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Introduction:
On April 25th -26th, 1986 a nuclear power disaster occurred at Chernobyl in the former USSR, now Ukraine. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant located 80 miles north of Kiev had 4 reactors and the accident was the result of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators in the context of a system where training was minimal. At 1:23 am the chain reaction in the reactor became out of control creating explosions and a fireball which blew off the reactor's heavy steel and concrete lid. The disaster was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture. See figure 1: "Area of Russia Being Discussed."
The Chernobyl accident killed 30 people immediately, 28 due to radiation exposure. A further 209 on site were treated for acute radiation poisoning and among these, 134 cases were confirmed (all of whom recovered). Nobody off-site suffered from acute radiation effects. However, large areas of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and beyond were contaminated in varying degrees and as a result of the were contaminated in varying degrees and as a result of the high radiation levels in the surrounding 20-mile radius, 135,000 people had to be evacuated. See figure 2: "Radiation Concentration Levels."
On 25 April, prior to a routine shut-down, the reactor crew at Chernobyl-4 began preparing for a test to determine how long turbines would spin and supply power following a loss of main electrical power supply. Similar tests had already been carried out at Chernobyl and other plants, despite the fact that these reactors were known to be very unstable at low power settings.
A series of operator actions, including the disabling of automatic shutdown mechanisms, preceded the attempted test early on 26 April. As flow of coolant water diminished, power output increased. When the operator moved to shut down the reactor from its unstable condition arising from previous errors, a peculiarity of the design caused a dramatic power surge.
The fuel elements ruptured and the resultant explosive force of steam lifted off the upper biological shield (the circular cover plate) of the reactor, releasing fission products to the atmosphere. A second explosion threw out fragments of burning fuel and graphite from the core and allowed air to rush in, causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames.
The graphite burned for nine days, causing the main release of radioactivity into the environment. A total of about 12 x 1018 Bq of radioactivity was released. Some 5000 tons of boron, dolomite, sand, clay and lead were dropped on to the burning core by helicopter in an effort to extinguish the blaze and limit the release of radioactive particles to no avail.
Experts estimated that all of the xenon gas, about half of the iodine and cesium, and at least 5% of the remaining radioactive material in the Chernobyl #4 reactor core was released in the accident. Most of the released material was deposited close by as dust and debris, but the lighter material was carried by wind over the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and to some extent over Scandinavia and Europe. See figure 3: "Disbursement of Radioactive Cloud."
The main casualties were among the firefighters, including those who attended the initial small fires on the roof of the turbine building. All these were put out in a few hours.
The next task was cleaning up the radioactivity at the site so that the remaining three reactors could be restarted, and the damaged reactor shielded more permanently. About 200,000 people ("liquidators") from all over the USSR were involved in the recovery and clean up during 1986 and 1987. They received high doses of radiation, around 100 millisieverts. Some 20,000 of them received about 250 mSv and a few received 500 mSv. Later, the number of liquidators swelled to over 600,000 but most of these received only low radiation doses.
Many children in the surrounding areas were exposed to radiation doses sufficient to lead to thyroid cancers (usually not fatal if diagnosed and treated early). Initial radiation exposure in contaminated areas was due to short-lived iodine-131, later caesium-137 was the main hazard (both are fission products dispersed from the reactor core). On 2-3 May, some 45,000 residents were evacuated from within a 10 km radius of the plant, notably from the plant operators' town of Pripyat. On 4 May, all those living within a 30 kilometer radius - a further 116 000 people - were evacuated and later relocated. About 1,000 of these have since returned unofficially to live within the contaminated zone. Most of those evacuated received radiation doses of less than 50 mSv, although a few received 100 mSv or more.
In the years following the accident a further 210, 000 people were resettled into less contaminated areas, and the initial 30 km radius exclusion zone (2800 km2) was modified and extended to cover 4300 square kilometers.
Stakeholders:
The stakeholders in this incident were the nuclear engineers and plant operators on the site, the citizens of the immediate surrounding regions that were contaminated at the time of the catastrophe. Next were the firefighters who came in immediately to extinguish the flames of the reactor and the members of the helicopter crews who made dumps on the reactor to aid extinguishing the fire. Additional stakeholders were the nuclear engineers, scientists and experts who came in to assess the damage, plus the military soldiers who were used in order to aid in the radioactive clean-up. The soldiers of all groups were the most pitiful because they had no radioactive protection at all and were all bound by a sense of duty to serve their country without the ability to protest the risks of the mission. Other stakeholders are the people in other parts of Europe, Canada and the United States where it will be impossible to determine the long term effects of the radioactive fallout that was carried by the wind. Lastly, the people who have since the incident moved into the area in an attempt to escape the hardships of war in Chechnya would also be stakeholders.
