natural disasters, epidemics, armed conflicts
In the current world, natural disasters, epidemics, armed conflicts, as well as immigration occur frequently leading to massive deaths, significant economic loss, and displacement of individuals. These forms of disasters pose a huge burden to all sectors in the society probing the government and other private owned organization to embark of disaster preparedness to avoid such losses. Among the interventions that are sustained include the investigation and reporting of the incidences. This paper focuses on the analysis of ethical implication in reporting disasters based on the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. The techno-scientific controversy in investigations and reporting the disaster had massive impacts on the social framework and understanding the causal of the accident.
According to Travadel, Guarnieri, & Portelli (2018), between 2011 and 2012, there emerged a social pressure for the investigation and analysis of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant explosion. In response, three major commission embarked on the duty to establish the main cause of the accident. The three included the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the ICANPS Commission that comprised of the nuclear engineering academics, engineering consultant, two lawyers, a writer, and also the Mayor of the area location of the disaster. Another significant commission was the NAIIC Commission which was formed through parliamentary Act. NAIIC was led by the former President of the Science Council of Japan who was also a physician, a radiation physicist, a seismologist, two lawyers, a chemist, a science journalist, two politicians, and a social system designer. The other team was the IAEA Commission that comprised of regulatory authorities from 12 countries who were also nuclear experts and the personnel from the commission. The main task was to establish the social, technical, as well as organizational causes of the incidence especially the insight. However, although some of the commission consulted each other such as the request by the ICANPS to have IAEA review their interim report, the results were conflicting the main idea. However, in all the reports, the main questions can be summarized into two. First, what caused the extended station blackout, and second, why were the reactors not cooled in time in maintainance of the containment function? According to the IAEA Safety Standards Series No. NS-R-1, most of the accidents experienced from the nuclear accident should be based on three factors: removal or withdrawal of the heat from the core of the radiant, issues emerging from the control of the reactivity, and finally the confinement of various radioactive control and operational discharge and external accidents that could affect the machinery in the station. Therefore, first, before the analysis of the reporting conflicts, the management of the Fukushima should have had knowledge of the possible causal of accidents in a nuclear plant based on the safety standards described by the IAEA. Secondly, Travadel, Guarnieri, & Portelli (2018), explains that there were earlier warning of a high magnitude earthquake as per a report published in 2006, year prior to the Fukushima disaster. The warning should have been a wake up call for the disaster management preparedness for the organizations.
The authenticity of a scientific research is based on reliability and validity, where reliability is based on the consistency of the procedure and validity is based on accuracy. These terms can be used to evaluate different information provided by commisions on the cause of the disaster. First, the report by the government commision, ICANPS implicated that the accident was due to the earthquake that led to tsunami and both of which were beyond assumption. According to the report, the earthquake which hit parts of Japan destroyed the external power supply thus the only left source was from the internal power sources. However, the report indicated that there were no evidence to indicate that indeed the internal power supply which was the back up was functional. The report went ahead to indicate that after the earthquake, the tsunami flooded the buildings of the power plant, flooding the back up generators rendering them inoperational. With no power supply, the core fussion occurred generation hydrogen to the pipes that were destroyed by the earthquake, the explosion. On the other hand, the NAIIC Commission questioned the government of Japan on how the incidence occurred while the country is one of the leading in engineering and technology. The techno-scientific error, according to NAIIC was based on negligence by the responsible parties and TEPCO. Unlike ICANPS investigations which was based on pure assumptions, the NAIIC
research was based on scientific pespective, objective, and logical framework or considerations. The report emphasizes accuracy or reliability based on investigators who took interviewed witnesses, actors, and experts on the causes of the disaster. The operators of the machinery also participated in the investigations with special committees that probed the process as the work was made legit through logical expertise.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the NAIIC report was based on the theory of inquiry which regards retracing the outcome of a certain incidence based on the available knowledge and data, and then making conclusions based on the reconstruction of histroy. Therefore, the objective of the investigations should be evaluated based on the analysis of the data or information provided by the witnesses or actors in logical manner. Travadel, Guarnieri, & Portelli (2018), urgue that, although scientific and technological based research have to follow logical standpoint and historical perpectives, there are some forms of biasness that cannot be avoided. When it comes conflicts or data that presents conflict, investigators should speculate on the evidence provided. In some circumstances, the investigators can ignore some information that cannot be traced to conclude on the investigation. However, these researches explain that these biases leads to distortion of the facts by the process of inqury. However, the research on the utopia behind Fukushuma disaster is based on socioscientific significance due to the involvement of the players in the investigation process. For instance, to understand the logic behind the occurance of the disaster, individuals have to conduct interviews on the histroy of technology and working skills of the personnel, operation of the machinery, among other factors. As explained from the research, the attribution of the cause and effect is the result of unpredictible reliance of different elements such as graphs, standards, statistics, as well as reports. These factors would therefore connect the evidences provided to provide a systematic explanation of the events. Thus, socio-scientific framework in research.
