Short and long term dispersion patterns of radionuclides in the atmosphere around the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

The Chernobyl accident and unfortunately the recent accident at the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant are the most serious accidents in the history of the nuclear technology and industry. Both of them have a huge and prolonged impact on environment as well as human health. Therefore, any technological developments and strategies that could diminish the consequences of such unfortunate events are undisputedly the most important issues of research. Numerical simulations of dispersion of radionuclides in the atmosphere after an accidental release can provide with a reliable prediction of the path of the plume. In this study we present a short (one month) and a long (11 years) term statistical study for the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant to estimate the most probable dispersion directions and plume structures of radionuclides on local scale using a Gaussian dispersion model. We analyzed the differences in plume directions and structures in case of typical weather/circulation pattern and provided a statistical-climatological method for a “first-guess” approximation of the dispersion of toxic substances. The results and the described method can support and used by decision makers in such important cases like the Fukushima accident.     

Environmental Damage,Abandoned Treaties,and Fossil-Fuel Dependence: The Coming Costs of Oil-and-Gas Exploration in the “1002 Area” of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Contrary to claims from American politicians, lobbyists, and oil and gas executives, allowing energy development in the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will harm the environment, compromise international law, erode the social significance of wilderness protection, and ultimately fail to␣increase the energy security of the United States. After exploring a brief history of the ANWR controversy, this piece argues that the operation of oil and gas refineries in ANWR will release discharged solids, drilling waste, and dirty diesel fuel into the ecosystem’s food-chain, as they have from oil operations in Prudhoe Bay. Less obvious but equally important, oil and gas exploration in ANWR will violate a number of international treaties on biodiversity protection. In the end, development in ANWR will threaten the concept of wilderness protection, and will do little to end US dependence on foreign sources of energy. About the Author: Benjamin K. Sovacool is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He works as a research analyst for the Consortium on Energy Restructuring and is a Senior Research Fellow for the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research. He also just completed a Graduate Fellowship in Energy Policy at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Curb Your Enthusiasm: On Media Communication of Bioenergy and the Role of the News Media in Technology Diffusion

There is widespread agreement that the mitigation of climate changes requires societies across the globe to speed up the diffusion of renewable energy technologies. This article pursues an interest in the diffusion of one such technology: bioenergy. It does so through a study of how bioenergy is covered and communicated in the news media of Norway and Sweden, countries where the diffusion of this technology looks radically different. Mobilizing a domestication perspective, it finds that the news media in the two countries ascribe diverging meaning to the technology, offering audiences clearly varied images of what bioenergy “is.” In other words, the technology is domesticated in different ways, suggesting that media coverage plays a role in systems of innovation and diffusion. How this affects the public, however, is an under analyzed element in the innovation and diffusion literature, and the article calls for further investigation into this matter.     

Environments,Risks, and the Limits of Representation: Examples from Nuclear Energy and Some Implications of Fukushima

This essay examines examples from the field of nuclear energy, including the 2011 disaster at Fukushima-Daiichi, through perspectives drawn from phenomenology, social systems theory, and constitutive communication theory. The essay argues that although prevailing approaches to nuclear risk analysis and risk communication seek to represent a world of preexisting phenomena, they also fundamentally constitute the world on which decision-makers, organizations, and communities act. Representations of nuclear risk are inevitably and problematically limited, with important implications for policy, practice, and communicative action.     

Accumulation and distribution of90Sr and137Cs in birch in the zone affected by liquid discharge from the Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Plant

The data are presented that concern the accumulation and distribution of artificial radionuclides (⁹⁰Sr and¹³⁷Cs) in the aboveground organs of birch growing in the vicinity of the Beloyarskaya Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the permanently inundated part of the Ol'khovka swamp, on its banks periodically flooded with water, and in watershed areas not influenced by the swamp (control). Concentrations of both radionuclides in birch trees from the swamp and its banks were several times as high as in trees from the watershed. The distribution of⁹⁰Sr in birch trunk proved to be acropetal. Trees growing on the inundated part of the swamp and on dry land significantly differed in the distribution of¹³⁷Cs. The factors controlling the distribution and accumulation of both radionuclides in birch trees growing in these areas are discussed.     

