Emerging issues | Late lessons from Chernobyl, early warnings from Fukushima 18 Late lessons from Chernobyl, early warnings from (original) (raw)

Late Lessons from Chernobyl , Early Warnings from Fukushima NUCLEAR MONITOR

2013

At present, nuclear energy is used in 31 countries, producing roughly 13 % of the world’s commercial electricity, and currently 15 countries are in the process of planning the building of new nuclear capacity. There are 435 nuclear power reactors in operation around the world--at the peak of nuclear generation in 2002 there were 444--of which 189 are in pan-Europe and the Russian Federation, comprising about one third of the world’s 146 civil reactors, with France alone generating close to half of the EU’s nuclear production from 58 plants (Schnieder et al, 2011; European Nuclear Society, 2012).

講演再録 Fukushima : Overview of relevant international experience

2011

When considering the environmental and health impacts of radioactivity released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, international comparison to date has focused very much on Chernobyl and there has been significant effort invested to determine what could be learned from this and other high profile reactor incidents such as Three Mile Island. In fact, Fukushima releases are very different to these cases and comparisons may not only be misleading, but could cause unnecessary public concern – especially when coupled to images of the Chernobyl “dead zone”. A wider review of the global history of incidents at nuclear reactors, “Cold War” waste management procedures and other releases of radioactivity into the environment provides a better background to put Fukushima in perspective. This also identifies experience that could be utilised to facilitate stabilisation and decommissioning of the damaged Fukushima units and clean-up of contaminated areas, both onand off-site. International...

Chernobyl: Past, Present and Future

2019

The main feature of this book is that it shows, perhaps for the first time, the true role of the workers at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the origin of the 1986 accident and in the reduction of its consequences. Significant consideration is given in this book to revealing the causes and the lessons of this tragedy. The authors of the book are nuclear power engineers having significant experience in nuclear power plant operation, management of nuclear power industry and regulation of its safety. The book is addressed to a wide range of readers, particularly those with a role in ensuring prevention and overcoming consequences of technological and natural disasters. It may be special useful to those having a connection with the nuclear power industry.

Debate on the Chernobyl Disaster: On the Causes of Chernobyl Overestimation

International Journal of Health Services, 2012

After the Chernobyl accident, many publications appeared that overestimated its medical consequences. Some of them are discussed in this article. Among the motives for the overestimation were anti-nuclear sentiments, widespread among some adherents of the Green movement; however, their attitude has not been wrong: nuclear facilities should have been prevented from spreading to overpopulated countries governed by unstable regimes and regions where conflicts and terrorism cannot be excluded. The Chernobyl accident has hindered worldwide development of atomic industry. Today, there are no alternatives to nuclear power: nonrenewable fossil fuels will become more and more expensive, contributing to affluence in the oilproducing countries and poverty in the rest of the world. Worldwide introduction of nuclear energy will become possible only after a concentration of authority within an efficient international executive. This will enable construction of nuclear power plants in optimally suitable places, considering all sociopolitical, geographic, geologic, and other preconditions. In this way, accidents such as that in Japan in 2011 will be prevented.

The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima Japanese translation is available

2012

It is one of the marvels of our time that the nuclear industry managed to resurrect itself from its ruins at the end of the last century, when it crumbled under its costs, inefficiencies, and mega-accidents. Chernobyl released hundreds of times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined, contaminating more than 40 % of Europe and the entire Northern Hemisphere.[1] But along came the nuclear lobby to breathe new life into the industry, passing off as “clean ” this energy source that polluted half the globe. The “fresh look at nuclear”—in the words of a New York Times makeover piece (May 13, 2006)[2]—paved the way to a “nuclear Renaissance ” in the United States that Fukushima has by no means brought to a halt. That mainstream media have been powerful advocates for nuclear power comes as no surprise. “The media are saturated with a skilled, intensive, and effective advocacy campaign by the nuclear industry, resulting in disinformation ” and “wholly counterfactual a...