Technical Issues:
Technical issues that are still unresolved, are how to break down the now deteriorating sarcophagus and replace it with a new enclosure. The problem is that this form of nuclear waste has a half-life of 100,000 years which means that this structure will have to be monitored and cared for that length of time for the ensured safety of not only the people in the immediate area but for the entire human population due to nuclear fallout. Another point that is rarely discussed at this point, is a nuclear power plant of this old design does not have a containment chamber. This is less of an issue for this particular plant because the reaction has been stopped. The problem is other plants within the former USSR are still operating. If an event such as Chernobyl was to occur again, there is the risk of nuclear meltdown, a run away reaction which because of the lack of safety containment, the reactor could burn deep into the earth’s core. The problem here is no experts are willing to speculate what level of catastrophe this incident would cause. Many nations, not only the former USSR have such reactors, two which come to mind here in the United States are Indian Point, N.Y., 50 miles north of Manhattan, and one in Decatur, Ill. Both of these are off-line due to the lack of containment, but due to the nature of nuclear energy a minimal staff is still maintained to be sure that no run away reactions occur. Basically these people are baby-sitting a power nuclear plant and this will have to be done for the next 100, 000 years.
Due to the neglect of the Russian government, in essence, regardless of whether they wanted to or not, have created a field experiment of what are the long term effects of exposure to low doses of radiation to the environment and the human population.
Ethical Issues:
One ethical issue is whether the Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation governments have an obligation to prevent the habitation of the contaminated area. Clean-up of the area is impossible and due to this factor, should these governments prevent the re-population of these areas? Secondly, for humanity, does the rest of the world have an obligation to see to the long term care and treatment of the people living within the contaminated area? Third countries that have nuclear power plants without reactor containments are they obligated to take these nuclear power plants on-line to ensure that a run away nuclear reaction does not occur again to see to the safety of its citizens and neighboring countries citizens. See figure 4: "Nuclear Reactor Types Currently Still On-line and Their Location Within the Former USSR." Also see figure 5: "Main Environmental Pathways of Human Radiation Exposure."
Analysis:
The Russian government as a whole, this includes all the governments of the surrounding region of Chernobyl are subject to Nihilism. First for waiting three days to order an evacuation of the surrounding area of Chernobyl, for suing the old school strategy that we are quite capable of handling our own problems and do not need the economic or technical favors of the West to bail us out of an incident. This also applies to the situation in a last ditch effort of clean-up to send in the young men of the military to finish clean-up before moving to containment. The argument of Nihilism leads to self-righteousness and an intolerance to the views of Europe, Asia and North America. The Russian government exhibited a complete lack of values for human life and its citizens. The Russian government has applied Egoism to the disaster and continues to apply it. Refusing help form the West on clean-up and containment issues and the issue of continued containment of the reactor. Altruism comes into play because the Russian Federation, the Belarus and the Ukraine governments are allowing for the re-population of these areas by downplaying the obvious effects of long term radiation exposure by offering incentives to people to repopulate the area. This also creates problems with people’s desire for hedonism. The people who are mainly populating the area are from Chechnya who see coming to the area as a step up in their standard of living. The people of Chechnya living under the siege of war see the immediate effects of living in such an area. By moving to the area surrounding Chernobyl they see an immediate benefit in their quality of life and life expectancy not living in a war zone. The effects of the radiation exposure are not be perceived through the human senses, therefore, the Chechnyians perceive this as an immediate benefit to having a little longer life expectancy. The premise being that in the war zone, you can be here today and gone tomorrow, but in the area surrounding the reactor, the danger is a great deal more sublime and that the real dangers will not rear their ugly head at least for a few years. The Russian governments are also playing on these peoples Emotivism in that the Chechnyians receive an immediate benefit leaving a war zone and have a positive emotional reaction to it. The Russian government justifies itself by using Ethical relativism in the sense that as sovereign nations it will not be told by other governments what is right or wrong in the handling of its own affairs during and after the accident at Chernobyl. Lastly, the Russian government attempts to argue from the viewpoint of moral objectivism in that moral wrongness does not depend on the social approval of the West or for that matter the entire world as to what it should do for its citizens.
Recommendations:
My recommendations would be what is already going on. The only way to resolve the problem is through the use of small united organizations that function as relief efforts to provide aid in the forms of economic, technological, medical supplies, technical assistance, and medical assistance. I would consider it an obligation of the industrialized nations to provide the recourses needed to aid these people in the Chernobyl area. The United States has the biggest responsibility, setting politics aside, simply from a humanitarian standpoint because we are financially better off than the rest of the world as far as economic resources and technical resources including medical assistance in the form of medicine, doctors and nurses. The effort would have go under the guise of a humanitarian effort. The problem is that because of previous cold war relations between the US and Russia this is an effort that can only be made once the Russian government decides that it is willing to accept such aid. The only other course of action would be for the West to apply arguments against the Russian government using virtue ethics, consequentialism, deontology, and contractarianism in order to allow the West to enter the Russian boarders to clear up the problem for generations to come.
Figure 1: Area of Russia Being Discussed
Figure 2: Radiation Concentration Levels
Figure 3: Disbursement of Radioactive Cloud
Figure 4: Nuclear Reactor Types Currently Still On-line and Their Location Within the Former USSR.
Solid Circles represent the oldest nuclear reactor design style.
Figure 5: Main Environmental Pathways of Human Radiation Exposure.
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