Chernobyl and the Ukraine Crisis

Photo on behalf of the EBRD on Flickr

Since the autumn of 2013 and the protests and demonstrations taking place at Maidan, the Square of Independence in Kiev, the unrest of Ukraine has only increased. Barely had the, by media more than slightly exaggerated, uprisings at Maidan calmed down before the Crimea crisis occurred and these days we are looking at something very similar to a fully fledged civil war going on in eastern Ukraine, and a question to be answered is how this all may affect Chernobyl.

Recent news indicate a fear concerning what would happen in case of a Russian invasion as the nuclear power plants of Ukraine are said to be a highly potential target. On March 25th, the at the time acting minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine, Andriy Deshchytsia*, said that "At present, there is no immediate danger [regarding the nuclear power plants]. However, if the situation aggravates Ukraine may be in need of international assistance to protect these facilities." Further on Deshchytsia said that two possible options for Ukraine remained, as well as two possible options from the outside world of how to act and react: 

"First, there are already political voices in Ukraine calling to resume production of nuclear weapons as the only means to protect ourselves from any outside aggression. From the Ukrainian government's standpoint, this option is not on the table. We remain committed to the NPT as a non-nuclear state."

The second option for Ukraine is to seek collective security. It is less expensive and more effective. We shall explore all possibilities in this regard, starting with our association with the European Union." 

Ukraine got rid of its nuclear warheads twenty years ago and five years later, all of the said was destroyed. About five months have passed since Andriy Deshchytsia made his statement and things haven't exactly been brightening up for Ukraine, but does it really face a Russian invasion? That remains to be seen, but there is no threat concerning the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One of the most urgent questions at the moment may have been whether money will be taken from the Shelter Project in order to finance the national defense in case of Ukraine getting involved in war but the answer is no: The Shelter Project is mainly financed by EU and the U.S and the funds cannot be extracted, however Ukraine's already limping economical situation may cause the project further delays. Chernobyl itself will of course not be a direct target in case of a Russian invasion, but national resources may be drawn from the Shelter Project in order to support the national defense. The annual amount spent on the Shelter Project and Chernobyl is about 5-7% of the Ukrainian budget.

"Any unrest affects a country's economy, and remediation is not a profitable activity. To carry it out, we need funding from the state budget. The less money we have the less could be done." those are the words of Oleg Nasvit, a nuclear physicist at the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kiev. However, the International Monetary Fund has pledged $17 billion in order to keep Ukraine's economy relatively stable over the coming two years and this far there are no signs of withdrawing the Chernobyl budget. It's a project concerning nuclear safety, which exceeds the borders of politics and all current peaceful nuclear activity in Ukraine is under a strict IAEA supervision.



*You may read Andriy Deshchytsia's full statement here

How To Dismantle An Atomic Disaster

Photo: SSE ChNPP

Whenever looking at a photo from Chernobyl, it's there - the 75,5 meters tall, 9 meters wide stack of the fourth reactor's block, and constant reminder of the perhaps biggest distaster of human kind. But very soon it will be gone.

In the end of October the dismantling procedure, carried out by the Ukrtransbud Corporation, was initiated and the parts separated from the stack were temporarily resting in the turbine hall of block 3,  before  being transported to a specially prepared site where they will be taken apart. 

The reason behind this operation is the New Safe Confinement. The arch formed outer construction, under which the dismantling of the entire fourth block will take place, is being built on the side of the reactor building and will on railway tracks eventually be slid over said building and encase its radioactive content, and in order for that to work out, the stack naturally has to be removed. 

For those of you out there, who against most odds may not know about the New Safe Confinement (NSC, previously known as "The Shelter Project") it is being constructed to cover up the leaking Sarcophagus which started breaking apart only 10 years after having been built. Within the no longer overly protective walls of the Sarcophagus hides several tens of tons of radioactive waste being the result of the active fuel of the fourth reactor decaying. If the 2000 tons heavy reactor lid, now resting as a half closed eyelid on top of the reactor, would crash down as a consequence of not only the decaying of the Sarcophagus, but also the very building it contains, it would most likely lead to a collapse of the entire structures and those tens of tons of radioactive waste would all of the sudden lay open to be swept away by the winds in all possible directions. However, the NSF can not do anything about the radioactivity other than preventing it from being spread further. 

