人类核事件簿——核世界的异常、事件和事故

    日本今年遭受的9.0级大地震引发了一系列后续灾难，包括3月11日的海啸，以及日前的7.1级余震，还有此次福岛核危机。福岛核危机在人类的核安全史上又写下了重重的一笔。自核能诞生以来，全球已经经历了多次重大核事故，这些事故全都源于人为过失、安全规程不到位或设备老旧等因素，或是由几种因素综合造成的。

    在破损的核反应堆完全冷却并被封堆之前，我们无法确知这次日本核危机的破坏范围，甚至可能等到封堆后也无法知道。现在海啸已经过去近一个月了，但对于事故现场——东京电力公司（Tokyo Electric Power Company）的福岛第一核电站（Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station）究竟发生了什么，日本政府还是只披露了极少的消息。不过据悉该公司的工人仍在试图冷却破损的核反应堆。据国际原子能机构（IAEA）称，东京电力公司将向太平洋排放超过1万吨的低放射性污水。

    最终，国际原子能机构会对日本核危机的严重性进行评级。这套评级标准称作“国际核事件分级表”（INES），是一套根据核事故的严重程度对核事故进行分级的机制，最低为1级，最高为7级。

    其中1级用来表示“异常”，例如某人接触到的辐射水平高于监管机构规定的正常年照射量，但这种辐射水平不一定会引发健康问题。

    “异常”也可能意味着核设施的某个安全问题本可能造成更大的破坏，但结果并未造成严重后果；或是放射性材料被盗，或被不当运输。例如，2006年在美国德克萨斯，有一名驾驶福特（Ford）卡车的司机把车钥匙忘在了车上，结果车里的一台50镑重的放射线照相机被盗了，几天后又被重新找到。这起事件就被认定为国际核事件分级表的1级事故。

    2级被称为“一般事件”，3级称为“重大事件”。一起核事故究竟应该被评为2级还是3级，取决于它造成了多大范围的安全问题，以及遭到辐射的人数，和他们遭受的辐射剂量。

    国际核安全事件分级表的4到7级则被官方称为“事故”，它们往往表示有一人或多人因遭受辐射而死亡——但也并非总是如此。国际核安全事件分级表并不涵盖因非放射性化学品泄露或爆炸所导致的核设施人员伤亡。

    日本在1999年就曾发生过一次4级核事故（又称“东海村核事故”——译注），当时在日本核燃料转换公司（Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion）的一个燃料厂内，三名正在为反应堆准备燃料的工人引发了一次链式核反应，使反应堆达到临界状态。其中两名工人最终死于辐射病。事后调查显示，这家公司在事故发生三年前简化了核燃料准备的工作流程，但增加了导致核临界状态的可能性。

    到本文撰写时为止，本次福岛核灾难的评级还是5级，这表明反应堆堆芯已经受到严重损坏，而且公众可能将受到某种程度的核辐射。

    1979年美国著名的“三里岛核事故”评级也是5级，事故发生在美国宾夕法尼亚州首府哈里斯堡附近的一座核电站，当时这座核电站属于大都会爱迪生公司（Metropolitan Edison）所有，不过现在该核电站已归入艾克斯龙公司（Exelon Corporation）旗下。在“三里岛核事故”中，该核电站出现了一次机械故障，导致其中一座反应堆运行过热，进而自动关闭。核电站的操作人员对情势反应不当，停止对反应堆进行冷却，导致反应堆过热而破损，并将放射性材料释放到核电站内。

    美国核管理委员会的一份报告指出：“这次事故说明联邦政府和州政府的警惕松懈”。该报告将三里岛核事故归咎于“个人过失、设计缺陷和部件故障的综合因素”。

    三里岛核事件并未导致人员死亡，不过它造成的破坏和清理费用却高达近10亿美元。

    史上第二严重的核事故发生在前苏联克什特姆省的马雅克核燃料处理厂。1957年，该厂的一个装有放射性废料的容器发生了爆炸，该事故被国际核事件分级表评定为6级。据世界核协会（WNA）称，马雅克核爆炸向大气中喷出了大约75吨放射性废料，并且估计导致了200人罹患了致命的癌症。

