increased and all the water vaporized but it did not reach the magnitude of the Chernobyl disaster.

@aces6262 24 күн бұрын

That's why TMI is called an accident instead of a disaster

@doubledoublelem 19 күн бұрын

@@aces6262 yep, and only Iodine was released. No Cesium or Strontium, unlike Chornobyl

@4T3hM4kr0n 4 күн бұрын

you can thank the lack of graphite moderators for that one

@MultiSciGeek 2 ай бұрын

Ayy another video! Please keep making these, it really puts things into perspective. Like not just nuclear stuff, but science in general.

@salvatorecirasola634 2 ай бұрын

I agree

@Foxy_8796 2 ай бұрын

Gotta find more channels with a pfp like this...

@draroking 2 ай бұрын

Bro there will need to be more nuclear accidents for him to make more of these

@mono90286 Ай бұрын

Nice pfp.

@Tjita1 2 ай бұрын

Most people these days consider TMI to not have been a nuclear disaster (although the event did ruin the reactor itself), but rather a press disaster. The events were brought under control relatively quickly, but the press kept reporting it as an ongoing disaster.

@Jokie155 2 ай бұрын

The press contributed to the disaster absolutely. But I'd say the true disaster was sheer wilful ignorance of the masses who don't know what they were complaining about.

@vladimirpain3942 Ай бұрын

Actaully overall impact on environment was almost zero. If this was medialy managed just a bit better, we would likely don't even know this accident happened.

@justinknoepker1850 19 күн бұрын

Media and economic disaster I say. It really didn't do anything to the surrounding population or environment, just caused fear and cost a ton.

@razy7609 2 ай бұрын

I hate how overblown three mile island was. Killed momentum in the US.

@auricstorm 5 күн бұрын

Let's face it, it was doomed anyway. Most nuclear reactors got funding coz they can make weapons for the military, else we'd have invested in stuff like Thorium pebble-beds rather than Uranium/Plutonium... Less wars, and greater understanding that using weapons like depleted uranium munitions is REALLY stupid results in the military investing nuke money in stuff like drones and AI. Add to the fact that petrol is BIG business so there's lobbyists pressuring politicians and spinning PR against nukes and it's bye bye fuel of the future

@guard13007 2 ай бұрын

The increased cancer rates associated with Fukushima and Three Mile Island are not from radiation release, they are from increased screening of people who were scared they would get cancer from radiation. When you look for cancer more, you find more cancer. One of the most ignored improvements in cancer treatment was getting better at deciding when to screen for cancer and what size of mass to consider cancerous. It used to be that anything suspected of being cancer was treated aggressively, because cancer is so deadly. Then we realized that a lot of people when through a lot of hell to fight off things that weren't dangerous. Cancer is just a failure of the body to control its own growth - it is always fighting cancer as well, what we call cancer is when it fails. Recognizing this, we don't go after suspect masses nearly as fast anymore because it's better to wait it out a little - often these masses stop growing or even disappear, so if they were treated as cancer, that person would've suffered or possibly died during treatment for no benefit. Likewise, it's actually better to treat cancer less seriously as you get really old, because when you're really old, you're a lot more likely to die from cancer treatment than from cancer, and you're a lot more likely to die of natural causes before cancer can grow enough to threaten your life. There's an age at which you shouldn't fight cancer at all, because you're going to die anyhow, and fighting it will just kill you. Edit: Typo'd Fukushima.

@guard13007 2 ай бұрын

I should add to this: The death rates associated with cancer treatment are extremely low. Do not put off cancer treatment if your doctor is recommending it - the risk of being scared of treatment is so much worse! Cancer treatments are much much much safer than they used to be, and we've even gotten really good at treating their side effects too! Yes, more pills to swallow, but a good quality of life even while fighting cancer! (I just really needed to comment about the radiation not being as dangerous as people think it is, because we have a long history of fearmongering at this point, and to put these accidents in the same category as Chernobyl is misleading. More people died as a result of stress from evacuating around Fukushima than would've died if they stayed home. We overreact to these things. Yes, it should never happen, and it's a shame that the causes were well known and ignore for a decade before, but the reactions to it happening are overblown.)

