Nuclear Reactor Risks and Storage Pools: The Case of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island Disasters in February 1986
This year marked the first time in which civilian nuclear-power facilities have come under attack during war. As Russian armed forces pushed into Ukraine in February, troops took control of the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone, where hundreds of people still manage the aftermath of the catastrophic 1986 meltdown. Thousands of vehicles stirred up radioactive dust as they moved towards Kyiv. Russian soldiers work and sleep in the red zone near Pripyat.
The conference’s failure is just one facet of the challenges posed by the crisis. International law is woefully insufficient, and the proposed responses from the IAEA are not very good.
The integrity of reactor cores and storage pools is the main concern. If fuel rods are exposed, a core meltdown and uncontrolled release of radiation is likely, as happened at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 19792. One mine or one missile may be enough to stop the generators from working for one hour, according to Herman Halushchenko, the energy minister of Ukraine.
The delayed IAEA annual inspection was due to the Russian control of the plant, it is important for ensuring safety and securing the secure disposal of nuclear fuel.
Outside Europe, 67 units are under construction to supply 60 gigawatts of new nuclear power. China will add 150 new nuclear power plants to its existing 47, costing around US$450 billion in the next 20 years. India operates 22 reactors and is constructing 7 new ones; Bangladesh, Belarus, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are each building their first.
Turkey’s borders with Iraq and Syria have been highly unstable, complicated further by persistent conflict with its Kurdish minority and the extremist Islamist movement Daesh. Since 1999, relations between India and Pakistan have been more stable but border fighting still happens. India and China are not very friendly, but a Ukraine scenario seems unlikely. The most immediately concerning situation would be the deployment of troops from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan, which has three civilian nuclear reactors.
The risks of conflict, specific site vulnerabilities and loss of life and land from radiation release need to be considered in risk assessments. Some studies have been done but they’re classified, so scholars would need to be given access and the information shared internationally. This is a substantial task that requires significant industry and government investment. It would spur and guide regulators and governments to action.
The five-yearly review conference of the treaty ended in a stand-off due to divisions. The treaty with Russia should have been strengthened by considering the safety and security of nuclear-power plants in conflict zones, for the first time, thanks to Russia blocking the adoption of a draft outcome document.
Attacks on military objectives located in or around the vicinity of nuclear-power stations are against the law. This prohibits military attacks on “works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations … even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population”.
Yet the protocol provides a get-out clause. It permits strikes on “other military objectives located at or in the vicinity of these works or installations only if they are used in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and if such attack is the only feasible way to terminate such support”.
If a UN Security Council resolution was approved, the site would be demilitarized. But how could such a situation be monitored and secured? A small, neutral international peacekeeping force tasked with supporting the IAEA’s mission there is one option. If attacks on the plant continue, they may need to suppress troop incursions or strike the site. This would require rapid access to air power and entail significant risks.
Obtaining a resolution would be difficult, given Russia’s veto on the Security Council. A resolution should nonetheless be pursued. Negotiations over ceasefires, withdrawals and peacekeeping forces often run in tandem. A well-designed deployment can bring about moral and strategic pressure to comply.
Russian annexation of the Zaporizhjua region and the soviet control of the plant add to the difficulties. Despite their bitter conflict, Russia needs to remember the spirit of pragmatism when it came to reducing risks of nuclear war and proliferation. Today is another such time.
More funding needs to be devoted to research into making nuclear plants safer.
New reactor, fuel-storage and site designs are needed that can withstand armed and terrorist attacks. After the 9/11 Commission found that al-Qaeda had considered crashing planes into US nuclear plants, Congresscommissioned a report from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to suggest improved fuel pool designs and prompt transfer of fuel to dry storage. They didn’t consider the danger of a military attack. Nuclear plants outside of the United States are not studied as often as they are in the United States.
The Carbon Footprints of Future High-Energy (Super)Colliders and the Iraq War: Viewed with eLife
If the war in Ukraine ends without bloodshed, eastern Europe and Russia will be able to live. The world should be ashamed that, nearly 70 years after US President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed the era of ‘atoms for peace’, people are depending on luck. The world’s governments hold the power to prevent disaster. Will they act?
eLife’s plan to publish all papers that it sends for peer review divides researchers. Plus, the carbon footprint of a ‘Higgs factory’ and attacks on Ukraine strain nuclear-safety treaties.
Physicists around the world are vying to build the next super collider — but the carbon footprints of the designs could be vastly different. The energy consumption of the proposed Higgs factories varied wildly and was calculated by physicists. The least-polluting option — the Future Circular Collider near Geneva, Switzerland — would use one-sixth the energy of the most polluting alternative, the US-based Cool Copper Collider, to produce one particle. Wang Yifan is the director of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and he says that carbon footprints could change dramatically as countries expand access to renewable power.
Fruit flies can move their eyes using a specific set of muscles which might allow them to perceive depth. Families on three continents had a single person carry their ieppment.