Chernobyl: 25 years gone

Today the Iowa House approved a measure to, according to the DMR, help MidAmerican “lay the groundwork to build a nuclear plant at an undisclosed site in Iowa.” Though the bill’s passage does not approve the building of a plant, it is a sad move given the ongoing disaster at Fukushima Daiichi and, especially, since today marks the 25th anniversary of the disaster at Chernobyl.

If you have not seen the Discovery Channel documentary “Disaster at Chernobyl,” I suggest watching it on YouTube. I saw it a couple years ago and think it provides a good outline of the events leading to the disaster and, in part six, its scary consequences on the surrounding area and population. (For whatever reason, the narration is in English but the subtitles and dialogue are in Russian, I believe. It sucks, but is still potent.)

Here’s the thing about nuclear power: it is inherently disastrous. Though nuclear plants may operate smoothly and without incident, they create tons of radioactive waste, which needs to be cooled and then stored safely in corrosion-proof, watertight containers somewhere for thousands of years while its radioactive strength decays to nothing. That is easier said than done. Germany and Japan stored radioactive waste deep undergrounding, thinking all was well. Years later, groundwater seeping into the deep depositories started corroding the metal drums, creating the potential for nuclear waste to leak and contaminate the water which many communities pump for public use. Tasty. The Yucca Mountain Repository Program was apparently defunded in the federal budget passed a few weeks ago, so the US is no longer planning to ship and store nuclear waste there. What now? Who knows? In the meantime, nuclear plants in the US are storing their spent waste in already jam-packed containment structures, which some fear are susceptible to being raided for dirty bomb material or sabotaged by terrorists.

Dirty even when they are “clean,” nuclear plants create a serious, long lasting mess when they go haywire. Is that acceptable? Can we live with the specter of abandoned towns and cities, radioactive land, increased rates of cancer, birth defects, mutations, and the massive cost of clean up (“clean up”)? The energy industry thinks so, which is why they are desperately trying to chip away at Americans’ deep aversion to nuclear power. It’s safe now, they say. Bullshit. It’s never safe, especially in our current age of industry and regulatory collusion. Every nuclear power plant in the world manufactures disaster as it creates electricity.

Today we need to look to the past to help guide our future (I’m looking at you, Iowa House lawmakers), in which I hope no Chernobyl will ever happen again.