The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident

The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident

Introduction

The Chernobyl reactor disaster was an accident that happened in Ukraine on April 25 and 26, 1986, and which involved the explosion and burning of a nuclear power plant reactor. The accident occurred near the city of Chernobyl in the Soviet Union, now Russia. The Soviet Union had invested heavily in nuclear power in the Cold War. Since 1977, Soviet scientists installed nuclear reactors at the power plant, which is now located on Ukraine’s border with Belarus (Blakemore para 2). Plant managers had planned to conduct routine maintenance on the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Plant’s fourth reactor on April 25 and workers tried to test whether the reactor could be cooled if the plant lost power. They violated safety procedures, and energy surged inside the plant (Blakemore para 3). They tried to shut down the reactor, but another power surge led to several internal explosions. The nuclear core was exposed, and it discharged radioactive materials into the atmosphere. Firefighters attempted to use fires, which helicopters also tried to put off by spraying sand. Two people died in the explosion, dozens of firefighters, workers, and emergency responders eventually died, and hundreds were injured. People nearby the plant, such as those in the Pripyat city, were not evacuated in the first 36 hours of the disaster, and thousands were exposed to cancerous radiation (Blakemore para 4). The Soviets tried to deny the accident to avoid panic and political ramifications at a time of cold war.

Ethical issues

The Chernobyl disaster is controversial because of the enormous number of deaths and health impacts. The World Health Organization differs with other health agencies regarding the immediate and long-term health effects of the disaster. Many people work or have worked qt the Chernobyl site as liquidators, and there has been a high number of evacuees and residents. The liquidators who tried to contain the accident were about 24,000, immediate evacuees were 110,000, and there were about 270,000 residents (Blowers). WHO associates the disaster with leukaemia, thyroid cancer, cataracts, cardiovascular problems, mental problems, reproductive issues, and bad children’s health. To Blowers, the Chernobyl disaster is as controversial as the Fukushima disaster and can be analyzed ethically based on several issues.

The Chernobyl disaster was fueled by political pressure, and nuclear scientists did not consider the impacts of trying strange methods to test the capability of the nuclear reactors. The Soviet Union competed with the United States, and they were together engaged in an ideological war, with each nation trying to woo other countries to its side. The nations went to extreme measures to win allies and secure strategic resources and operating bases around the world. They sometimes stabilized nations as they funded and gave arms to conflicting factions. Indeed, the nations were also involved in an arms race, and they sought to take humans to the moon, and achieve many feats. The decision to set up a nuclear plant cannot be entirely criticized without examining the motivations, and the decision to test the reactor cannot also be understood by without analyzing the motives. It appears that nuclear scientists and maintenance professional ignored routine procedures to test reactor capability, and were inspired by political pressures and strange initiatives of the time.

Nuclear scientists who maintained the fourth reactor at Chernobyl Nuclear Plant ignored the likelihood of immediate and long-term impact of a disaster on the human population, the environment and the plant itself. They ignored necessary maintenance procedures, and they should have recognized the potential impact of abnormal or uncontrollable reactions, and explosions. Explosions had the potential to lift the lid of the reactor and cause spillage of radioactive material. The meltdown was caused by component failure, the incomprehensibility of operators, and unanticipated events. If an analyst were to embrace this approach, it means that scientists were not prepared to handle the reactor, abnormal events and explosions. It also means that trying to test the reactor without power supply was a dangerous mission. Nuclear plants should stay online as much as possible, even when both public and privatized systems try to sustain power supply and make profits (Blowers). An immediate shutdown can be too expensive and drastic, and it is not reasonable to attempt events that can cause sudden interference or shutdown.

The operators of the nuclear reactor tested electrical systems and turned off critical systems that led to the disaster. Their actions were against best practices, and they very contrary to safety regulations. The reactor reached a low power level and thus became highly unstable. Some nuclear scientists and organizations disagree regarding the exact cause of the explosion, with some arguing it was caused by excess steam, while others were arguing that it was caused by hydrogen. The excess steam resulted from less cooling water; it built up and rose in the cooling pipes, creating the positive-feedback loop, which in turn led to a massive power surge. The maintenance workers could not shut down the power surge. Regardless of the immediate causes of the power surge or the explosion, it is evident that operators acted unethically by going against safety regulations.

