Japan earthquake – Radiation Threat
The recent earthquake in Japan which caused devastating loss upon human lives as well as infrastructure and buildings served as a reminder of the dangers of the power sources which we currently use and provided a big argument in favour of moving towards solar energy. The need to have nuclear power plants in order to create energy is highly dangerous and a disaster waiting to happen.
The disaster in Chernobyl in 1986 was a warning that was not heeded, and when the earthquakes and tsunami hit Japan earlier this year we saw a repeat of the radiation threat which harmed so many people in Ukraine. The images that have come as a result of the 10ft tsunami which spread inland as a result of the earthquake off the 
coast of Japan are beyond comprehension.
When the tsunami hit the east coast of Japan it only took seconds for the water to engulf the precariously placed Fukushima nuclear power station which was only a few hundred metres from the coast. The power plant has defence systems in place to prevent harming radiation escaping from the plant in the event of a disaster such as an earthquake or a tsunami.
The problem is that these coolers take such a long time cool down the generators and so they had not completed their task by the time the water hit. The explosions which occurred at the plant after the earthquake and tsunami meant that the power supply to the coolers was cut off, whcih resulted in steam being created within the reactors. This steam reacted with the heated fuel rods and created the highly dangerous hydrogen gas. There are fears that the explosion at the second reactor led to radioactive substances escaping into the environment. The people of Japan will be praying that the levels of radiation do not reach levels that will cause real harm to the population.
If solar power were to be introduced on a widespread level it would help to eradicate the danger of radiation and its devastating effects on both humans and the environment. Solar power remains one of the alternatives but the issue really is how to produce solar energy and power on a mass scale - a scale big enough to challenge nucleur energy. Scalability remains the issue with solar power.
