Serhii Plokhy: evaluation

Transcript context

…Well, I suppose it is a bit terrifying that some of the most dramatic moments in history are probably quite mundane. The decisions to begin wars, invasions, they’re probably something like a Zoom meeting on a random Tuesday in today’s workplace. So it’s not like there’s dramatic music playing. These are just human decisions and they command armies and they command destruction. I personally, because of that, believe in the power of individuals to be able to stop wars, not just start wars, individual leaders. So let me just ask about nuclear safety because there’s an interesting point you make. You wrote in the book in Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters, so technically nuclear energy is extremely safe. If there’s a number of people died per energy generated, it’s much safer than coal oil, for example, as far as I understand. But the case you also make is you write, quote, “Many of the political, economic, social and cultural factors that led to the accidents of the past are still with us today, making the nuclear industry vulnerable to repeating old mistakes in new and unexpected ways and any new accidents are certain to create new anti-nuclear mobilization.” And then you continue with, “This makes the nuclear industry not only risky to operate, but also impossible to count on as a long-term solution to an overwhelming problem.” Can you explain that perspective? It’s an interesting one, speaking to the psychology when an accident does happen, it has a dramatic effect. And also speaking to the fact that accidents can happen, not because of the safety of the nuclear power plant, but of the underlying structure of government that oversees it. Yes, I wrote a book on Chernobyl and then I tried to understand Chernobyl better by placing it in the context of other disasters. As a historian I was looking at the political factors and social factors and cultural factors, not the physics or engineering part of the story. And the factors that are still with us are, like it was the case in Chernobyl, the authoritarian regimes and high centralization of the decision-making and desire to cut corners and also the issues associated with secrecy. So that is with us, if you look at where the future of the nuclear industry is now at this point, it’s the regimes and powers in the Middle East, that’s a big new frontier. The countries that are not particularly known for the history of democratic existence. Where we also have the situation that we had at Three Mile Island that we had at Chernobyl, this is the first generation nuclear engineers. So people who are, where the country doesn’t have a lot of experience and generations after generations working in that particular industry where it’s all new. That is certainly additional risk. And what we got now with this current war is something that… Not that people completely didn’t expect, but didn’t happen in the past. You see the war come into the nuclear sites, Chernobyl was taken over by the Russian army or National Guard rather, on the first day of the invasion. Then there was Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe where the battle was waged on the territory of the nuclear power plant. The missiles being fired, buildings catching fire, and the situation that brought the Fukushima disaster was there at Zaporizhzhia more than once, and Fukushima came because the reactors were shut down as they are at Zaporizhzhia, but they still needed electricity to bring water and to them down. And in Fukushima case, it was the tsunami that cut off the supply of electricity. In the case of Zaporizhzhia, there was the warfare that was happening in the area around Zaporizhzhia that did the same effect. So we have 440 reactors in the world today, plus minus. None of them was designed to withstand the direct missile attack or to function in the conditions of the warfare. Operators they’re human, then they make mistakes like they did it Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. But think also if the war is happening around them, if they’re not sure what is happening with their families, if they don’t know whether next missile, whether will hit the control room or not, that multiplies also. if the war is happening around them, if they’re not sure what is happening with their families, if they don’t know whether next missile, whether will hit the control room or not, that multiplies also. So we are in a situation where we are not done yet with the nuclear accidents. It’s not like we don’t pay attention or we don’t learn. Smart people work on that and after every accident, try to figure the way how not to step into the same trap. But next accident would actually expose new vulnerability. You deal with Chernobyl and then tsunami comes. You deal with tsunami and then war comes. And we really in that sense, we have sometimes wild imagination, but sometimes it’s difficult to imagine what can happen next. So we are not done. There will be nuclear accidents unfortunately in the future. And that makes nuclear energy so problematic when you count on it to fight climate change. I’ll explain why. You gave the figures how many people die from burning coal, from how many people die from radiation. And it’s a good argument. Some people would question them because it’s also the issue of not just dying, but impact of radiation on cancer, on our health, which is not completely understood yet. So still there is a lot of question marks, but let’s assume what you’re saying, that’s the figures. That’s how it is. But we as people, for whatever reason are not afraid of coal, but we’re very much afraid of radiation. It’s invisible, it’s everywhere and you can’t see it. And then you start having issues and then you have problems during the COVID, the governments closed the borders, maybe a good idea, maybe not so good ideas, isolation. So that was the way governments started to fight for access, to fight, to Moderna, to Sputnik, to whatever it’s, to vaccine. So now back to the radiation. What is happening once Chernobyl happens? That’s the highest point in the development of nuclear industry so far in terms of how many new reactors were commissioned or the licenses were issued. The next reactor after Three Mile Island in the US go ahead was given, it seems to me 10 years ago or something like that, the Fukushima happens, the reaction is in China to that as well. They’re very much concerned. So there is a saying in the field, “Anywhere is Chernobyl everywhere.” After Fukushima, Germany decides to go nuclear-free and gets there at the expense of burning coal. So that’s how we react. And each major accident, that means global freeze on the nuclear reactor production for at least another 10 years. So that’s what I mean that nuclear industry is politic, not just in terms of technology and not just in terms of radiation, impact on health, but also politically a very, very unreliable option.…

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