By Irina Glushchenko and Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — Every spring since the Chernobyl catastrophe in April 1986, the Russian press has returned to history's worst nuclear disaster. In the first years, the articles focused on the heroism of the people brought in to try to deal with the accident. Later, readers were urged to believe that the reactor meltdown had occurred solely because of Soviet totalitarianism. In the last few years, newspapers in Russia have declaimed on the ineptitude and irresponsibility of the Ukrainian authorities trying to overcome the effects of massive radioactive contamination.
This year, there has been a new twist. With some reluctance — the Yeltsin government is committed to a major expansion of nuclear power generation — the Russian media are acknowledging that the accident at Chernobyl was far worse than earlier accounts suggested. What happened in Unit 4 at Chernobyl was, in fact, little short of the theoretical "worst case" for reactors of this type.
Not surprisingly, it has also emerged that the effects of the catastrophe on the environment and on human health will be far worse, and will last much longer, than was first predicted.
Soon after the accident, Soviet scientists and the government argued that the initial explosion blew only a minor part of the reaction products in Unit 4 into the atmosphere. Studies performed since have shown this view to be quite wrong. At the end of April this year, an article in Moscow News reported that 185 tons of nuclear fuel, earlier thought to have remained inside the reactor unit, were now believed to be missing.
At a symposium in April, Dr Alexander Bolsunovsky, a former Soviet scientist now working at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, argued that the radiation levels generated by the Chernobyl catastrophe were at least eight to ten times more dangerous than previously thought.
In an article published early in May by the English-language Moscow Times, renowned biologist Zhores Medvedev observed: "...recent analyses of the chemical and radionuclide composition of the melted-down nuclear fuel that remains in the destroyed reactor show that at least 170-185 million curies of radioactivity were released into the environment during the accident, not 50 million curies as first announced".
For human health, the main long-term danger from the disaster is due to the presence in the environment of large amounts of radioactive iodine. This accumulates selectively in the thyroid gland, especially of children. According to Medvedev, it has now been established that 85% of the radioiodine in the fuel of the damaged reactor must have been released.
In the early 1990s, the incidence of thyroid cancer among children living in the regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia nearest to Chernobyl rose far more quickly than anticipated. The highest incidence was found among children in the Gomel region of Belarus — according to Medvedev, many times the rate recorded among survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. In Russia's Bryansk province, cases of thyroid cancer quintupled during the seven years after the accident.
Ironically, these revelations come at a time when interest in the effects of the disaster is gradually waning among the Russian population, only partly revived from time to time by a new scandal over the theft of aid funds meant for "the children of Chernobyl".
Reactors planned
One senses that the Russian authorities are well pleased to let the issue slide. Fifteen Chernobyl-type reactors — fire-prone because of their use of graphite as a moderator, and featuring inherently unstable core physics — are still operating; two of these reactors are at Chernobyl in Ukraine, two in Lithuania, and the rest in Russia. There are no firm plans to close any of these plants.
Addicted to seeking crude technocratic "solutions" to questions of energy use, the Russian government plans a total of 11 new nuclear power reactors, including one more of the Chernobyl type.
Ukraine, which suffers from acute energy shortages, is also expanding its nuclear capacity. The country now has five nuclear power reactors, including the two surviving units at Chernobyl, and work has resumed on building three more. In Ukraine, unlike Russia, the question of nuclear power at least generates a certain political heat — though not always for the most obvious reasons.
During the years from 1989 to 1991, Ukrainian nationalists joined with the green movement in voicing anti-nuclear slogans, since all nuclear programs were controlled from Moscow. After independence, the situation changed radically. With the economy collapsing, and the country threatened with an oil and gas famine because of inability to pay Russian suppliers, nuclear energy came to be seen as central to thwarting pressures for economic and political reintegration into Russia.
At one point the Ukrainian parliament, responding to Western appeals, voted in favour of shutting down the remaining reactors at Chernobyl. Pressure from nationalist organisations was an important factor in reversing this decision.
Declining standards
While Chernobyl became a pawn in battles between political currents with little real commitment to the environment, safety standards in the plant declined even further. Reported incidents more than doubled last year, from six to 16. Among the problems, observers have noted mass resignations of skilled personnel no longer able to live on inflation-ravaged wages.
Although Ukraine last year was forced to spend more than 10% of its state budget on attempts to deal with the effects of the 1986 disaster, the government's nuclear energy policy still places heavy reliance on pure luck. Even back in Soviet times, it was recommended that reactors of the Chernobyl type should not be worked at more than 70% of capacity. In Russia this stipulation is being met, but Ukraine operates its Chernobyl-type reactors at 80-100% of capacity.
Meanwhile, the devastated Unit 4 is deteriorating still further. The concrete "sarcophagus" hurriedly built to seal off the unit after the 1986 accident has proven quite inadequate. Cracks are appearing in the concrete, and water is leaking into the destroyed reactor. Experts are concerned that when mixed with radioactive dust, this water could cause a new chain reaction and, conceivably, another explosion.
A new sarcophagus will cost from US$300 to $500 million. Ukraine does not have this kind of money, and the West has promised only $150 million in 1994. Most likely, the West will refuse even to provide this sum, pointing to Ukraine's failure to carry out its promise to close the remaining Chernobyl reactors.