The widening crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan has focused the world’s attention on whether such power stations can ever be safe.
The world has looked to the 1986 Chornobyl disaster in Soviet Ukraine, which remains the world’s worst nuclear accident, as an example of the future that could face Japan: a $12 billion cleanup since 1986, a 30-kilometer exclusion zone of uninhabitable land around the reactor and thousands dead and possibly millions affected by radiation.
As the global population continues to grow, the thirst for energy will continue to grow. Coal-fired power stations harm the environment, and greener forms of energy, such as solar or wind power, are a long way off being able to take up the slack.– Kyiv Post.
To be sure, the two disasters were very different. Chornobyl was caused by human error in conducting a test that went wrong, while the ongoing crisis in Japan was triggered by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
But the question that the two disasters raise, however, is the same: How should the need to produce electricity be balanced against the dangers of nuclear energy?
As the global population continues to grow, the thirst for energy will continue to grow. Coal-fired power stations harm the environment, and greener forms of energy, such as solar or wind power, are a long way off being able to take up the slack.
But the scenes we see in Japan are a further reminder, almost 25 years on from Chornobyl, that nuclear power is not a cure-all. Whatever assurances the nuclear energy industry gives that technology has advanced so far that nothing can go wrong, this simply cannot be true.
Humans cannot conquer nature – be it the force of the earth and sea, or the errors that humans themselves make.
Ukraine’s government has given no indication it will reconsider plans to increase its reliance on nuclear energy, which currently supplies about half of the nation’s energy supply.
Worldwide, the trend is the same, with some 62 new nuclear reactors under construction, another 158 planned and proposals for yet another 324 more.
No dout, nuclear reactors are likely here to stay, but before more are built we should take a long, hard look at the unfolding tragedy and costs in Japan, as well as the continuing problems with finding hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up and protect Chornobyl, and assess whether it is worth the risk.
Now would be a good time to deepen public commitments to safer alternative energy sources.
Read also:
Legacy of death, bad health lingers from Chornobyl blast
Japan tragedy revives nuclear power debate