省级政府环境政策制定过程的特征分析——以陕西和云南水土保持生态补偿政策为例

近年来,省级政府制定的环境政策逐渐增多。在数量繁多的各类问题中,省级政府的决策者如何能够充分认识到某个环境问题的重要性和紧迫性,将其置于优先考虑的位置,进而出台一项环境政策?与经济发展政策相比,省级政府制定环境政策的过程有何特征?本文通过研究两个案例来探讨这些问题的答案,一个案例是陕西省制定的水土保持生态补偿政策,另一个案例是云南省正在制定的类似政策。研究表明,在省级政府制定环境政策的过程中,政策倡导者往往不是省级政府决策者,而是省级政府中行政主管部门的领导。政策倡导者建立政策的途径是说服作为决策者的省级政府相关领导,进而使之批准政策出台。其说服方法是建立由相关部门和其他利益相关者组成的支持联盟,通过科学研究阐明问题的重要性、紧迫性以及和政府职能的相关性,并提出具有科学基础和立法基础的政策方案。这一过程既区别于中央政府制定环境政策的过程,又与省级政府制定经济政策的过程不同。     

Sustainable Health Risk Management and the Role of Cross-Disciplinary Professionals in Developing Countries: Mexican Experience

The paper argues health risk management in Developing Countries cannot be sustainable unless it is conceived, planned, implemented and maintained by community-led multi-stakeholder groups using an integrated capacity building process with five components: (1) education and awareness raising; (2) strengthening information resources and decision making; (3) strengthening regulations and compliance; (4) improving basic sanitation infrastructure; and (5) stimulating the market for support products and services for health and environment sectors. Occupational and environmental health professionals with cross-disciplinary understanding are uniquely qualified to build much-needed bridges between stakeholders, risk science and policy. They should adopt a cost-effective mentality, adapting models/methods used in developed countries to developing country contexts, negotiating political obstacles and understanding cultural differences in risk sources, exposures and perceptions. Stakeholders – health professionals, community representatives, officials, NGOs/advocacy groups, industries, and providers of products/services – collaborate to detect needs, mobilize resources, design, develop, implement, consolidate and maintain interventions to priority problems. Field experience in Mexico supports the argument. This sustainability process is adaptable to other keystone development sectors like soil and water resources stewardship, biodiversity conservation, agriculture and energy.     

Changes in plankton abundance, biomass, and chemical composition under the influence of the cooling system of the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant

The abundance and biomass of phytoplankton and zooplankton proved to noticeably decrease after the water passed through the cooling system of the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant: the phytoplankton perished by 38% (65 metric tons per day), and the zooplankton, by 55% (6 t/day). In the period between 1985 and 1991, the concentration of⁶⁰Co in the plankton of water intake and discharge canals varied from 120 to 1400 Bq/kg dry weight, and that of¹³⁷Cs, from 150 to 1040 Bq/kg dry weight, which is commensurable with the content of radionuclides in the plants and grounds of the Beloyarsk reservoir. In 1985, it was noted that the plankton passing through the cooling system of the nuclear power plant became enriched with Ca, Fe, Mg, Mn, Co, Cs, Cu, Mo, Ni, Pb, Si, Sn, Ti, V, and W.     