Dismantled stack parts. Photo: SSE ChNPP.

During the dismantling of the stack of the fourth unit, frequent monitoring of radiation levels are performed and the entire dismantling work is calculated to be done by the 10th of December this year.

The news concerning the initiated dismantling have been greeted in different ways. Many draws a sigh of relieve, reassured that there will be something covering up all that radioactive matter, whilst others belive that it's all just a curtain to cover up the disaster itself, but the question is whether it at all is possible to forget, or even ignore, such a breakdown as that of Chernobyl; one that will affect parts of the world for hundreds, even thousands (Plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,100 years, remember) of years to come?

No it isn't. It's easier to forget those who helped preventing it becoming an even greater disaster ...isn't it?

Commercial Chernobyl

Posing like tourists for Dan Cronin.

In advance I apologize to those who might take offense from the sometimes aggressive tone of this post. 

During the time of blog silence, the time has as usual not been wasted in inactivity. -Rather the opposite, and most of the time has been spent preparing for the next journey to the Zone and trying to find out news about what is currently happening to it. To rephrase a quote from Andrey Tarkovskiy's movie STALKER, the Zone constantly changes, and nobody knows how. 

Four days ago the news arrived, that our expedition for this spring is cancelled. Or rather postponed. Due to previous reports from October 2011 and forth, this didn't exactly come as a surprise - actually, this was just what I suspected and sadly, my suspicions had been correct and when I was informed about the reason of the decision taken to postpone our trip, it all suddenly made sense. I have previously reported about the closing of the Zone and the  gradual and then sudden dismissal and replacing of the long term working Chernobyl guides of which the latter indicated more than one contradiction to the official statement explaining why the Zone must be closed to the public. The reason stated itself was very vague in its bureaucracy: 

"Due to environmental changes..."

I'd be surprised if I was the only one to have believed that this was all because the construction of the Shelter, and I'm even more surprised to realize that this as a matter of fact is quite a naive assumption. The true reason is of course Euro 2012, the European football championships hosted by Ukraine and Poland in collaboration. The championships will take place between the 8th of June and the 1st of July this summer and attract tens of thousands (if not more) tourists to Kiev and this means many opportunities to profit from what the region has to offer and the infamous site of a specific disaster seems to me to be one of the most important cash cows. That, my friends, is why they fired all the old guides who seem likely to be re-hired once the championships are over. 

French "art".

In the meantime however, different kinds of insects seem to have crawled into the Zone infesting it with further disease, amongst others a French so called street artist refering to himself as "Combo", who has provided one of the Pripyat schools with a mural that could not have been more displaced. This is what you see at the photo to the right. 

From the website Design You Trust I quote: 

"On a recent trip to Chernobyl, French street artist Combo left behind something memorable: a mural of The Simpsons. Combo is known for using iconic characters to make a statement, and this image continues the trend. The nuclear power plant in the background looks a lot more menacing here, but I also think there’s something really interesting about such a happy, cheery image juxtaposed against the aftermath of a horrible tragedy."

There are probably people who agree to this, but in my opinion it is sheer vandalism because what could this possibly add to those who visit the Zone to explore it in order to get a grasp of history and a sense of what happened? -Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. 

"The Zone changes all the time..." and now seems to be the time to contaminate it with something new, possibly more harmful than radiation - cheap popular culture:

This spring holds the premiere of the American production Chernobyl Diaries. According to the trailer, this is nothing but a typical American horror movie containing nothing of substance whatsoever and of course with a lot of misinformative "facts", but what do you do when you have run out of mask wearing killers? 

I rest my case. All that I want to know if this was the film team roaming around whilst we were in Pripyat in May last year.