三里岛核事故分析-英文.docVIP

How Is Japans Nuclear Disaster Different? Fukushima Daiichi may be no Chernobyl, but it has overshadowed Three Mile Island. The control room at Chernobyls Reactor No. 4 is shown here. Reactor design, wind patterns, communication and other factors can cause differences in the severity of nuclear accidents. Photograph by Gerd Ludwig, National Geographic Josie Garthwaite For?National Geographic News Published March 16, 2011 This story is part of a?special series?that explores energy issues. For more, visitThe Great Energy Challenge. For decades, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have served as shorthand for the nightmare of nuclear power generation gone awry. In the wake of Japans deadly earthquake and tsunami last week, the still-unfolding disaster of Fukushima Daiichi has come closer than any nuclear crisis in history to making it a fearsome trio. (Related Story: Japan Tries to Avert Nuclear Disaster) It remains to be seen how much damage will be caused by the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power complex, where four of the six reactors have seen a range of woes including three explosions in four days, damage to two containment vessels, possible overheating from spent fuel rods, and mounting peril for the last remaining 50 workers due to dangerous spikes in radiation emissions. Yet it is already possible to outline key differences that set the current Fukushima situation apart from the 1979 Three Mile Island emergency near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, that unfolded seven years later. Reactor Type Japans Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex, which began operating in the 1970s, is made up of six boiling-water reactors, or BWRs—a type of Light Water Reactor. (Using ordinary water, it is distinguished from heavy water reactors, which use?deuterium?oxide, or D2O, instead of H2O.) Three Mile Island used another type of Light Water Reactor known as a pressurized-water reactor, or PWR. Both of these reactors use water for two purposes.