@FairyPopsicle 2 ай бұрын

Thank you for this explanation. For the past two years I've been very confused and feeling gaslit about how my doctors were very careful to never call my thyroid issue "cancer"- just a "growth".

@Tjita1 Ай бұрын

@@guard13007 I read a study that suggested the increased cancer rate from TMI was in the order of 0.1. No, not per year or decade, in total. Fukushima would have been much worse than it was though, hadn't people evacuated in time. Nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl (on behalf of it not being the reactor itself that exploded, but rather the gas mixture in the space above it).

@14768 5 күн бұрын

Thanks for the pick-me-up. Just a little happy reading before bed.

@chasecook3854 3 күн бұрын

This is called the "screeners dilemma", it's an important concept not just in health screening but also in manufacturing defect screening and reliability testing.

@MultiSciGeek 2 ай бұрын

No but seriously last time I watched your Chernobyl video and was wondering about Fukushima, and here it is! Perfect!

@atmosphereventbutton 2 ай бұрын

Short and sweet, tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the accident in a simple manner. This video and the last one were super well made, great job!

@Everie 2 ай бұрын

Tip for audio mixing: Use a De-esser filter to help with the "S" sounds to be more tamed and use a low-band pass filter on a 25% basis to enhance the quality of your audio Your videos are extremely interesting and I know it takes a hell of a long time to edit them. So do this small change in your audio editing to perform even better at the commentary videos! (I like to know what's going on-screen, so your commentary is great for that)

@Higgsinophysics 2 ай бұрын

Thanks a ton for the tips and the kind words! Audio is my weak side but I'll try this next time. Thanks

@isthis124y 2 ай бұрын

@@Higgsinophysics YOu can edit the audio and add it with the youtube editor! Don't miss this! Video is top notch so fixing the audio would definetly make more people stay : )

@brownhorn111 2 ай бұрын

Hey, great video! But I have a minor critique: Calling the TMI Incident "one of the worst reactor accidents" is a little bit misleading... It was a small accident blown out of proportion thanks to media sensationalization.

@lexihaley2887 2 ай бұрын

Came to write this

@itsshivers6892 2 ай бұрын

The movie "The China Syndrome" is the biggest reason for nuclear fear in the USA. It'd be like if the movie Outbreak, or 28 Days Later, came out the week they announced COVID. So wild.

@Kannot2023 2 ай бұрын

What is worse a nuclear accident or media sensationalism?

@brownhorn111 2 ай бұрын

@Kannot2023 worse nuclear accident & societal fallout: Obviously Tschernobyl. In Austria, nuclear energy is literally ILLEGAL. In Zwentendorf, 1978, there was meant to be a small-scale nuclear reactor (boiling water, not RBMK.)- safe and powerful. It cost 1.4 billion Euros, and was ready to be started- but literally the day it was meant to be started, nuclear energy was outlawed because the people were not educated enough about nuclear power: they thought that harmful radiation would leak out into the environment, and that an earthquake (WHICH IS A VERY UNLIKELY EVENT WTF) would damage the reactor. Oh. And after it was shut down, guess what they built to replace the reactor? A COAL PLANT. And after Tschernobyl, any hope of a nuclear reactor in Austria was dead and buried. The (societal) fallout from this event caused a mass panic across Europe that every active or planned nuclear reactor would be a ticking time bomb. Why else do you think in Germany, they shut down all the reactors? Tl;Dr: the environmental damage and societal scare caused by the accident has irreparably damaged the public reputation of nuclear energy. The media will do anything to further stomp on the cleanest energy available, and will celebrate it's replacement with dirty coal that causes more cancer in civilians than those who were affected in all nuclear accidents combined.

@brownhorn111 2 ай бұрын

@itsshivers6892 I've never heard of this movie before. I didn't know that it was a contributing factor to anti-nuclear energy movements. This is so stupid.

@AiOinc1 2 ай бұрын

So glad you're doing more reactor videos. I loved the Chernobyl one.

@IbishuCovet 2 ай бұрын

it was quite inaccurate tho, sadly

@SamA-ok5id 2 ай бұрын

@@IbishuCovet can you expand on this please

@mr.hi_vevo414 2 ай бұрын

If you haven't made a video on this already, have you considered showing simulations of modern, safer, or entirely safe reactors? I would love to find out how they work, and it would be very useful for explaining to people how safe modern reactors are.

