{"id":62035,"date":"2022-02-27T07:40:33","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T12:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=62035"},"modified":"2022-02-27T07:41:24","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T12:41:24","slug":"conflict-between-nuclear-powered-nations-chernobyl-is-now-a-war-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=62035","title":{"rendered":"Conflict Between Nuclear-Powered Nations: Chernobyl Is Now a War Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Chernobyl\"<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster. Chernobyl, Ukraine, USSR, May 1986. (Photo: Igor Kostin\/Laski Diffusion\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Conflict Between Nuclear-Powered Nations: Chernobyl Is Now a War Zone<\/a><\/h3>\n
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The next Chernobyl scale nuclear disaster could happen in Chernobyl as the Ukraine conflict intensifies.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The invasion of Ukraine<\/strong>\u00a0by Russia poses several nuclear threats, including the possibility of deliberate or inadvertent military strikes or cyber-strikes on nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n

There is also the obvious difficulty of safely operating nuclear reactors in a time of war, including the impossibility of carrying out safeguards inspections. Last but not least, there remains the possibility that the conflict will escalate into nuclear warfare.<\/p>\n

We are about to learn what happens when nuclear-powered nations go to war, putting nuclear power plants at risk of deliberate or accidental military strikes and thus risking a Chernobyl scale catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Retaliation<\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems highly unlikely that either nation\u2014or any sub-national groups\u2014would deliberately target nuclear reactors or spent fuel stores in the current conflict. But assuming there is\u00a0a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ not to target nuclear power plants, how long would that agreement hold in a war that dragged on for years?<\/p>\n

Either nation might choose to shut down its reactors in order to minimise risks. That would be a manageable and wise decision for a country with limited reliance on nuclear power\u2014but it would be impractical for countries with a heavy reliance.<\/p>\n

In any case, the radioactive reactor cores\u2014whether kept in situ or removed from the reactors\u2014would remain vulnerable, as would nuclear waste stores. Spent fuel cooling ponds and dry stores often contain\u00a0more radioactivity<\/a>\u00a0than the reactors themselves, but without the multiple engineered layers of containment that reactors typically have.<\/p>\n

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\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster. Chernobyl, Ukraine, USSR, May 1986. (Photo: Igor Kostin\/Laski Diffusion\/Getty Images) Conflict Between Nuclear-Powered Nations: Chernobyl Is Now a War Zone The next Chernobyl scale nuclear disaster could happen in Chernobyl as the Ukraine conflict intensifies. The invasion of Ukraine\u00a0by Russia poses several nuclear threats, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[4448,7669,13404,9429,3794,694,821,862],"class_list":["post-62035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-geopolitics","tag-chernobyl","tag-common-dreams","tag-jim-green","tag-nuclear-waste","tag-radioactive-waste","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62036,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62035\/revisions\/62036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}