Remembering Fukushima... and the other road to nuclear nightmare

Nine countries now possess nuclear weapons and we have just seen the start of a new war in the Middle East over one more nation supposedly trying to acquire them. While we consider the dangers of such weapons and their capacity to cause massive destruction, we often overlook the risks associated with what still passes for “peaceful” nuclear power. With that in mind, let me revisit a moment when that reality should have become far clearer.

I had crawled into bed on March 10, 2011, opened my phone, and scrolled through my Instagram feed. The app was still fairly new then, and I was only following a dozen or so accounts, several from Japan. One amateur photographer there had posted photos minutes earlier of a fractured sidewalk and a toppled bookshelf. A massive earthquake had just rattled Tokyo.

A news article confirmed that a magnitude 7.9 quake had indeed struck 80 miles off the coast of Japan. Later, it was upgraded to 9.0, 1,000 times more powerful in terms of energy released. Holy shit, I thought. That’s huge! Worried, I emailed my old college friend Ichiro, who lived in Tokyo, to make sure his family was safe. A short while later, he replied that they were fine, but that a massive tsunami had indeed flooded the Tohoku region north of Tokyo. Many were dead.

“It’s horrible. It’s chaos,” he wrote me.

The nuclear industry has a reasonably polite name for a disaster like the one that was rocking Fukushima. They refer to it as a “beyond design-basis accident” because no single nuclear plant design can account for every possible problem it might encounter in its lifetime.

By the time Ichiro’s message arrived, distressing images of the tsunami were already circulating online and the death toll was rising fast, though the floodwaters were by then receding. As I watched heartbreaking videos of screaming onlookers, capsized boats, floating debris, and cars submerged like toys in a bathtub, another tragedy was unfolding that few, even inside the Japanese government, were aware of. A nuclear plant in Fukushima, operated by TEPCO (the Tokyo Electric Power Company), had been swamped by the tremendous flooding and lost all power.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, built by General Electric (GE) in the mid-1960s, was designed to withstand natural disasters, but its creators never foresaw an earthquake like that. When the plant’s sensors detected the quake, its reactors automatically shut down. That emergency shutdown (or scram) halted its fission process, triggering backup power to keep cold seawater flowing through the reactors and spent-fuel containers to prevent overheating. Things at Fukushima were going according to plan until that massive tsunami battered the plant, washing away transmission towers and damaging electrical systems. There were backup generators in the basement, but those, too, had been inundated by waves of seawater, and an already bad situation was about to get far worse.

A power outage at a nuclear power plant is known as a “station blackout.” As you might imagine, it’s one of the worst scenarios any nuclear facility could possibly experience. If all electricity is lost, that means water is no longer being pumped into the reactor’s scalding-hot core to cool it down. And if that core isn’t constantly being cooled, one thing is certain: Disaster will ensue. The fission process itself may be complicated, but that’s basic physics. To make matters worse, there were three operatingreactors at Fukushima Daiichi. Luckily, three others had already been shut down for maintenance. If power wasn’t restored in short order, that would mean that all three of Fukushima’s reactors were in very big trouble.

We would later learn that no one—not at TEPCO, GE, or among Japanese regulators—had ever considered the possibility that all the reactors might lose electricity at once. They had only drawn up plans for one reactor to go down, in which case the others could keep the plant running. But all of them offline, and every generator out of commission? There was no precedent or playbook for that.

The nuclear industry has a reasonably polite name for a disaster like the one that was rocking Fukushima. They refer to it as a “beyond design-basis accident” because no single nuclear plant design can account for every possible problem it might encounter in its lifetime. The fact that there’s a term for this should make you anxious.

Meltdowns and Fallout

Over the next several days, the emergency at Fukushima Daiichi only worsened. Every effort to restore power to its reactors hit a dead end. On-site radiation-detection equipment, which would have triggered warnings and guided evacuation efforts for those in danger, was no longer functioning. Plans to pump water into the reactors to cool them had faltered. Their cores kept overheating, and the boiling pools of spent fuel were at risk of drying out, potentially triggering a massive fire that would release extreme amounts of radiation.

Within three days, following a series of fires, hydrogen explosions, and panic among those aware of what was happening, Fukushima’s Units 1, 2, and 3 experienced full-scale core meltdowns. Over 150,000 people within an 18-mile radius had already been forced to evacuate, and radiation plumes would take two weeks to spread across the northern hemisphere, although the Japanese government wouldn’t admit publicly that any meltdown had occurred until June 2011, three months later.

