Annolies Truman
April 26 marks the 20th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear power accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. One-hundred-and-twenty-three kilometres north of Kiev in the Ukraine, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's number four reactor exploded, blowing off its steel and concrete lid. At least 5% of the reactor core was released into the atmosphere. Radioactive smoke and debris travelled through Europe, and by May had reached parts of Asia, Africa and North America.
According to Angelina Nyagu, president of Physicians of Chernobyl, "today more than 7 million people are suffering" due to the disaster. The World Health Organisation found that the radiation released from the accident was 200 times that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs combined.
Children have been particularly vulnerable to the effects of the radiation. A study published in Cancer in 1999 revealed that between 1981 and 1985 the average thyroid cancer rate was 4-6 incidents per million among young Ukrainian children (classified as birth to 15 years). Between 1986 and 1997, this rose to 45 incidents per million, an increase of 1000%. Researchers found that 64% of all Ukrainian thyroid cancer patients aged 15 or younger lived in the most contaminated regions. Birth defects, weakened immune systems and cases of liver and rectal cancer, typically uncommon in children, have also been blamed on the disaster.
The full effects may not be seen for another decade. Nor has the danger from the reactor ceased. Recent studies have found that the sarcophagus built over the reactor to prevent the spread of radioactive material is full of holes.
Engineers believe that an earthquake registering six or more on the Richter scale could cause the stone coffin to collapse. If this were to happen, large clouds of radioactive dust would again be released. The Chernobyl region has been hit by an earthquake of such magnitude once every century on average.
Proponents of nuclear power downplay the risks revealed by Chernobyl. The World Nuclear Association, representing the global nuclear energy industry, claims the accident was a consequence of Cold War isolation and a lack of safety culture. "Its relevance to the rest of the nuclear industry outside the then Eastern Bloc is minimal", the WNA claims in a March briefing paper.
However, there have been numerous disasters in the West, notably at Windscale (renamed Sellafield) in Britain in October 1957 and at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979. At Windscale, on England's north-west coast, a fire burned 11 tonnes of uranium and killed 32 people.
The WNA claims that Chernobyl fallout killed only 56 people. But John Gofman, professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Chernobyl Accident: Radiation Consequences for This and Future Generations, has calculated that 950,000 people have, or will develop, cancer as a result of Chernobyl fallout; roughly half will die as a result.
The spectre of Chernobyl looms large over the current energy debate. As the era of cheap oil, gas and coal comes to an end, the focus of corporations and capitalist politicians is turning increasingly to nuclear power. US President George Bush has requested that US$347 million be made available for nuclear power research and development. In a February 10 interview published in Gulf Times, Andrew White, chief executive of General Electric Nuclear, estimated that as many as 200 new nuclear reactors may be built in the US this century.
Investment in safe and efficient renewable energy technologies — solar, wind, water power, geothermal and energy from plants — has been minuscule in comparison to the massive subsidies the nuclear power and oil industries have enjoyed.
However, in January Sweden pledged to stop using oil by 2020 and replace it with renewable energy only. The goal is to gradually rid the country of petrol-run cars and oil-heated homes. This will be achieved through a variety of measures, top of the list being large-scale investments in renewable energy and in research. In Denmark, the government has raised the percentage of renewables used to generate the country's energy from 8% in 1999 to 12-14% in 2005 and is aiming for 35% in 2030.
Such reforms should be welcomed, but they occur within a global economic framework that is geared not to ensuring a safe and ecologically sustainable future but to ensuring the maximum profits for First World corporations and their wealthy owners. A world free of nuclear energy and not dependent on fossil fuels is possible, but achieving it requires challenging corporate power. It's a struggle that must be won, for our sake and that of future generations.
From Green Left Weekly, April 26, 2006.
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