Year: 2021

“More confident, far-seeing, capable and prudent.”

Sagan

There were documented reports that TEPCO allowed cooling water that contacted the nuclear fuel — the worst kind yet — to return to sea shortly after the initial 2011 incident. So whatever hacks they are doing over the table now might not even be the most despicable in the whole series of unfortunate human-error-led events.

That’s enough mockery.

I recall an old Internet joke, probably out of Japan, actually, saying that humanity’s commercial nuclear energy facilities are “apartments without toilets”.

There’s merit to that statement. When it comes to dealing with fission waste, humans have little solution other than chucking spent fuel rods somewhere quiet until they fizzle themselves out: big caves in the arctic, solubles dumped into the sea — sorry California; water cans arranged on an earthquake-prone coast … Nothing humans devised or implemented so far can survive geological, let alone astrophysical timescales, and whenever somebody contemplates dumping nuclear waste any farther or deeper, one soon realises that our technology isn’t reliable enough to ensure stuff inside a miles-long perimeter around the launchpad do not turn into another no-man zone.

But this concern isn’t what I mainly set out to discuss tonight.

What I fear most about the Fukushima situation — the unforeseen consequence — probably isn’t the C-14 waiting to taint my own DNA, or make future archeologists cry (or laugh, if they are not our direct descendants but here to build their own toy human fossils collection, hi!).

What I do fear, based on how I notice the ongoing situation is being portrayed, discussed, and felt, in various information bubbles around the world, is the grand opening of a new era of humanity. One during which cold-war weapons of thought are unholstered again, probably wielded by dumber people than last time around; one that has a greater potential than ever be the last chapter of history, or, at least, be remembered as the beginning of the end of our modern life; one where the words such as “common good” or “justice” are so bent out of shape, perverted and misused, that people lose responsibility and accountability to the civilisation collectively.

For beings as feeble as ourselves, all we have is each other, and our fates are quite tightly linked as a civilisation. Hopefully some of you resonate with this observation – bring your god along if you need one. Of course, some of my Western readers may be recognising my philosophy of this shared future for mankind as Beijing propaganda. You’d be right, but to those of you I say, I occasionally fret upon the fact we need to carry you along for this journey too.

May truth and justice prevail, and may humanity stay prosperous among the stars. I do not see a way how, but that’s what I suppose my whole life ahead will be about.

A few months ago, when I was preparing to demonstrate one of our few physics experiments that deal with radioactive sources — Co-60, for our use case, a good source of gamma rays and electron-positron pairs — I remember reading about the concept of low-background steel, the magical metal they required to build the radioactive castle and all our Geiger counters.

The term “Low Background” is one of the more interesting technical terms. It does not generally refer to a particular manufacturing technology, not a certain grade of chemical resilience, nor some special mechanical performance. Rather, it refers to a priceless quality, a timestamp on their manufacturing time: before humanity’s first nuclear tests.

From mid-19th century, humanity has been reliant on atmospheric gases to lower the carbon level in molten iron alloys, a crucial step in steel manufacturing. With the successful nuclear tests starting in the 1940s, especially when the Americans thought detonating nuclear bombs mid-air or next to an island nation were good ideas, a huge amount of radioactive byproducts have remained in atmospheric circulation ever since, some naturally find their way into our metals, and back to ourselves.

“High Background” steel manufactured afterwards of course isn’t worthless. Other than precision scientific and healthcare scenarios, they are around in abundance, supporting every bit of modern life.

What I do wish to remark, with decades of hindsight and speculative wisdom, is that the “background” distinction was an unforeseen consequence. To me, there is a general lack of evidence that Americans in the 1940s, or anybody else, stockpiled steel with foresight of this particular kind of threat, only realizing the lasting impacts of those free nucleotides after our geiger counters malfunctioned or photographic films exposed to random dots.

This one little example actually marks the end of my essay this week.

Whether I am insinuating that I feel concerned about what has transpired recently in the Northern Pacific, is up to your own comprehension. I have zero knowledge about real-world nuclear fallouts or power plant failure management, and understand that my opinion, if any, can effect little change in a world where “being transparent” earns oneself more praise than actually doing anything.

That something is logical but unforeseen usually leads to the painful realization that humanity has little chance to do anything about it when it arrives, even if it is we who set it in motion. What are our generation’s unforeseen consequences? I am actually quite keen to know.

Footnotes

I am not to imply that nature before the nuclear age was particularly bucolic — the radioactive isotopes in all the metal forests humans inhabit come from more places than the steel. Radon, for example, mostly come from the radioactive decays within the earth itself. Potassium has an abundant radioactive cousin, K-40, let alone the lighter ones such as C-14 and H-3 that are replenished by a diverse range of natural processes.