Ignoring Chernobyl’s lessons - how EU ‘energy security’ expands nuclear energy in Ukraine
Publisher: CEE Bankwatch Network
Volume: 7 pages, pdf
Description:
In 1986 Ukraine experienced the planet’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. As the world marks the 25th anniversary this April, the social and environmental fallout from the disaster remains nowhere near resolved: the destroyed Reactor 4 is far from being environmentally safe, no suitable storage facility for spent nuclear fuel has been constructed, and the exclusion zone still remains contaminated. Cleanup efforts have proven to be deadly, extremely costly, and technically complicated in combating the consequences of the nuclear accident. In a turn of tragic similarity, the world is now under a new nuclear threat caused by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami that paralysed Fukushima’s nuclear facilities in Japan. It is against this backdrop that the plans of the Ukrainian government to construct 22 new nuclear reactors and extend the lifetime of the old Soviet-type reactors look absurdly detached from reality.