2023: Toward a Nuclear Archive: from Peaceful Atom to the Long Shadow of Chernobyl (original) (raw)
Related papers
Uncovering Chernobyl, Thirty years on
The Cambridge Globalist, 2016
What was the resonance of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 30 years on? “I personally think that Chernobyl contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union,” said Dr. Galia Ackerman, taking a sip of her café allongé. The Franco-Russian journalist and I sat in her living room in Paris on the morning of 28 April, just two days after the 30th anniversary of the catastrophic explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Her suggestion was not unprecedented. Even Mikhail Gorbachev wrote over a decade earlier that Chernobyl, “even more than [his] launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.” The thought, nonetheless, remains ever as striking, boldly evincing that there will always be a straw, however unexpected, that breaks the camel’s back, even in a totalitarian state with a seemingly voiceless populace.
This is a paper I wrote for Sociology 118CW taught by Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi at UC Santa Barbara. In this piece I argue how Chernobyl forever altered the future of nuclear energy in the Baltic region.
Chernobyl in Slow Motion Radioactive Mismanagement in the Soviet Union - Part I
n the process of the Soviet Union's rapid attempt at nuclear weapons development beginning in the late 1940s, little consideration was given to the radioactive wastes these facilities produced, let alone the environmental and health impacts these wastes posed. To compound this dilemma, atomic power and subsequent radioactive waste management was concealed behind the "curtain of secrecy," since it fell primarily under the jurisdiction of the Soviet military industrial complex. The Cold War inevitably sped up the process of nuclear development to a feverish pace. Furthermore, over the last 30 years, the Soviet Union has experienced a rapid expansion in the number of nuclear power plants - a programme designed to modernise the Soviet economy and consequently supply the military with weapons-grade plutonium to fuel atomic weapons. However, this rapid expansion has translated into an environmental catastrophe. In many cases, the damage caused by radioactive waste mismanagement is irreversible; in others, the threats posed by radioactive contaminants are potential disasters waiting to happen.
2014
The nuclear accident at Fukushima in Japan occurred almost exactly 25 years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. Analysis of each provides valuable late and early lessons that could prove helpful to decision-makers and the public as plans are made to meet the energy demands of the coming decades while responding to the growing environmental costs of climate change and the need to ensure energy security in a politically unstable world. This chapter explores some key aspects of the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, the radiation releases, their effects and their implications for any construction of new nuclear plants in Europe. There are also lessons to be learned about nuclear construction costs, liabilities, future investments and risk assessment of foreseeable and unexpected events that affect people and the environment. Since health consequences may start to arise from the Fukushima accident and be documented over the next 5–40 years, a key lesson to be learned concerns ...
The Chernobyl Accident 20 Years On: An Assessment of the
Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 2006
Background The Chernobyl accident in 1986 caused widespread radioactive contamination and enormous concern. Twenty years later, the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Authority issued a generally reassuring statement about the consequences. Accurate assessment of the consequences is important to the current debate on nuclear power.Objectives Our objectives in this study were to evaluate the health impact of the Chernobyl accident, assess the international response to the accident, and consider how to improve responses to future accidents.Discussion So far, radiation to the thyroid from radioisotopes of iodine has caused several thousand cases of thyroid cancer but very few deaths; exposed children were most susceptible. The focus on thyroid cancer has diverted attention from possible nonthyroid effects, such as mini-satellite instability, which is potentially important. The international response to the accident was inadequate and uncoordinated, and has been unjustifiably reassuring. Accurate assessment of Chernobyl’s future health effects is not currently possible in the light of dose uncertainties, current debates over radiation actions, and the lessons from the late consequences of atomic bomb exposure.Conclusions Because of the uncertainties over the dose from and the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, it is essential that investigations of its effects should be broadened and supported for the long term. Because of the problems with the international response to Chernobyl, the United Nations should initiate an independent review of the actions and assignments of the agencies concerned, with recommendations for dealing with future international-scale accidents. These should involve independent scientists and ensure cooperation rather than rivalry.