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Japan’s prime minister and emergency preparedness officials are bracing themselves for a disaster on top of an existing disaster.  Two nuclear reactors that have had their cooling systems blown out by Friday’s earthquake could begin to leak radioactive iodine.  Three SFU chemists with expertise on nuclear reactors are available to comment.  

SFU nuclear scientists Corina Andreoiu and Kris Starostas, who also work at TRIUMF, say the fact that the reactor shut down at the start of the quake shows that built-in safety mechanisms worked.  But residual heat from “fission reaction products” is still generating energy that could precipitate various disaster scenarios. Starostas can elaborate on similarities he sees between this situation and the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

Jean-Claude Brodovitch, a SFU nuclear chemist and senior lecturer, fluent in English and French, adds, “If there’s a serious leak, small amounts of radioactive iodine could start showing up in the atmosphere and in plants, such as seaweed, off the coast of North America, as happened with Russia’s Chernobyl incident.”

Corina Andreoiu, 778.782.3946 (SFU), 604.222.1047 (TRIUMF), caa12@sfu.ca
Kris Starosta, 778.782.8861 (SFU), 604.222.1047 (TRIUMF), starosta@sfu.ca
Jean Claude Brodovitch, 778.782.3790, brodovit@sfu.ca

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