CHERNOBYL, UKRAINE — As nuclear workers in Japan struggle to contain radiation from the Fukushima reactor, world attention is turning back to Chernobyl, Ukraine. There, people prepare to mark the 25th anniversary of the explosion that blew the roof off Reactor Number 4.

Soviet planners designed Chernobyl in the 1960s to become the largest nuclear power station in Europe.

Instead, Chernobyl is remembered today as the site of the largest nuclear disaster in the world.

Late on the night of April 25, 1985, Yuri Andreyev left his shift as an engineer at Nuclear Reactor No. 4. Ninety minutes later, a safety experiment went awry. The fuel rods melted down, an explosion blew the roof off, and a raspberry-colored light spewed into the night sky.

When Andreyev returned to work, he saw a scene of devastation. After stepping over the discarded boots, jacket and helmets of fire fighters, he stood in the ruined computer control room and looking up saw blue sky.

Twenty-five years later, Andreyev runs Chernobyl Forum, a political lobby for Ukraine’s 100,000 surviving ‘liquidators’ or clean-up men and women. After weeks of heroic work, the liquidators had succeeded in sealing the plant in an improvised steel and cement ‘sarcophagus.’

But that was not before […]

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During the White House briefing today, there were lots of questions about the recent announcement by the United States that it is advising U.S. citizens within 80 km (50 miles) of the troubled nuclear reactor to evacuate — which goes further than the Japanese government’s recommendations.

Up until today, the White House had been advising American citizens to follow the advice provided by the Japanese govt.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today resisted the idea that the conflicting advice meant the U.S. didn’t have faith in the information coming out of Japan.

‘This is new information,’ Carney said. ‘When the NRC– when the situation was what it was the other day and yesterday — based on the data that the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) was analyzing — their advice was in agreement with what the Japanese government was saying and therefore our advice was the same. And therefore we told American citizens to follow the instructions of the Japanese government.

‘We are now saying — based on our independent analysis of the deteriorating situation — we all have watched on television and read about the damage at the various reactors and the potential for emissions — based on that new information that […]

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The travails of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan are highlighting a key question for the US: Why are America’s nuclear power plants allowed to store tons of used but still highly radioactive fuel in pools for as many as 100 years – despite the fact that those pools are far more vulnerable to terrorist attack than the reactors themselves?

In Japan, a relatively small amount of used-up fuel was sitting in Fukushima’s seven spent-fuel pools when disaster occurred. Yet after just days without a cooling system, most water in at least one pool had apparently boiled away, a fire was reported, and radiation levels soared.

By contrast, nuclear utilities in the US have over decades accumulated some 71,862 tons of spent fuel in more than 30 states – the vast majority of it sitting today in pools that are mostly full, according to a recent state-by-state tally by the Associated Press. It’s a huge quantity of highly radioactive material equal to a great many Chernobyls’ worth of radioactivity, nuclear experts say.

The reason is the lack of a national repository for spent fuel – meaning it must be stored on site – as well as the lack of a coherent […]

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As the nuclear crisis in Japan deepens, attempts by the nuclear industry in the United States to calm a rightfully unnerved public are gaining intensity.

Unfortunately, there’s a common thread weaving through the very real disaster overseas and the surreal attempts in this country to push legislation that would help utility companies finance the rising costs of nuclear plants by asking consumers to gamble on their future.

In Japan, Richard Lahey, the former head of reactor safety at General Electric, told The Guardian newspaper this week that he believes that one of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors has melted through its containment vessel. Other researchers are calling for an independent analysis of radiation levels, questioning the numbers being released by the utility company Tepco and the Japanese government.

So why should this matter in Missouri?

Because a nuclear energy coalition here also is spreading misinformation.

On Monday, the advocacy organization representing Ameren Missouri and other utilities touted a poll that indicated that Missourians still favor nuclear energy.

Well, of course they do. So do most of the organizations fighting Ameren Missouri’s bill in the Legislature that would let the company charge consumers at least $45 million for a site permit for a new Callaway County reactor.

We haven’t […]

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Japan is considering pouring concrete into its crippled Fukushima atomic plant as the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog agency warned that a potential uncontrolled chain reaction could cause further radiation leaks.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano yesterday ruled out the possibility that the two undamaged reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s six-unit Dai-Ichi plant would be salvaged. Units 1 through 4 suffered from explosions, presumed meltdowns and corrosion from seawater sprayed on radioactive fuel rods after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami cut power to cooling systems.

Workers have averted the threat of a total meltdown by injecting water into the damaged reactors for the past two weeks. The complex’s six units are connected with the power grid and two are using temporary motor-driven pumps. Work to repair the plant’s monitoring and cooling systems has been hampered by discoveries of hazardous radioactive water.

The risk to workers might be greater than previously thought because melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions, Denis Flory, nuclear safety director for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a press conference in Vienna.
‘Localized Criticality’

Nuclear experts call these reactions ‘localized criticality,’ which will increase radiation and hamper the […]

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