The only good news for the 13 million people living 150 miles south in Tokyo was that, during and immediately after the meltdowns, prevailing winds carried much of Fukushima’s radioactive material away from the smoldering reactors and out to sea. It’s estimated that 80% of the fallout from Fukushima ended up in the ocean, meaning most of it headed east rather than toward population centers to the south and west. The other fortunate news was that the spent fuel containers had somehow survived it all. If their water levels in the pools had been drained, far more radiation would have been released.

But Tokyo wasn’t completely spared. After years of research, scientists discovered that cesium-rich microparticles had blanketed the greater Tokyo area, an unpopular discovery that drew backlash and threats of academic censorship. Areas around the Fukushima exclusion zones recorded the highest radiation levels. Japanese government officials continually downplayed the dangers of the accident and were reluctant to even classify the event as a Level 7 nuclear disaster, the highest rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, which would have placed it on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Japanese officials have also failed to conduct long-term epidemiological studies that would include baseline measurements of cancer rates, which has cast doubt on thyroid screenings that found troubling incidents of cancer far higher than researchers expected.

Radioactive Fish

Prior to the earthquake, the ocean’s cesium-137 levels near Fukushima were 2 Becquerels (a unit of radioactivity) per cubic meter, well below the recommended drinking water threshold of 10,000 Becquerels. Just after March 11, 2011, cesium-137 levels there spiked to 50 million before decreasing as sea currents dispersed the radioactive particles away from the coast. The ocean, however, had been poisoned.

In the years that followed the Fukushima nuclear disaster, researchers documented a frightening, yet predictable trend. Radioactive isotopes in seawater were taken up by marine plants (phytoplankton), which then moved up the food chain into tiny marine animals (zooplankton) and, eventually, to fish. Cesium-137 consumed by fish can reside in their bodies for months, while Strontium-90 remains in their bones for years. If humans then eat such fish, they will also be exposed to those radioactive particles. The more contaminated fish they eat, the greater the radioactive buildup will be.

In 2023, over a decade after the incident, radiation levels remained sky-high in black rockfish caught off the Fukushima coast. Other bottom-dwelling species have been found to be laden with radioactivity, too, including eel and rock trout. Further concerns have been raised about the treated radioactive water that TEPCO continued to release into the ocean, prompting China to suspend seafood imports from Japan. Aside from those findings, there have been very few studies examining the effects of Fukushima’s radiation on ecosystems or on the people of Japan.

The world is unpredictable, and even the safest nuclear power plant can’t guarantee that it will hold up against whatever tragedy is coming next.

“Japan has clamped down on scientific efforts to study the nuclear catastrophe,” claims pediatrician Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. “There is hardly any literature, any publicized research, on the health effects on humans, and those that are published come from a small group of researchers at Fukushima Medical University.”

Recognizing such levels of radiation, even if confined to the waters near Fukushima, would cast the country’s nuclear industry as a significant threat—not only to Japan but globally. Any admission that Fukushima’s radiation is linked to increased cancer rates would raise broader concerns about nuclear power’s future viability. Radiation exposure is cumulative and, although Fukushima didn’t immediately cause mass casualties, it wasn’t a benign accident either. It took decades before it was accepted that Chernobyl had caused tens of thousands of excess cancer deaths. It may take even longer to completely understand Fukushima’s full effects. In the meantime, the still ongoing cleanup of the burned-out facilities may cost as much as 80 trillion yen ($500 billion).

It’s been 15 years since Fukushima’s reactors experienced those meltdowns, and we still don’t fully understand their long-term repercussions. Nuclear power advocates will argue that Fukushima wasn’t a serious incident and that nuclear technology is still safe. They’ll minimize radiation threats, remain optimistic that new reactor designs will never falter, dismiss the fact that there’s simply no permanent solution for radioactive waste, and overlook the inseparable connection between nuclear power and atomic weapons. After all, among other things, we’ll undoubtedly need nuclear energy to help power the artificial intelligence craze, right?

The operators and regulators at Fukushima were wholly unprepared for what unfolded on that fateful day in 2011. They never imagined that an earthquake of such magnitude could trigger a tsunami so immense that it would destroy the power grid, knock out water pumps, and disable backup generators. Likewise, no one can guarantee that nuclear plants or radioactive storage tanks are safe in war zones, or that the rivers and lakes needed to cool reactors globally won’t one day run dry or become too hot to do so—something that has already happened in Europe. Ultimately, we can’t anticipate every mishap, human error, or—especially in the age of climate chaos—every natural disaster that may come down the pike. The world is unpredictable, and even the safest nuclear power plant can’t guarantee that it will hold up against whatever tragedy is coming next.

