Mayak: the other Chernobyl

Tell me again how building more nuclear power plants is a good idea?
This article may be a little old but its still relevant to today.

Mayak: the other Chernobyl
Wednesday, May 29, 1996 - 10:00
By Renfrey Clarke

MOSCOW — The 1986 accident at Chernobyl was not the first case in which the Soviet nuclear industry contrived to pour huge quantities of deadly radionuclides into the environment. In terms of total radioactivity released, the Chernobyl plant scarcely rates a mention beside another Soviet-built nuclear complex — the worst radioactive polluter in history.

The holder of this grim world record is the Mayak Chemical Combine, situated in the southern Urals north-west of the industrial city of Chelyabinsk. Between 1948 and 1990, Mayak produced plutonium for the Soviet nuclear weapons program. Throughout much of this period, it routinely poured nuclear waste into the rivers, lakes and atmosphere of the region. A total of 18 recorded accidents between 1954 and 1990 included the world's second-worst explosive release of radioactivity, in 1957.

Today, the area immediately downwind of the Mayak plant remains one of the most heavily irradiated territories on earth. And although the plant no longer produces plutonium, the risk of further contamination has again become critical. At a government commission meeting attended by journalists on May 5, a Mayak official made a plea for funds to stop contaminated water overflowing from storage ponds and pouring into the nearby River Techa.

The first nuclear reactor at the top-secret combine began operating in June 1948, creating the plutonium that in August 1949 was exploded in the USSR's first test of a nuclear bomb. Eventually, five graphite-moderated plutonium-producing reactors were built at Mayak, as well as several heavy-water reactors. The combine became one of three key centres producing fissile materials and conducting research for the nuclear weapons program. To house the workers and scientists, the secret city of Chelyabinsk-65 was built nearby.

much more: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/11749

nor mayak are comparable in anyway with modern nuclear power plants. Chernobyl was an unsafe design, with no containment facility.

as was mayak

Before Containment

accidents happen and if we do have one here with one of our aging nuclear power plants there is a good chance that a large area will be impacted, possibly many people contaminated as well.
The recent near miss at Davis-Besse nuclear power plant was a reminder of what can happen.

The GOM and chunks of Africa demonstrate the dangers of hydrocarbons.

Occasional cases of tetanus demonstrate one of the dangers inherent in petite point needlwork.

Anything can be "dangerous".

Older Soviet reactors are blocks of various materials stacked up in a tight enough pile that the nuclear fires self ignite and enough other materials jammed in the gaps to keep the "fires" from getting out of control. FFS the earliest versions of this design were controled by hand.

Yes an ageing Western build reactor can in theory be made to fail spectacularly enough to match Chernobyl in impact. But the key word there is made. As in forced throught the application of a great deal of brute force effort and/or ingenuity. It is not entirely impossible, but it IS so unlikely that in a world full of PCBs, mercury, and a thousand other environmental poisons, nuclear fallout from a misbehaving (or even deliberately sabotaged) reactor should be way, way down on the list of things to really worry about.

Except in the most exceptional circumstances the worst that any existing nuclear reactor in the West is ever going to manage is a a handful of direct deaths, a big dose of "ooh scarey, scarey", an expensive cleanup and 10-20 years down the track a few cases of cancer that might not otherwise have been.

That's mostly 70's era second generation reactor designs BTW. Modern third and fourth generation designs should be at least an order of magnitude safer.

Even with Soviet mismanagement to drag down the average, the simple truth is that in terms of measurable ecological and environmental impact as well as straight up lethality, nuclear power is tens of times less damaging per unit of electricity generated than coal, and on a par with most of the "True Green" technologies.


I really can not get my head around the sort of mindset that refuses to accept that a handful of anonymous deaths triggered by a nuclear agency is a fair offset against 10s if not 100s of deaths resulting from current electricty generating practices.

What is so different about a stray nuclear particle playing havoc with our DNA that is so scary? We don't see or taste the soot particle that triggered chronic pulmonary obstructive disease or the fibre of asbestos that sets off mesothelioma. Benzene (C6H6) is known with absolute certainty to cause childhood leukemia and yet we don't regulate or monitor its use with anything like the level of scrutiny applied to even the most inoccuous nuclear materials, that is yet somehow still way to inadequate.

We blythely accept (and impose on our children) daily exposure to chemical risks that far outweigh those of a well regulated nuclear power industry (or even one as badly regulated as the current coal fired industry is). And for what? Generation technologies that have their own hidden costs, hazards and risks, that when all is said and done, are of pretty much the same level of severity as those of the nuclear industry.