Good morning Jackie, ladies and gentleman.

About 82 years ago, a certain man

by the name of Enrico Fermi had been experimenting with nuclear
transformation, which is the transformation of an atom of an element to that of
another element. One of the elements he had been experimenting with was
uranium, and to his surprise the resulting two atoms were lighter than that of
uranium. He had discovered nuclear fission, a scientific revelation that would
change the world. Nuclear fission is the splitting of heavy atoms into lighter
atoms, such as in the case of Fermi and uranium. Nuclear fission is the driving
force behind the nuclear power plants that provide over 11% of the worlds
electricity today, and is still growing. Nevertheless, this seemingly clean and
efficient source of energy comes with a catch; if something goes wrong, its not
just a simple power failure. A whole bunch of issues arise from malfunctioning
nuclear reactors, which will be discussed later on. First, Roger will explain what a
nuclear reactor actually is.
How safe are nuclear reactors?
It is natural that the public would be concerned over accidents and their possible
effects. One particular scenario is loss of cooling of the core which would result in
a nuclear core meltdown. Hence, Extraordinary effort was devoted to ensuring
that a meltdown does not occur, since it was assumed that such an occurrence
would be tragic and create a major public hazard. The industry has actually been
very successful in preventing such accidents. In 16000 cumulative reactor-years,
there has only been 3 major accidents to nuclear power plants, Chernobyl,
Fukushima and Three Mile Island, the last of which did not involve any fatalities
or release of radiation to the environment.
It is also important to note that a nuclear reactor simply cannot explode like a
bomb, it is just not physically possible. The uranium fuel is not nearly rich
enough to ignite an explosion.
While nuclear power plants are designed to be as safe as reasonably possible, no
industry can be demonstrated to be entirely risk-free. Accidents may happen, but
will lead to progressive improvement of safety.
Since the Three Mile Island meltdown, it has been clear that even the worst
possible accident in a conventional nuclear power plant or its fuel would not
cause significant public harm, at least not as much as any other industry. Take
coal mining for example, where thousands of workers die in coal mines to obtain
the energy producing mineral, which also causes gross environmental damage.
No-one need fear a potential public health catastrophe simply because of a
nuclear meltdown. Fukushima has made that clear, with a triple meltdown, no
fatalities and no serious radiation doses to anyone.
Safety measures
In Japan, numerous safety assurance measures have been taken.
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emergency safety measures including the installation of additional emergency power source
vehicles and fire engines

reinforcing the on-site communication system and preparing high-dose resistant protective
clothing to allow necessary actions to be taken even in case of a severe accident
installing additional permanent emergency power supply units on high ground, constructing
coastal levees, modifying watertight facilities, and large-capacity temporary seawater pumps,
Nuclear operators monitor environmental radiation around their facility and radioactivity in
environmental samples in order to confi rm that there is no harmful effect on the surrounding
environment.