    第7级“特大事故”只有一起，当然，这就是切尔诺贝利核事故。切尔诺贝利位于现在的乌克兰。事故发生于1986年，该核电站的一个反应堆本身就存在缺陷，事故发生时，核电站的操作人员忽视了安全规程，关闭了控制该反应堆的电气控制系统，然后这个反应堆达到了不稳定状态。

    功率的激增引起了反应堆的链式反应，反应堆的堆芯燃烧起来。它整整燃烧了10天，产生的放射性物质云笼罩了前苏联的大片地区。

    134名抢险工人暴露在大剂量的辐射之下，其中28名工人就在这一年内死于辐射病。

    除了30人左右的直接死亡外，切尔诺贝利事故还导致了许多人间接死亡，例如有些人的死可能是由辐射云导致的。据估计，切尔诺贝利事故形成的辐射云使500多万人受到了异常剂量的照射。

    儿童尤其是这起核事故的牺牲品。根据一份由国际原子能机构、世界卫生组织（World Health Organization）、俄罗斯、白俄罗斯以及乌克兰政府等几方面共同起草的报告，截止到2002年，大约有4000名在1986年还是儿童的人因遭受切尔诺贝利事故的辐射，而患上了甲状腺癌。还有许多儿童因饮用了被污染地区产出的含放射性物质的牛奶而罹患了癌症。

    该报告指出，切尔诺贝利核事故导致的总体死亡人数仍不确定，“要可靠、精确地计算因遭受切尔诺贝利核事故的辐射而罹患癌症的人数是不可能的。”

    2010年经济合作与发展组织（OECD）和核能机构（Nuclear Energy Agency）联合发布的一份报告含蓄地表达了一个观点，即能源工业的核事故所导致的死亡人数不应被夸大。该报告指出，在1969年到2000年间，有2259人死于与煤炭业相关的事故，另有3713人死于与石油工业相关的重大事故。

    尽管如此，这次日本核事故还是促使一些政治领导人暂停了核电项目的进展。例如德国和中国的政府官员都在重新评估本国新建核电项目的审批手续。

    不过，这并不意味着核电项目从长远看来将减少。国际能源署（International Energy Agency）在 《2010年世界能源展望》（World Energy Outlook）中预测道，从2008年到2035年，世界初级能源需求将增长36%，与此同时，核能占能源构成的比重将由6%增长至8%。

    无疑，世界仍将需要更多的能源。日本核危机迫使监管机构和能源企业直面这一代人最大的挑战：如何在满足激增的全球能源需求的同时，保证人们的安全。

    译者：朴成奎

    FORTUNE -- The nuclear crisis in Japan, the aftermath of an 9.0 magnitude earthquake, including a 7.1 magnitude aftershock yesterday, and a tsunami on March 11, adds to a long list of major nuclear accidents, all of which stem from some combination of human error, insufficient safety procedure, or outdated equipment.

    We won't know the extent of the damage from this nuclear crisis until well after the ruined reactors are cooled and buried, maybe not even then. Even now -- 28 days after the tsunami -- Japan's government has disclosed very little information about what has happened at the scene of the accident, the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Workers there, however, are known to be still trying to cool the damaged reactors. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), TEPCO will have to release over 10,000 tons of low-level radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.

    Eventually, this Japanese incident will be assigned a final numerical rating according to a scale devised by the IAEA. The scale, called INES (for International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale), breaks down the severity of nuclear events into bloodless, regimented categories. Each event ultimately gets a ranking from 1 to 7.

    A rating of 1 is applied to "an anomaly." That includes situations in which a person is exposed to a higher level of radiation than the annual limit set by regulators, but does not necessarily develop health problems.

    An "anomaly" can also mean that a safety problem at a facility could have resulted in greater damage than it did or that radioactive material has been stolen or transported incorrectly. For example, in Texas in 2006, the driver of a Ford truck containing a 50-pound radiography camera left his keys in the truck. It was stolen and then found a couple of days later. This incident rated a 1 on the INES scale.

