The lessons of Chernobyl

The world this week is marking the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster  in which a reactor core exploded spraying out a radioactive dust cloud. In the explosion itself and the subsequent insanely heroic efforts of firefighters and engineers to cap the burning reactor with thousands of tons of concrete, at least 9,000 people died, including nearly all those directly involved in tackling the catastrophe at the plant itself.  Chernobyl itself is now an empty ghost town and will remain uninhabitable for generations. The vast fields in this part of Ukraine, once used for grain harvest, stand untilled and overgrown. Highways are crumbling and power lines that once carried electricity from the plant sag on their pylons. Yet although in terms of casualties Chernobyl was the most devastating nuclear meltdown, it was in fact only one of 16 cases where a reactor has run out of control and blown or come close to blowing up.  The British have had three close shaves and the United States no less than eight partial meltdowns, the most notorious being at Three Mile Island in 1979. Then in the wake of the March 2011 Japanese tsunami, three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered meltdowns. With 17,000 dead or missing from the tidal wave and a quarter of a million made homeless, the nuclear explosion seemed the lesser concern.  There are salutary lessons from these runaway nuclear reactions and the many lesser events which might have led to tragedy but were averted. The nuclear industry is dominated by standards which are overseen by various international bodies, the most significant of which in the International Atomic Energy Agency whose tagline is “Atoms for Peace”. Those countries that have embarked upon nuclear power programs, not least Iran, ought to be working by the book. The problem, however, is not simply rogue regimes that wish to carve their own path toward the weaponization of nuclear fuel regardless of treaty obligations. The reality is that nuclear technology is not standing still.  Better, more efficient, possibly cheaper and safer technologies are always being developed. These carry with them fresh risks, since every new advance brings the inevitable need to understand new parameters. A fossil fuel power plant can be built in short order compared to the massive planning component required for nuclear power generation. Building a nuclear station can take years and when it has reached the end of its life, its safe decommissioning can be almost as lengthy. Proponents of nuclear power once sold their vision on the basis that it was power for free. It is anything but that. As the Kingdom moves toward its own nuclear power generation, it is comforting to know that it will benefit from the vast store of knowledge and experience that has been built up since the first nuclear plant went live in 1954 at Obninsk in Russia. Perhaps the biggest lesson from all the things that have gone wrong is that they should never be described as “accidents”. Just as automotive wrecks are ultimately caused by human error, so nuclear malfunctions are the result of ignored procedures or bad engineering or poorly understood technology.  If a component fails, it is because it was not properly designed or tested or manufactured. Whatever the reason, the mistake was always human. Only by recognizing this reality can nuclear power ever be made truly safe.