@alfonsodlt1720 4 күн бұрын

Id also like to see that !

@justv7536 2 ай бұрын

The fact that TMI, the third worst nuclear accident in history, was "we shut it down lmao," is a testament to how safe Nuclear really is.

@AmNucwilltravel-ij3tm 2 ай бұрын

we didn't even, just that unit. Unit 1 ran for 40 more years, and is planned to be reopened again in 2028

@seantaggart7382 Ай бұрын

Indeed Heck i heard they might restart it!

@seantaggart7382 Ай бұрын

@@AmNucwilltravel-ij3tmYeah! Im READY FOR IT heck maybe make it a visitor site(outside the reactor obviously) to show people! We need more Publicly visible Reactors to show people!

@tomchambers4537 2 ай бұрын

YES another, I love these! It's such a clear and well executed explanation

@fieryweasel 2 ай бұрын

The first time I learned about the Zr+H2O reaction everything made sense, and I think it's unfortunately glossed over in many explanations (not this one). Zircaloy has the property of being transparent to most neutrons, but that water reaction can be problematic.

@DanielRodriguez-ff5cs 2 ай бұрын

Thanks!

@Higgsinophysics 2 ай бұрын

Thanks for the tip!

@k__k___ 2 ай бұрын

Hey I really like these videos, the animations are brilliant - but a small tip if you like, the points you make would be easier to take in if you talked slower and took breaks. Sometimes you make a point, especially around 7:40 mark and you just speed into the next point. As a listener, I’d love time to take in what you’ve said before you move on.

@Wekuz11 2 ай бұрын

Thank you for another banger video! Not usually that into physics, but your simulations and talking make it very interesting

@kindnuguz 2 ай бұрын

The Fukushima incident; I mean how much can you blame on design and overall use of fission? Wasn't there 2 or more waves that washed over the reactors? But with all these incidents we've leaned priceless knowledge to improve design. I still feel we haven't even started to use this technology to the fullest

@akaihys 2 ай бұрын

the reactors i believe were actually not damaged- the things that were destroyed by the tsunami were their water pumps, which is why the reactor lost its cooling water. so the argument is whether these should have been in a different location or more protected

@superspies32 19 күн бұрын

There is a future generation reactor that nearly commercialized: Thorium salt reactor. It generated less heat than Uranium, more duration and easier to get (Thorium is more abundant than Uranium and its waste has lower potential to be used in A-bomb so it may be approved by many countries without threats to be used as A-bomb production)

@plewtoeee 2 ай бұрын

i just watched the chernobyl video yesterday, super excited to learn more about nuclear physics!

@MrLando1996 2 ай бұрын

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THESE! Keep it up!! Thank you!

@kryloxgd 20 күн бұрын

Been on a huge radiation study binge and your content has been the best by far keep it up mate

@prisonmike9186 2 ай бұрын

You explain things very well and that’s a talent not many have. Thanks for sharing this information with us

@Gaboxf 2 ай бұрын

Nice, thank you for these explanations and cool examples

@Name_then_some_numbers 2 ай бұрын

There was at least one direct death due to Fukushima from lung cancer 4 years later, and the government report 2000+ deaths due to "evacuation", but this number doesn’t distinguish between tsunami/earthquake and the nuclear accident. We shouldn’t only consider deaths when commenting on reactor safety, as the environmental effects cause far greater disruption to normal life in the short to medium term.

@superspies32 19 күн бұрын

The most worry thing about Fukushima was those waters that used to pump through the reactor to cool it. And Japan is releasing those directly to the sea, radiation compounds will slowly concentrated in sea organism and then entered human body again.

@Name_then_some_numbers 19 күн бұрын

@@superspies32 That’s the thing most scary about nuclear power. If radiation was visible then half of the fear would go away. It’s a great technology but so long as we can’t safely handle waste and products of accidents there’ll always be a significant aversion.