    Level 2 is an "incident" and Level 3 is a "serious incident." Which designation applies depends on the extent of security problems, the number of people exposed to radiation, and the dosage they receive.

    Levels 4-7 on the INES scale are officially called "accidents" and often, but not always, signal that one or more fatalities from radiation exposure have occurred. The INES ranking scale doesn't cover deaths at nuclear facilities from non-radioactive chemical leaks or explosions.

    Japan itself had a Level 4 accident in 1999, when three workers preparing fuel for a reactor at a Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion plant triggered a nuclear chain reaction, called a criticality. Two workers subsequently died. An investigation of the accident found that the company had changed its work procedures for preparing nuclear fuel three years earlier, streamlining these but also increasing the likelihood of their causing a criticality.

    Today's Japanese nuclear disaster is for the moment rated level 5, which signifies that there is severe damage to the reactor core and that members of the public will probably be exposed to some level of radiation.

    Level 5 is also the designation for America's infamous 1979 event known as Three Mile Island, denoting a facility near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that was owned by Metropolitan Edison (Exelon Corporation owns it now.) In this crisis, a reactor at the plant automatically shut down in response to a malfunction that caused it to run too hot. The plant's operators responded incorrectly to the situation and stopped cooling the reactor, which overheated, suffered damage, and released radioactive material inside the plant.

    "The accident caught federal and state authorities off-guard," said a report by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which attributed the accident to "a combination of personnel error, design deficiencies, and component failures."

    No one died at the Three Mile Island accident, but the facility incurred nearly $1 billion of damages and clean-up costs.

    History's second-most damaging nuclear accident occurred in 1957 at Russia's Mayak plant in the Kyshtym province. Caused by the explosion of a tank that contained radioactive waste, this crisis is recorded as a Level 6 "serious accident" on the INES scale. The explosion spewed roughly 75 tons of radioactive waste into the atmosphere, according to the World Nuclear Association, and caused an estimated 200 people to develop fatal cancer.

    There has only been one Level 7 "major accident," and that, of course, was at Chernobyl, located in what is now called Ukraine. This disaster occurred in 1986 when operators, ignoring safety regulations, switched off the electrical control system governing a reactor that was already flawed. The reactor then proceeded to reach an unstable state.

    A surge of power caused a chain reaction that set the reactor core on fire. It burned for 10 days and released a cloud of radioactive matter that spread over a wide area of the USSR.

    At the plant, 134 emergency workers were exposed to high doses of radiation that killed 28 of them in that same year, 1986.

    To that toll of about 30 deaths must be added the indirect effects of Chernobyl—deaths caused, for example, by that radioactive cloud, which is estimated to have exposed more than 5 million people to abnormal doses of radiation.

    Children were particular victims. Around 4000 people who were children in 1986 had by 2002 developed thyroid cancer from the exposure, according to a report issued jointly by several parties including the IAEA, World Health Organization and the governments of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Many of the children developed cancer from drinking irradiated milk produced at dairies in the contaminated area.

    The overall death toll from Chernobyl remains uncertain, says that same report: "It is impossible to assess reliably, with any precision, numbers of fatal cancers caused by radiation exposure due to Chernobyl accident."

    The death toll from nuclear events in the energy industry should not be overstated, a point implicitly made in a 2010 joint report by the OECD and the Nuclear Energy Agency. The report states that 2,259 people in the OECD's 32 countries died from coal industry-related accidents between 1969 and 2000 and that 3,713 people died from major oil industry-related accidents during the same period.

    Even so, Japan's accident has caused some political leaders to pause the progression of nuclear power. Government officials in Germany and China, for example, are reassessing their countries' approval process for new nuclear projects.

    That doesn't mean there will necessarily be a long-term diminution in nuclear projects. The International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook for 2010 predicts that primary energy demand will grow by 36% between 2008 and 2035 and that nuclear power's share of the energy mix will meanwhile increase from 6% to 8%.

    Indisputably, the world will continue to need more fuel. The nuclear accident in Japan casts into sharp relief the pressure on regulators and energy producers to face one of this generation's greatest challenges: meeting the spiking global energy demand while simultaneously keeping people safe.