Noah Swart

Blog Topic

Nuclear Run-off

Mr. Moss

Abandoned Chernobyl

   Nuclear reactors are always a big controversial topic, most people are not properly informed about Nuclear Power. To most name nuclear is almost never a positive term. Factors like these are what lead to calls for the removal of nuclear energy when a big reactor meltdown happens. These melt downs can expose millions to nuclear radioactive chemicals and can destroy the wildlife. Health effects of a nuclear meltdown can last tens of thousands of years and completely ruin parts of land for both humans and all living things.

Fukushima Disaster

   There are different forms of nuclear meltdowns, the cases themselves can vary on the severity of the problem. These meltdowns can be due to oversights such as the case of Chernobyl or due to natural disasters in the case of Fukushima. The effect of a meltdown usually occurs when nuclear waste is leaked through water systems and in the air. In Chernobyl it’s said that the nuclear fallout had such a wide range of land exposure that the true effects can’t be determined without more technological advancement.

   Humans who are exposed to the direct nuclear exposure, such as workers on the plant in the time of a meltdown or the people who live nearby in a town can experience radiation sickness. Those with large amounts of exposure can expect to experience Acute Radiation Syndrome which changes the natural process of human cells and molecules, usually resulting in vomiting, coma and eventually death. Humans and animals exposed to radiation sickness can experience birth mutations, and possibly miscarriages.

Radiation has huge effects on the environment, changing birth patterns in animals, destroying plant life and leaking into water streams which can carry these effects thousands of miles downstream. One effect of radiation on plant life is that it causes the plant life to go in a sort of self-defense mode which can be DNA replication and stress responses to cell death. One of the biggest problems with Ionizing Radiation is we don’t know the full effects it can have, and as more disasters happen we learn more and more about the dangers of nuclear reactors.