Evaluation of solar powered water pumping system: the case study of three selected Abattoirs in Ibadan,Nigeria

In this paper, detailed and comprehensive analysis of the technical, environmental and economic benefits of providing adequate water supply using solar PV system for three selected abattoirs (Bodija, Akinyele and Iyana church abattoirs) in Ibadan are presented. First, an estimate of average daily water requirement for slaughtering and cleaning cattle is obtained for each of the abattoir. This was achieved through oral interviews conducted at the different abattoirs to arrive at a reliable estimate. Thereafter, the total water requirement, the water storage capacity and the electrical load requirement necessary for the sizing of solar PV system that will enhance the smooth operation of the abattoir are determined. Some of the key results revealed that the water requirements of the abattoirs are 208,780, 91,632 and 78,590 l/week, respectively. The most suitable submersible pump for the three abattoirs is 60GS50 (5hp, 60gallon/min Goulds series). The cost of pumping water and providing lighting for smooth operation of the abattoirs are $0.23, $0.21 and $0.19, respectively. The results also show that 16,300, 15,200 and 14,600 kg/yr of carbon dioxide as well as 46.37, 43.36 and 41.45 kg/yr of carbon monoxide could be avoided, respectively with the implementation of the project.     

排污补贴视角下的养殖户环保投资影响因素研究——基于沪、苏、浙生猪养殖户的调查分析

随着畜牧业的发展,畜牧业污染问题日益突出。解决污染问题的关键是增强养殖户参与,鼓励他们自发进行环保投资,而政府补贴对于具有外部性的生产投资活动均具有刺激作用。为了量化分析影响农户环保投资行为的各因素的作用程度,特别是政府补贴的激烈效果,本文运用调查结合实证的研究方法,在农户模型的分析框架上,以沪、苏、浙地区394户生猪养殖户的调查数据为基础,应用有序logit模型验证排污补贴、养殖户生产经营特征、环保需求特征对养殖户环保投资的作用。研究表明除了政府补贴会刺激养殖户的环保投资外,养殖规模对环保投资有激励作用,而养殖年限却会抑制环保投资。养殖户的个人特征,对污染的认知及参与污染治理的意愿也对环保投资水平有正的影响,但作用效果不明显。在此基础上,本文提出了合理制定和推进排污补贴政策,以"离牧补助"等形式促使养殖规模和环保要求不符的养殖户退出养殖业,加大畜牧业污染危害的宣传力度以及政府加强对污染处理技术的研发投资,从而降低处理成本等政策建议。     

工业用地出让、引资质量底线竞争与环境污染——基于252个地级市面板数据的经验分析

在工业化进程中,中国地方政府利用其掌控的土地资源进行大规模的招商引资活动,其中工业用地出让成为其招商引资的法宝。为了在激烈的竞争中获得某些优势,它们有时甚至不惜降低引资质量底线,从而引来一些高污染、高能耗的工业企业,并带来日益严重的环境污染问题。论文利用工业用地协议出让把工业用地出让、引资质量底线竞争与环境污染三者联系起来,并运用2004—2013年全国252个地级市的土地出让数据、经济数据、环境数据来分析工业用地出让对中国经济和环境的影响。通过协议出让面积对固定资产投资、工业总产值、GDP和地方财政收入进行回归来分析采用协议出让方式引入投资项目的质量;通过协议出让面积对工业二氧化硫和工业废水排放量进行回归来分析协议出让方式对当地环境污染的影响。实证结果表明,当期及前期的工业用地协议出让面积与固定资产投资、工业总产值、GDP、地方财政收入、税收等均呈负相关关系,与当地污染物的排放量呈正相关关系。换言之,地方政府若试图用协议出让方式增加工业用地出让面积来促进地方经济增长,将得不偿失,在短期内虽然对地方经济有一定的促进作用,但在长期内会对地方经济和环境造成危害。为了实现经济和生态环境的可持续发展,应完善地方政府的考核方式,调整以GDP为主的政绩考核机制,综合当地环境状况和除经济增长外的其他社会性服务指标作为考核指标;中央政府应该加强对地方政府的监管,严格规范工业用地出让,优化土地资源配置,提升引资质量;地方政府应加强对当地企业的监管,并严格执行环保标准。