The government and the nuclear plant’s management tried to cover the accident. They did not want political ramifications, panic and bad image relating to the inability to handle nuclear materials or technology. The government initially dismissed the accident and briefed the citizenry on April 28, 1986; this happened after officials in a nuclear plant in Sweden asked about radioactivity in the Soviet Union when they detected radiation in the air (Blakemore para 5). The Soviet Union should have revealed the accident immediately to get support and guidance from other nations regarding controlling or containing the Chernobyl disaster. Today, a nuclear incident attracts the attention of the International Atomic Energy bodies. Nations become concerned because radiation can spread to other nations. Consequently, it can cause health problems and low quality of the biological environment in these nations.

The response to the Chernobyl disaster was chaotic and unplanned, and it exposed many responders to adverse health effects and deaths. Most liquidators were serving in the military and had been charged with handling chemicals. The military did not have adequate nuclear activity response uniforms, yet they had to work while on the roof or the ground. They wore clothing made from lead sheets and won under cotton wear. Thus, they were required to cover mostly the bone marrow and the spine. The management of the plant should have used mechanical robots, and they tried, but then resorted to using humans. Liquidators were exposed to more than 40 seconds of radioactive exposure that is recommended for a human being over his or her entire life.

Responders to the Chernobyl disaster took too long to evacuate people who lived in nearby areas. Residents in Pripyat began vomiting, had headaches and exhibited other radiation symptoms after about 36 hours. Responders began evacuating nearby people when the latter complained. They eventually closed an area of about 30 kilometres around the plant. Pripyat city was 3 kilometres from the plant while Chernobyl was about 15 kilometres from the plant. While the former had been created to house the workers of the plant and had about 50,00 residents, the latter was home to about 12,000 people; more than 100,000 people were evacuated eventually (Xiang & Zhu, 2011). However, it took unnecessarily long to evacuate people.

Many mistakes were made during the Chernobyl incident, but the management, responders and the government cannot be blamed for some conditions that led to the disaster. For instance, the RMBK disasters had a design that has been recognized worldwide as faulty. They had a pressure tube design that enriched U-235 uranium dioxide fuel to heat water and produce steam that turned turbines to generate electricity (Vogt). Rather than use water to cool, the reactors used graphite to regulate reactivity and keep nuclear reactions ongoing. When the core heated and released steam bubbles, it became increasingly reactive and caused a positive-feedback loop. Thus, the design of the reactors was faulty, and the stakeholders in the accident cannot be blamed for it.

The failure to take care of victim health makes the response to the Chernobyl disaster unethical in many ways. The responders and the management of the nuclear plant did not evacuate victims based on best practices. Indeed, response measures are usually aimed at ensuring public order and reducing the number of people exposed to disastrous outcomes (Khaji et al.). It is evident from the Chernobyl studies that the management of the nuclear plant and responders did not utilize the principle of beneficence as they engaged in their work. The management team did not protect nearby residents from harm. They did not establish proper communication mechanisms to be used in the event of a disaster and did not also create relief operation systems. Ethics related to technological failure require quick escape mechanisms. Technological disasters can affect biological materials, chemical materials, electricity and other energy generation plant. Russia was mostly industrialized and was at par with European powers and the United States in terms of industrial production and exploration of energy. The management of the nuclear plant failed not only to protect victim health but also failed to ensure responder safety.

The Chernobyl disaster revealed that the management team failed in more than the duty of care, and failed in resource allocation. It did not occur to the team that setting aside resources for providing relief was necessary. The company should have established containment structures that could come up immediately after the disaster to stop radiation and contamination of lands outside of the plant. While this failure relates to the duty of care, it shows that resources were focused on the betterment of the plant itself. An organization can show responsibility by adopting good resource management attitudes including quick allocation, conservation, adaptation, reallocation and reuse.

Mandatory evacuation was missing in the Chernobyl disaster, and it implies that the nuclear plant management and nuclear scientists were not prepared to save lives in case of an accident. Mandatory evacuation can be understood in the context of the principle of duty of care and the resource allocation principle. Various stakeholders did not set aside resources for reducing the impact of a nuclear accident on immediate neighbours, even if it included relocation and putting up temporary housing or having medical doctors ready to attend to victims. The lack of attachment to vital life-saving principles reveals the inability to determine the likelihood of a disaster situation, the inability to discern an accident’s impact and necessary reaction.

Conclusion

Human errors characterize the shortcomings of the Chernobyl reaction plan maintenance, testing, and response to disasters. There are technological errors that mostly relate to the type of technologies used at the time. Human errors mostly reveal a lack of duty of care and other related principles. The Chernobyl disaster has been compared to other disasters, including the Fukushima disaster, and most ethical lessons revolve around human error, laxity, and inconsiderate responses.