@Tarou9000 2 ай бұрын

It did felt a bit onderwhelming compared to the chernobyl reactor, but gret video none-the-less! It is inspiring me to program these kinds of simulations

@Blue10AEMia 2 ай бұрын

This is long overdue, thank you

@FranzSarmiento17 2 ай бұрын

Was waiting for this!!! Really loved the Chernobyl one so I was excited to see this

@ericz6 2 ай бұрын

This is such a beautifully simple visualization, thank you

@wildzeromusic 2 ай бұрын

Wow, Higgsino... you are really smart. Thank you for these visualizations matched with explanation!

@donchaput8278 2 ай бұрын

Another great video! Thank you!

@Abhi-Singh108 2 ай бұрын

अद्भुत वैज्ञानिक चलचित्र, समझने में आसान और अच्छे दृश्य ⚛️

@1accuratesee 2 ай бұрын

I really wish i could play with this in a phone or desktop app with different scenarios like Fukushima, Chernobyl and others like Three Mile Island, Sellafield or Harrisburg :D

@KatanamasterV 2 ай бұрын

Good work sir, excellent way to present this material

@mayav927 21 күн бұрын

I currently live near three mile island now. I didn’t even know that much about it till moving here and no one seems to really remember it. It’s as if it never happened.

@DicedIceBaby314 2 ай бұрын

Great video! I only have feedback that a dark background/theme might be nice. Your content rocks though, no complaints!

@sabbat3870 2 ай бұрын

I'd pay money for access to this simulation with customizable variables like moderation chance/fuel density etc

@afoobar42 2 ай бұрын

Thanks, the code of your simulator is closed source?

@DoReid0 8 күн бұрын

What a huge difference in safety between the RBMK and these two reactors, much much safer.

@BinarySecond 22 күн бұрын

You are a fantastic educator

@crawley6957 Ай бұрын

@6:12 "Oh." Your comedic timing is exceptional.

@physicsbutawesome 2 ай бұрын

What can I say, I still like your reactor simulations 😬

@the25thdoctor 2 ай бұрын

Please make this a game. I would kill to control a nuclear reactor raising and lowering control rods and controlling water flow

@marcothepucci 2 ай бұрын

you should make this a playable webgame, it looks fun

@DanteDivine Ай бұрын

You should release ur videos more frequently, i ve just joined your channel and its awsome.

@SpudGunMcGee 2 ай бұрын

Do you plan on covering other kinds of reactors such as Pebble Bed reactors or a VHTR which uses helium as coolant? Those would be very interesting to watch!

@D_Winds 2 ай бұрын

Another fantastic video!

@animator1110. 2 ай бұрын

this video is again really cool, i would love to see a game about nuclear reactor management made out of this simulation!

@ritzevespa 2 ай бұрын

Nice addiction to plainly difficult, very nice work my guy, I've learned something

@johntompkins79 2 ай бұрын

what software do you use for your visualizations?

@Arlae_Nova 2 ай бұрын

Honestly, watching these videos makes me more confident that nucleaire power plants are in fact super safe. What a feat of engineering!

@seantaggart7382 Ай бұрын

Hey i needed this for a research essay! Thanks

@AleHand_ 2 ай бұрын

Hey man, you could do a video explaining this chart! I always wanted to learn a little more about it!

@derpenstocks 2 ай бұрын

Would be cool to see a video on how modern reactors protect against these problems

@MechMan0124 2 ай бұрын

The way the Fukushima disaster was allowed to occur really erks me.. I work professionally with 3-phase pump motors; an inexpensive man-portable 3-phase 208v generator could have been wired up directly on the LV side of the cooling loop pump motor, allowing cooling loop circulation to be reestablished. There was ample time, and induction motors are incredibly robust; getting flooded out would be no problem for the motor as long as it were dried out before starting it back up. Loss of cooling should never happen. A competent mechanic needs to always be on site.

@superspies32 19 күн бұрын

We are talking about Japan, the country that still use Floppy disk while everyone is moving to USB 3.0 Type C or Cloud storage

@garnetnard4284 2 ай бұрын

I’m finally the guy with a comment featured in the video. Very cool, OP.

@Philip_Lim 2 ай бұрын

The way you explain these things in your videos make me more interested in learning about it than studying for my finals! 😂

@bratwurstler2647 2 ай бұрын

What software do you use to animate these simulations?

