What’s happened?
35 years later, while scientists are still studying the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, governments and corporations are laying the groundwork for new nuclear accidents.
Chernobyl is considered the worst nuclear disaster to date and is a quarter of a century older than Fukushima. But it still poses challenges that authorities haven’t resolved. Technology for handling the radioactive fuel remaining in the reactor does not yet exist. A new sarcophagus was added in 2016 to buy time to invent new approaches.
Why does it matter?
Around five million people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia still live in areas that are officially recognized as contaminated. The people who live here are constantly receiving new doses of radiation, as documented in joint research by Greenpeace and Ukrainian scientists. Methods for deactivating the contaminated areas either do not exist or – where there are usable technologies – the states have no resources to use them.
Mykolai Lazarev from the Ukrainian Institute of Agricultural Radiology (UIAR) takes one of 50 milk samples, which are then tested for cesium in UIAR. To better understand how contamination affects the lives of Chernobyl survivors, Greenpeace is conducting two pilot studies of residual radionuclide contamination in locally produced food and forests. © Denis Sinyakov / Greenpeace
Meanwhile, Chernobyl reminds us from time to time that it’s still here and still dangerous. And with climate change, only the danger increases.
Last year, huge forest fires raged in the exclusion zone. It wasn’t the first time. In 35 years, fires have broken out in the exclusion zone more than 1,500 times. Due to the unusual drought caused by the collapse of the climate, it was the largest fire since the exclusion zone was established, covering a third of this sensitive area. At one point only a kilometer separated the edge of the fire and the newly built sarcophagus.
The flags of fire stretched for tens of kilometers in the direction of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, fueling fears that the smoke particles could increase radiation in the city. Fortunately, this did not happen, radiation outside the exclusion zone remained at a low level that was considered acceptable by the authorities. However, firefighters had to work in the most contaminated areas of the zone, where radiation levels were 16 times higher than the background, according to press reports.
A forest fire burns near the town of Krasiatychi, Kiev region, Ukraine, 60 km from the nuclear power plant. The fire in this forest is one of many in Ukraine, as in the spring the Ukrainians set fire to dry grass to clear land for agriculture. Such a fire has been burning in the radioactive Chernobyl exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant for more than a week and is still not being extinguished. Radioactive dust is blown up. © Oksana Parafeniuk / Greenpeace
What do the scientists say?
“Unfortunately, we have very little information on the radiological environmental hazards of fires in radioactively contaminated areas,” says Professor Valery Kashparov, head of the Ukrainian Research Institute for Agricultural Radiology.
“Fires are the biggest problem from the point of view of the radiation exposure of fire fighters. The danger is greatest for them. The greatest hazard may be related to the inhaled dose due to the uptake and entry of radionuclides into the lungs. “
Forest fires near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which has been burning since April 3, are already the largest for the entire existence of this exclusion zone. These fires are extremely dangerous as radionuclides can be released into the air in the upper soil layers. pic.twitter.com/QyDkeq6PGY
– Greenpeace Russia (@greenpeaceru) April 13, 2020
What has to happen
Firefighters must have complete information about the radiation risks before going into the contaminated areas. However, the last study on the subject was done 20 years ago and natural conditions have changed since then. The climate crisis causes droughts more often, ecosystems have changed and every fire has an impact on the local environment.
If weather conditions allow, the institute will this year, with the support of Greenpeace, examine a number of parameters that influence the radiation doses during the fires.
“The main task of the experiment is to estimate the expected doses for firefighters – as this is the most critical group that can receive the highest inhalation doses during a fire. We will then make recommendations to minimize the risk, ”says Professor Kashparov.
The bigger picture
The fire experiment provides the data necessary to assess the risks to fire fighters. This is critical to protecting the individual, their families and colleagues. However, this is only one of the dangers caused by the nuclear disaster 35 years ago that has yet to be addressed. And who knows how many more scientists will discover in the future.
Even countries that survived the horrors of this catastrophe on their own soil continue to adhere to nuclear power stubbornly. A new nuclear power plant is currently being built in Belarus. Russia is not only building stationary, but has also put a floating nuclear power plant into operation – the “Akademik Lomonosov” operated by Rosatom was immediately referred to as the “floating Chernobyl”. More than 30 countries around the world are still operating nuclear power plants.
What is needed now?
What the world really needs is for governments and companies to stop introducing new nuclear risks when we still cannot address the existing ones. The only way to do this is to phase out nuclear power and switch to renewable energies as soon as possible.
Andrey Allakhverdov is media coordinator at Greenpeace Russia
Correction 24/4: The reference to radiation outside the exclusion zone, which remains at a safe level after fires in 2020, has been corrected to say that the low level was considered acceptable by the authorities.
Comments are closed.