The darkest day in history for civilian nuclear energy took place 40 years ago this weekend.
On April 26, 1986, a reactor at a nuclear power plant in the then-Soviet (now Ukrainian) town of Chernobyl exploded, with devastating consequences. Poisonous radiation quickly spread across the area, and eventually most of Europe, affecting 3.5 million people per United Nations estimates, and inducing a huge excess of cancer cases in the region – particularly among young children.
The disaster prompted a major investigation of existing nuclear safety standards worldwide. Countries banded together to improve nuclear safety standards, adopting laws and regulations to protect workers at nuclear plants. To prevent a similar catastrophe, they all installed faster shutdown operations.
There was a political fallout, too, with the incident further damaging the already-struggling communist government of the Soviet Union, which hid the accident for two days after it occurred. While the explosion inflicted significant physical damage, the cover-up shattered the public’s faith in the government’s glasnost policy, which had asserted that the government would be more open in communicating its plans with the public. Less than six years later, the USSR broke up.
Nuclear power capacity worldwide did continue to rise, albeit at a slower pace.
Except Chernobyl wouldn’t be the last nuclear disaster. On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan’s eastern coast, triggering a tsunami that killed some 18,000 people. The waves were so large that they flooded the reactors at the Fukushima power plant, sparking chemical explosions and a major leak of radioactive material.
Though the Fukushima disaster wasn’t itself as devastating as the one in Chernobyl in terms of radioactivity, its impact on nuclear energy was huge, as countries – notably Japan – cut back on their production. The world’s nuclear energy capacity dipped from 370 gigawatts of electricity in 2010 to below 350 by 2013. With the world’s demand for electricity rising sharply in recent years, the share provided by nuclear power is just 9%, down from its 1997 peak of 16.5%.
A number of nuclear power station accidents have taken place since Chernobyl and Fukushima. But, as safety standards improved, yet none have surpassed the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) of “4” – accidents with local consequences – as our Graphic Truth above shows. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima are rated “7” as major accidents.
The world may be about to boost its nuclear energy output, though it’s not necessarily because of safety. With Iran and the US closing a waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil and gas once passed, dozens of countries are turning to nuclear power to help fill the void.
Several nations in Asia and Africa, two of the worst-affected continents, want to increase their nuclear energy output. They want to boost output at existing plants to help fill demand in the short term, while also accelerating long-term atomic energy projects. One country, Taiwan, is even exploring whether to reopen a dormant reactor.
Yet Chernobyl (and Fukushima) still loom large in the minds of policymakers and citizens alike – just see the popularity of the eponymous HBO Show, “Chernobyl.” As such, governments will likely proceed with caution should they try to build up their nuclear capacity. If they don’t, they probably shouldn’t be building them at all.