In consideration of such research strategy, it can therefore be concluded that NAIIC reporting was more reliable. Moreover, the commision also questioned the findings of ICANPS report rendering it irrational. Through the socio-scientific research, the NAIIC commision concluded that the entire damage was caused by the high magnitude earthquake. However, the commission explained that the accident could have been prevented. This was based on historical evidence of two factors. First, to understand magnitude of the machanical damage, the commision drew lessons from Browns Ferry accident that occurred due to the effects of the same kind of reactor. They concluded that the IC pipes burst due to loos of coolant and core fussion. Therefore, they concluded that the damage of the IC pipes could only have occurred due to external forces, the earthquake or the simulation of seismic energy sending huhe aftershock which made significant damages at building one. Second, the commission failed to establish significant connection between the damaged IC pipe leaks with the simulations of the seismic energy and concluded that the effect could have been caused by poor infrustructure even after a prior warning of a high magnitude earthquake which was published in 2006. Therefore, the commission linked the cause of the accident to operational attitude, failure to take precaution measures in time, and human negligence. These results pointed out to ethical conflict.
Therefore, according to the findings of the investigestions several factors can be constructed. In reality nuclear disasters which lead to offsite exposure to the people are not scarce and such incidences have become common in the nuclear generating industries around the world. For instance, according to Sovacool (2010), 76 considerable accidents leading to loss of lives and massive damage in the past half a century that is between 1947 and 2008 have occurred since Chernobyl. The author goes ahead to cites research indicating elevated numbers of such serious accidents in the United States, France among other countries. In all these major accidents, a flurry of inquiries emerges seeking to find the main cause, finding the blame as well as creating recommendations to evade possibility of repetition. Sovacool wrap up by explaining that the dangers and range of accidents is possible to rise as superior reactors with new technology based framework and also untested designs emerge in the market. The researcher also claimed that the stress to maintain and sustain more power supply and making profits within the private as well as systems which are emerging as more competitive in production is responsible in maintenance and keeping the plants online as much as feasible while they have relevant compromise to safety of human kind. Through such conclusion, the issue of ethics is supposed to be sustained and regarded in the world where the population is increasing leading to increased need for energy. However, safety is axiomatic in the nuclear plant engineering; Studies indicate that even after the reports that highlighted the need for ethics in nuclear industry from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, there are no amounts of lessons achieved from these cases. Therefore instead, experts propose stringent regulatory precautionary or requirements doctrines which can be proof beside the numerous things that put lives in jeopardy in quest for complex, high technology based, and highly risky systems.
The research expounds the need to understand the impacts of nuclear accidents, and make significant steps towards preparedness, reliance in historical research on the issues that have been causing the accidents, and putting the right measures in countering the problem. These include how to adhere to the safety precautions and provided guidelines to safeguard the future from such hazardous accidents. Nuclear energy is manufactured from high complex materials and organizational structure. They comprise of “tight coupling” of co-dependent mechanism of the organization. Thus, the complexity of the process leads to the possibilities of numerous impending failures, practically impossible to predict and complicated to comprehend. Therefore, there are possibilities of multiple failures to arise within the substance components (through the processes such as leaking, cooling, and heating), as well as in the human organization. Failures in human organization comprises of factors such as the process of monitoring, inspecting, controlling, as well as maintaining the overall processes and performance. Therefore, through such factors emerging from the system, There is a possibility of “various unexpected malfunctions which are in most cases inevitable. However, although most of these processes are unpredictable, they are not impractical, so the accidents can occur anytime. However, the implicated organizations should be in a position to prevent any occurrence of such accidents. This would be made possible through sufficient research and sustainability of nuclear plant guidelines.
Similarly, organization that deals with nuclear plants should have significant mechanical and engineering framework that would assist in easing the possibilities of such accidents. According to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, one of the main causes of the damage incurred was related to loss of power, the failure of the ACs as well as the DCs power led not only to lack of operation of critical machines but also it led to failure of important instrumentation within the plant. This is through the consideration that the plant circumstances changed from the normal assumptions corresponding emergency operating procedures (EOPs) as well as disaster management guiding principle and provided that no measures or guideline strategies were existing for such situation that in reality occurred, thus making it a challenge to contain the challenges. Lack of disaster preparedness was blamed as one of the main challenges incurred. The management did not consider sufficient training for the personnel on disaster preparedness of the magnitude that occurred. Again, the management failed in managing and inspection the operations. For instance, the management should have established the malfunction of the internal power back up. Similarly, the infrastructure should be reaffirmed in advance prior to the accident. For measures to be taken efficiently, operational training and guidance should have emphasized on these measures and needs to be accomplished in advance. According to the report by the NAIIC, training involving the management of relentless accidents performed was not efficient enough to cater to avoid issues brought about by natural calamities such as earthquake.