Today is the 38th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe, which began on 26 April 1986 at 1.23 am. At the moment it is impossible to remember what happened at the downstream end of the Pripyat River without thinking about the horrible war taking place in Ukraine. What we witness right now has never happened before: a regular war fought on the territory of a highly nuclearised country, in which so-called civil nuclear power plants are used as objects of war. The recent drone attacks on Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in mid-April 2024 are the latest and obvious examples of this. In this text I want to put Chernobyl back on our mental map while reflecting on what the ongoing catastrophe means in a context of all-out war.
For someone who follows my work it may come to no surprise that I have a sceptical attitude towards the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This is the case because the IAEA continues to lobby for the promotion of nuclear energy amongst the international community, downplaying the risks associated with this technological system and endorsing high-risk construction projects, such as the floating Akademik Lomonossov as a nuclearising project for the fragile Arctic and the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh, prone to flooding. Despite this and regarding the hazardous situation in Ukraine right now, I have to concede that the IAEA is doing excellent work to bring the Russian and Ukrainian site together to safeguard Europe’s largest nuclear power plant called Zaporizhzhya and Ukraine’s remaining nuclear stations South Ukraine, Khmelnitsky, Rivne (Rovno), and Chernobyl.
Sure, Zaporizhzhya continues to be on the brink of a severe accident as a direct result from acts of war. But the IAEA continues their efforts despite the danger, pushing both sites to reason, trying to help to ensure that basic safety routines and operation practices can continue, even though the strain on personnel and physical structures is clear for all to witness. The IAEA’s general director Rafael Mariano Grossi repeatedly travelled with his team to Zaporizhzhya. I can only hope that these efforts prove to be fruitful, because I cannot hear any other influential voices of reason on neither the Russian nor Ukrainian side willing to engage with concrete results. The fate of the other nuclear power plants remains unclear and endangered. Given the current frontline, Zaporizhzhya is the most threatened plant, but the permanent shelling of – especially civilian – energy infrastructure by the Russian army, puts the others at risk as well.
In the meantime at Chernobyl, the power plant is recovering from the temporary occupation in the beginning of the war. Looting and warfare have led to a loss in monitoring and scientific equipment, as well as to an interruption in safety routines and operations. Being forced to spend 36.7% of its GDP for military expenditures due to the Russian aggression, the Ukrainian government is forced to neglect the efforts of maintenance and remediation at Chernobyl. While the horrible war continues, the released radioisotopes continue their decay and change their attributes, especially in regard to their mobility in both soil and water. This creates ever new challenges to containment efforts. Forest fires and the movement of troops led to small radioactive clouds that redistributed radioisotopes within the zone of exclusion. Perspectively, the whole Chernobyl site needs to be deconstructed and the scores of radwaste confined in a permanent storage, which up to date does not exist. The deconstruction of the old sarcophagus, which is currently confined under the new one, is delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the war. It is clear that the war makes Chernobyl to some degree ungovernable which will result in even larger problems as time progresses.
It is of the utmost necessity that safety routines regarding Ukraine’s nuclear power plants are being restored as quickly as possible. Furthermore, nuclear power plants have to be exempt from warfare, as the possible consequences of accidents, or even intentional attacks, will be tremendous for Ukraine and for Russia, but also for the international community. In general, this war shows that safety concepts of civil nuclear power plants need to be reassessed. 38 years after the Chernobyl catastrophe begun, Ukraine’s first nuclear power plant continues to pose threats to the environment and human societies. It serves as an example of what can happen if one (!) reactor explodes. Ukraine potentially still has 15 active ones.
Literature
IAEA Zaporizhzhya and nuclear security in Ukraine update
World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023
Atommüllreport: Länderbericht Ukraine (continues to be updated)
Achim Klüppelberg 