Fifty miles south of where I live in Southern California, an old nuclear facility sits idle on the Pacific Coast in an earthquake-and-tsunami-hazard zone, not unlike the site where Fukushima was built. It’s not the only such plant in California, but it’s the one I often visit. When I’m there, I think about Fukushima and imagine what would happen if a similar, unexpected disaster reached California’s shores and how such an event would forever alter this land.

Searching for Solace at San Onofre

The morning light was peaking over the sandstone bluff, and the offshore breeze was soft and brisk. I’m barefoot in a wetsuit, trudging my surfboard down a dirt road at San Onofre, a state park in northern San Diego County, for a “dawn patrol” surf session. A series of high tides—likely made more extreme by rising sea levels—has eroded a large portion of the parking lot below, so the beach can only be reached on foot or by bike. I’m not complaining. It’s worth the short trek. The absence of vehicles down here also means fewer surfers in the water.

San O, as it’s lovingly referred to, has a rich surf history spanning 100 years. Duke Kahanamoku, the “father of modern surfing,” who popularized the ancient Hawaiian sport in Southern California and often visited San O in the 1940s, helped to solidify it as one of the region’s premier breaks and an early hub of SoCal surf culture. The waves are long and rolling thanks to an extensive cobblestone reef. It’s a magical place.

Things around here have changed quite a bit, however, since “The Duke” first paddled his heavy wooden board into the surf. Just down the beach, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station sits precariously perched 100 feet from the water. Its two large domes are an ominous sight. Constructed in the 1960s, the plant is no longer producing electricity, but the station’s 123 large concrete-and-steel storage vessels remain, housing 3.6 million pounds of highly radioactive waste. Since nobody wants the toxic stuff, it just sits there, looming, awaiting the next big earthquake like the one that shook Fukushima. San Onofre is designed to withstand a 7.0 shaker, but scientists believe the area is capable of producing one 10 times larger and 32 times stronger. With 8.4 million people living within a 50-mile radius, any geological upheaval at San O could make a hell of a mess. It’s a worrisome thought I’d rather not dwell on.

Although it is a state park, the ground that San Onofre sits upon is leased from the federal government because it lies within the 195-square-mile boundary of the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. More than a base, Camp Pendleton is a testing ground, where heavy artillery often booms in the distance. An occasional mock raid can occupy the beaches; helicopters sometimes swarm, and Amphibious Combat Vehicles crawl ashore. There’s even a faux Afghan village that was built at Camp Pendleton, costing taxpayers $170 million, where Marines can imagine terrorizing towns from Iran to Gaza. So strange that amid all this madness, San Onofre is where I search for solace.

In 2013, a radioactive gas leak from one of the nuclear plant’s steam generators, which are also within the military reserve, led to its closure. Southern California Edison (SCE), which operates the facility, reassured the public that there was nothing to be concerned about. Few, however, would consider SCE a trustworthy source. Over the years, the company has been caught in a series of lies about the safety of San Onofre, including falsifying firewatch records and grossly mishandling waste. Not dissimilar to TEPCO’s Fukushima deceit.

Like all nuclear power plants, San Onofre needed a lot of water to cool its three reactors, sucking in an astonishing 2.4 billion gallons of seawater a day. As you can imagine, that thirst had a serious impact on ocean ecology, killing fish and wrecking kelp beds. It’s taken over a decade, but some of what was destroyed is finally coming back to life after years of restoration. Despite the progress, discharge pipes still release radioactive effluent laced with cesium-137, cobalt-60, and tritium—a mile offshore 170 times a year. But SCE says there’s nothing to worry about. They also insist they don’t have much of a choice. All that leftover waste needs to be kept from overheating, and using seawater is the only option available.

It’s better not to think too much about a future Armageddon or what might be swimming beneath me while I’m out there bobbing between sets of waves. Surfing is supposed to help relieve my anxiety, not exacerbate it. It’s a little like backpacking in the wilds of Montana, which I also love to do, without constantly worrying about being chomped by a grizzly bear while in my sleeping bag. There are hazards to living in this crazy world—the worst of which, I’ve come to believe, are of the man-made variety.

As I slide my surfboard into the back of my van and peel off my wetsuit, I glance at San Onofre’s domes,which will start to be dismantled this year, and ponder the horrors still affecting Japan, fearing that someday a destructive tsunami may batter this beach, too. Sadly, it’s almost inevitable.

With nine nuclear-armed nations and roughly 12,000 nuclear warheads on this planet, worries about nuclear war are unavoidable. However, the danger of a nuclear disaster at a seemingly “peaceful” nuclear facility is often ignored. The future of atomic energy remains uncertain, but it is our duty to eliminate this hazardous energy source before another Fukushima triggers a war-like catastrophe all its own.