4 - 10 January 2001
Issue No.515
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 4 - 10 January 2001 Issue No.515 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Laying Chernobyl to rest
The year 2000 closed with an unexpected and unprecedented victory for environmentalists. On 15 December, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma officially switched off the last reactor and closed the former Soviet atomic power plant in Chernobyl, northwestern Ukraine.
Kuchma harboured self-serving economic and political motives for ordering the closure of Chernobyl. Under intense Western pressure, Ukraine resolved to dismantle the nuclear facility at Chernobyl in return for massive financial and technical assistance.
At the 1995 Group of Seven (G-7) summit, Ukraine pledged to close the plant by the year 2000. The process of decommissioning it will take between 30 and 100 years, and will be partially funded by the G-7 countries. The Ukraine plans to replace Chernobyl with two separate nuclear plants, for which the G-7 has already provided $2 billion (while pledging an additional $700 million). The United States will also give the Ukraine a special grant to establish a crisis centre, so that it can better predict Chernobyl-like emergencies in the future.
Notwithstanding the outpour of cash and generous promises of aid, the Ukrainian parliament recommended that the government reconsider the date of the closure. MPs argued that they needed further guarantees that the G-7 would in fact fulfil their commitments.
The explosion at Chernobyl in April 1986, when nuclear reactor number four (N4) generating electrical power from atomic fuel broke down, triggered a radiation leakage 300 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. Fourteen years later, the Ukraine authorities have finally announced that the plant is permanently to close. One of its four generators had continued to be operational, until Kuchma officially switched it off last month, thus pulling down the final curtain on one of the most dramatic, and ecologically devastating, disasters the world has witnessed.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Soviet officials stone-walled inquiries, telling the world that nothing of significance had happened -- to the extent that preparations for Labour Day celebrations commenced as planned. After less than a month, however, rumours had spread widely enough to make foreigners working in the Soviet Union decide to stop purchasing locally produced food.
The alarm bells had already been rung by the European Union, which had announced that radiation levels in Eastern Europe had drastically increased.
Eventually, it became impossible to continue to suppress the truth, and in October 1986 Soviet officials finally admitted that 30 people had died as a direct result of the incident. The N4 reactor was then buried under a huge cement structure, which it was claimed would guarantee no further leaks for 30 years. This has subsequently proved to have been an optimistic assessment; radiation has continued to leak from the reactor, and the Russian government is now in the process of reburying it more safely.
Following the Chernobyl disaster, radiation spread over thousands of kilometers. Ukraine and Belarus bore the brunt of it. Bizarre genetic mutations became common in the immediate area surrounding Chernobyl, such as five-legged cows and two-headed chickens.
There are still no exact statistics about Chernobyl casualties. However, it is estimated that in the Ukraine alone more than three million people were exposed to high levels of radiation. According to official Russian estimates, at least 70,000 people have been permanently disabled by the nuclear fallout. The UN, on the other hand, estimates that nine million people are currently suffering from diseases caused by the Chernobyl disaster.
The Russian government is unhappy by the turn of events. Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov, as well as a majority of Russian and Ukrainian nuclear power specialists, believe that Chernobyl should have continued to operate. Adamov suggested that the plant should be upgraded, since 11 reactors of the same type are still working in Russia
Blaming Kuchma for succumbing to G7 political pressures, the Russian minister stressed that there is no conclusive scientific reason to close the plant. Experts agree that Chernobyl could have worked for another 10 to 15 years. They refer to the fact that $300 million has been spent on a safety upgrade. Chernobyl's reactor number 3, which Kuchma switched off on 15 December, was listed among the world's ten safest nuclear reactors. Regardless of the arguments, whether political or scientific, one thing at least remains indisputable: Ukraine is the first country in the world to dismantle a nuclear power plant. In the past, a number of countries have stopped operating individual reactors, but until now none has even attempted such a complete close down. In this context, Ukraine has taught the world a lesson.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
