Chernobyl scientist warns of 'nuclear folly'

[tjwmason]

Chernobyl scientist warns of 'nuclear folly'
By Adrian Blomfield in Minsk and Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 24/04/2006)

One of the most experienced researchers into the Chernobyl disaster has broken his silence to warn European leaders that flirting with nuclear power "is folly of the first order".

The views of Yuri Bandazhevsky have cost him his reputation as one of the former Soviet Union's most respected scientists and earned him a five-year stint as a prisoner of conscience in Belarus, where contradicting the government line is always a risk.

Reactor No 4 at the Chernobyl power station, in Ukraine, exploded 20 years ago on Wednesday, spreading a nuclear cloud that stretched from Truro to Tokyo.

Ever since, Mr Bandazhevsky has dedicated his life to studying the effects of low-level radiation around Belarus's second city of Gomel in the heart of the area contaminated by the world's worst nuclear accident.

After years of studying corpses in the mortuaries of Gomel and collecting what available statistics there were on still-births in the affected zones, he concluded that exposure to the radioactive element caesium-137 was causing far more deaths than was generally realised.

Six months after being freed, Mr Bandazhevsky is speaking out again now that he sees that nuclear power is once again becoming acceptable in western Europe.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/24/wnuke24.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_24042006

I don't what it's like in the U.S. but nuclear power is getting a strong push here in the U.K., including from many green groups and individuals.

I remember studying Chernobyl during 'A' level physics at school - the teacher was very keen to point out the reasons why the reactor was different from those used for power-production in the West, and also pretty much told us that nuclear was a good safe source of energy - this article seems to suggest otherwise.

[JuniperLea]

1. this article seems to suggest otherwise

I tend to agree with the scientist that wrote this. Nothing is fool proof.

I always think of a possible terror attack when I pass the San Onofre nuclear plant that sits on a Southern California beach. It seems to me that it would be way to easy to get to it, by air, land or sea. And then I think of the inherent dangers of running that plant to begin with... humans are fallible... and computers created by humans are equally fallible.

Personally, I think it's high time for some serious study of solar energy.

[tjwmason]

3. I think that we need to reexamine our entire power system.

Here in the U.K. we lose a vast amount of electricity simply in the National Grid, which carries it from power-stations to homes and offices.

Most of the schemes for renewable energy are still based around this large-scale model of power generation and consumption.

Solar energy is still quite a technological step away from viability at British latitudes - but if there is large-scale investment in places further south, this will lead to improvements in its efficiency thus pushing the boundary at which it can be used easily further and further north.

[RufusEarl]

2. The Bu$h regime is again pushing nuclear power in this country

I was pretty much convinced that nuclear power in this country would never happen, but was i ever wrong! I know that we and other countries build reactors that are different then what the Russians had at Chernobyl, but to say we can build safe nuclear reactors is foolish.

[tjwmason]

4. Yet another case where Poodle-boy and Bush are on the same wavelength

Surely that should be enough to get raised eye-brows given their past joint-ventures.

[OhioNerd]

5. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

We need nuclear power. NEED. Period.
We have to stop burning/wasting fossil fuel for electrical generation.

Nobody is suggesting that we build Chernobyl style reactors, nor would we. As to the safety issue, I think the US Navy would argue with your contention that nuclear power isn't safe.

[Massacure]

6. As would the French.

The French take great pride in their engineers rather than fairies and pixies in the United States.