Radioactive impact on Iran and the world from a postulated accident at Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant

Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents showed that nuclear accident is a global concern. Dispersion and faraway transportation of radioactive materials under atmospheric conditions are the main goals of this paper. Radioactive materials have a lot of damages, undesirable and dangerous long-term effects on the environment and human health. Therefore, in this paper, the simulation of transport, dispersion and deposition of radioactive materials released from a postulated accident in Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant have been studied using HYSPLIT. The postulated accident for Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant is designed based on world's largest nuclear accident, the Chernobyl accident. In this study, it is assumed that the postulated accident in Bushehr nuclear plant occurred on March 21, 2015. The simulation results show that in the period of one month, nuclear pollution resulting from this accident would affects almost the whole of Iran. The amount of radioactive materials deposition is very high in some cities of Iran. The most deposition of radioactive materials would occur in Bandar Bushehr and Ahvaz. In these cities, the maximum deposition is related to the second day of the accident, which are: 1.55×108Bq/m2 and 1.06×106Bq/m2, respectively. During this period, in addition to Iran, even most Asian countries, North America, Europe continent and Africa are affected by nuclear pollution while the most pollution is related to Asia, North America and Europe, respectively. Radioactive materials after passing from the continents come back to the East Asian again. In Asian countries after Iran, the maximum deposition of radioactive materials is related to Turkmenistan that the deposition value is 1.78×105Bq/m2 for the second day of the accident. In continent of America, the most nuclear pollution is related to the state of Arizona. In this state, the maximum deposition is 1.00×105Bq/m2 on the fifteenth day of the accident. In Europe, the maximum deposition is in Ukraine and it is 4.16×103Bq/m2 on 12 days after the accident. In this accident, radioactive materials would contaminate the most of Northern hemisphere and also would influence the southern hemisphere in very negligible amount. [Display omitted] •Simulation of postulated accident helps managers to find the best solution.•Dispersion and faraway transportation of radioactive materials under atmospheric conditions are very important.•The simulation of radioactive materials released from a postulated accident hav