@alexandruvulpes3314 2 ай бұрын

Would you be able to make a video about the shutting down of zaporizhia npp during the ukrainian war? How close was it to another nuclear catastrophe?

@minoulamine6885 2 ай бұрын

Great video! May I ask tho what software do you use to make these simulations?

@RainDownpours 2 ай бұрын

he said in a reply to a comment from the last video that he coded this in python

@minoulamine6885 2 ай бұрын

@RainDownpours But using which extensions/libraries?

@RainDownpours 2 ай бұрын

@@minoulamine6885 I'm guessing the visualization is done with Manim, but that's all I know unfortunately

@ruperterskin2117 2 ай бұрын

Right on. Thanks for sharing.

@SanctimoniaFeatherdove 2 ай бұрын

thank you for the awesome simulation and videos, and being receptive to our questions!!!

@phasorthunder1157 2 ай бұрын

In Canada, all our reactors are CANDU, which are heavy water-moderated reactors.

@arthurwoslington2326 Ай бұрын

can you do a video of a generic modern nuclear reactor under different extreme conditions?

@Yapity111 16 күн бұрын

Really shows you what a big difference there is between modern reactor design and the old RBMK at Chernobyl. I never thought about how the moderator, the thing that accelerates the reaction, is also important for cooling it down. Don't reactors have other cooling systems besides pumping in more water? I suppose using water is very cheap and fast, but are there any coolants that don't work as moderators that are used as an emergency measure?

@Phredreeke 2 ай бұрын

Higher enrichment isn't inherently more dangerous, one of the safety upgrades in RBMKs post Chernobyl was to increase the enrichment from 2% to 2.4%

@SparerRoom49700 Ай бұрын

5:37 higgsino isn't there a reflector that reflects neutrons so that they don't escape?

@K42013 Ай бұрын

At Fukushima, there is a passive cooling system that did not require any energy to be at work. This system is a simple heat exchanger within a water tank : it's a steam condenser. Witch is connected to the reactor on a closed loop, sealed or open by valve. Once you open the vavle, the steam from the reactor witch is > to the boiling point go the steam condenser, the water inside the tank boil and the steam is able to cool off and go back on a liquid state. The gravity made it back to the reactor. As long as you can replenish the tank from the condenser with water, the reactor can be cool off. This is what we have see from TV news : fire truck putting water in a attempt to let the water level high enought. But there was, as we all know, a problem. The vavle were electricaly operated. As the seism was measure, the operator open the vavle from control room.But the vavle were actually a normaly close type when de-energized... Once all the electricity was shunt down, the vavle close. And the operator did not know, all the control room was in pitch black, everything was shut down. They were believing than they have many hours in front of them... Once they realise, in the aftermath of the tsunami, than the valve need to be reopened manualy, it was already to little to late. It's such a shame than general electric let such a massive security issue within the design of the nuclear reactor get within the blue print of the factory. And nobody talk about it. I am designing safety in petroleum industry. I can't understand choice like this.

@zachlewis9751 24 күн бұрын

So Fukushima was a nuclear disaster caused by a natural disaster rather than a poorly built or poorly used reactor, and TMI was a minor accident caused by a single valve that was easily stopped and is easy to reuse and that's why it's being reactivated? Correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like the US' nuclear power progress was crushed by reporting.

@notjeih 20 күн бұрын

the news are idiots, i’ll tell you what

@itsshivers6892 2 ай бұрын

Hi hi, I would be interested to see a more comprehensive simulation of each of the incidents since I think this is a very broad and general look at each of the topics, especially when the outcomes were so wildly wildly different, but I would like to say I liked that you started to describe alpha beta and gamma. The health risks from each are so different. My biggest nitpick: It is true there were no deaths from acute nuclear exposure at Fukushima Daiichi, however the directly-attributable-deaths toll is actually 1. TEPCO acknowledged three cases of leukemia directly caused by radiation exposure as of 2017; one of those three people has now died. (They also approved insurance for one case of lung cancer where the person died, but they did not specifically say that radiation exposure played a part; this is a reasonable approach given the comparably slow development profile of lung cancer. There are also many socially-derived deaths both immediate and long term due to interruption of care, etc... but that gets away from physics of course.)