Rarely cited among the consequences of the worst nuclear accident are the disintegration of a superpower and its satellite bloc, writes Martin Mansergh
The causes of the implosion of the Soviet Union will be long debated by historians. Some attribute it to the renewed nuclear arms race instigated by the Reagan administration, with which the Soviet Union could not keep up. Others credit Pope John Paul II and the human rights clauses of the 1975 CSCE Helsinki Treaty for the encouragement that both gave to dissident groups. Others praise (or blame) Mikhail Gorbachev.
In an article that appeared in French newspaper Le Figaro (April 26th, 2006), Gorbachev himself claims that the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He denies that the Politburo sought to suppress information, which only filtered back to them gradually. The disaster opened the door to a freedom of speech that the existing system was unable to manage. The cost was colossal, both from the human and the economic point of view, with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus still suffering. The Chernobyl catastrophe opened his eyes to "the terrible consequences of nuclear power, even outside its military use".
According to scientific experts, the impact of an SS-18 missile would have been the equivalent of a hundred Chernobyls.
In his view, the accident should have spurred on nuclear disarmament, and every effort to guard the safety of nuclear installations and develop alternative energy sources. The Soviet Union had a vast expanse of territory.
A 30km radius "round the Pompeii of the atomic age", as Der Spiegel calls it (April 15th, 2006) remains evacuated. An equivalent nuclear accident, however caused, in the confined spaces of Western Europe could well cause civil and political turmoil.
In tendentious arguments about the scale of casualties, estimated deaths are minimised to a few dozen by the pro-nuclear lobby and maximised to 100,000 or more by the anti-nuclear one.
The International Atomic Energy Agency estimate of 56 actual dead contrasts with the 35,000 estimate of the Ukraine Commission for Radiation Protection, and the 50,000 estimate six years ago by the World Health Organisation.
The argument is that the Chernobyl power station was of a uniquely dangerous type, and that the accident could not recur. The people of countries with nuclear power are used to the risk, though Sweden, Austria and Germany have decided to phase it out. The nuclear industry has received new impetus from concerns about carbon dioxide emissions and global warming and about security of supply, prompted by steep price rises and fears of excessive dependence on politically controlled gas supplies from Russia.
Economics, more than safety, is the Achilles heel. In Britain, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has estimated the cost of cleaning up at £70 billion. EU competition rules do not apply, allowing unlimited state aid. Euratom is both promoter and regulator. Will the European Court of Justice take on the challenge to enforce not just EU but international environmental law?
As a young energy policy official in the Department of Foreign Affairs attending a Brussels working group on atomic questions in the late 1970s, a top commission official (English) once asked me informally, I am not sure how seriously, if Ireland would like lots of money, as a nuclear waste repository for other countries. I was dismissive. Between the two oil crises of the 1970s an interdepartmental committee established by then minister for industry and commerce Desmond O'Malley was set up to prepare a white paper on energy policy, which could provide the justification for government approval for the ESB to proceed with building a nuclear power station. I was a member.
Against the backdrop of growing public protest, work stalled after the Three Mile Island accident in early 1979, and the project was buried in 1980 by new taoiseach Charles Haughey and tánaiste and minister for energy George Colley, who saw eye-to-eye on this. The ESB went on to build the Moneypoint coal-fired station. Government predictions that the lights might go out in 1985 without nuclear power were quietly forgotten. Carnsore Point is now a wind farm.
Another generation may wish to revisit the nuclear option. Yet, where could public consent be obtained for building a nuclear power station, let alone a waste storage facility? When an interconnector with the UK, under discussion for 30 years, is eventually built, it will necessarily involve taking some nuclear-generated electricity. Using nuclear energy directly or indirectly is a pragmatic choice, albeit involving serious economic and safety issues, not a question of morality. Elsewhere, as former US vice-president Al Gore points out, every weapons proliferation issue their Aadministration faced was linked to a civilian reactor programme, for example Iran (The Guardian May 31st).
Ireland's temporarily high oil dependence will be reduced, when gas is brought ashore off the west coast, contributing to security of supply. An LNG installation will help diversification. A number of alternative energy sources have a part to play, though wind turbines cannot be indiscriminately installed across the countryside in areas of high natural amenity and heritage.
Further emphasis is needed on conservation. A former energy adviser to President George Bush warned an audience in Limerick (The Irish Times, April 21st) that "the most energy inefficient way we use oil today is moving goods by large trucks over long distances".
Yet rail freight is close to being abandoned here, unless action is taken to reverse the trend. Ireland is one of the few countries in which any attempt to build a nuclear power station could still cause civil turmoil, long before any accident.
A drastic deterioration in economic conditions and a severe energy crisis would be required, before the public would be willing to contemplate this possibility, uneconomic at present, tentatively mooted in the recent Forfás report.