Comparing Chernobyl & Fukushima
Japan’s use of military helicopters to drop water on reactors today has no doubt reminded many people of the infamous 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl, where the Soviet Union did the same. However, most experts seem to agree that Fukushima’s situation is not as bad as what happened at Chernobyl.
Below are a few quotes from articles that compare Japan’s current situation to Chernobyl.
Comments from the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers:
The reason why radiation was disseminated so widely from Chernobyl with such devastating effects was a carbon fire. Some 1,200 tonnes of carbon were in the reactor at Chernobyl and this caused the fire which projected radioactive material up into the upper atmosphere causing it to be carried across most of Europe.
There is no carbon in the reactors at Fukushima, and this means that even if a large amount of radioactive material were to leak from the plant, it would only affect the local area.
The Japanese authorities acted swiftly and decisively in evacuating people living within 20km of the plant, and ensuring people living within 30km of the plant remained in their homes, with windows and doors closed. The radiation measured so far at Fukushima is 100,000 times less than that at Chernobyl.
Nuclear engineer Alexander Sich, who worked with the Chernobyl Complex Expedition, comments on the differences between Fukushima and Chernobyl:
“There is no way the Japanese plant will even closely compare to what happened in Chernobyl,” he said. “First off, Chernobyl-type reactors have no proper containment building, but they do have confinement boundaries – a big difference. The Soviets compromised on safety believing they could control their reactors and avoid major accidents. … In contrast, the Japanese unit has an inner concrete containment vessel (the Mark I) that functions like a less robust containment building to mitigate the effects of potential accidents.
“The second difference is that the Japanese reactor, like all western light-water reactors, is primarily metal and the fuel contained within a very strong 6- to 8-inch-thick steel reactor pressure vessel. In contrast, the Chernobyl reactor design, of which at least 11 are still in operation to this day, has no such vessel. Instead, a thin 3/4-inch steel ‘skin’ surrounds 1,700 high-pressure coolant channels containing nuclear fuel. …
“The third difference is the size and operational stability of the reactor,” he continued. “Chernobyl-type reactors are huge: 11.8 by 7 meters, while the Japanese reactor is significantly smaller at 2.5 by 3.7 meters. What this means is that operators have to pay constant close operational attention to a reactor because one part of the core cannot easily communicate with the other, neutronically speaking.”
Professor Aidan Byrne, director of the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra, says the situation is not like Chernobyl:
Some reports are comparing the situation at Fukushima with the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
In that accident, nuclear fission ran unchecked and the reactor lacked the multi-barrier containment strategy that exists in the 40-year-old Fukushima plant. Byrne says, unlike Chernobyl, Fukushima’s nuclear reactors have been shut down, and control rods have been inserted stopping the fission chain reaction.
The main concern is if the reactor is not cooled down, the radioisotopes in the fuel rods and decay-heat will heat up the container.
According to Japanese authorities, seawater mixed with boric acid is being used to cool the reactor down, which should reduce the risk of a fission reaction restarting.
Professor Leonid Bolshov of the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that it is not similar:
When you hear these comparisons to Chernobyl, what do you think about?
LEONID BOLSHOV: I think it’s misinformation. The knowledge of reactor design even, general features is something that is very limited.
Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council for Foreign Relations, has written about “Chernobyl’s Lessons for Japan“:
Unlike 1986 Soviet authorities, the Kan government in Japan has responded swiftly to each stage of the Fukushima disaster, has evacuated citizens rapidly from the area, and has been relatively transparent about radiation evidence as it has been collected. Aware of the dangers of both “radiophobia” public hysteria, and cavalier denialism, the government has tried to convey information that directs the Japanese people to a rational, middle ground response. Given the Fukushima catastrophe is a sideline to the earthquake and tsunami horrors, this is a remarkable feat.
Still, the human health dangers remain, not only for the workers remaining inside the Fukushima plant, but all people remaining in a roughly twenty to thirty mile periphery of the area. Until details regarding the radionuclide types and doses that have already been emitted are known, most health claims regarding the general Japanese population are pure speculation. Certainly further breaches, fires, explosions, or meltdowns in the Fukushima facility increase the probability of health problems among those directly exposed to fallout.
The U.K.’s Chief Scientific Officer, John Beddington, compares the worst case scenario to what happened at Chernobyl:
“In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion,” he said. “Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not serious for elsewhere.”
Assuming that weather patterns drive radioactive material toward Tokyo, there would be “absolutely no issue” for human health, he said. Even following the disaster at Chernobyl, there were no radiation-related problems outside the 30 kilometer (18.6 mile) exclusion zone, the scientist said.
Beddington has argued that most of the post-Chernobyl health problems came from eating contaminated food, not from direct exposure to the radiation leak.
One man, who helped implement the Soviet policy of exposing thousands of cleanup workers to deadly radiation, wants Japan to do the same thing (because exposing 50 workers to danger is not enough, apparently):
Yuli Andreyev, former head of the agency tasked with cleaning up after Chernobyl, told the Guardian the Japanese had failed to grasp the scale of the disaster. He also said the authorities had to be willing to sacrifice nuclear response workers for the good of the greater public, and should not only be deploying a skeleton staff. “They don’t know what to do,” he said. “The personnel have been removed and those that remain are stretched.”
For those who want to learn more about Chernobyl, here are a few interesting documentaries and video clips. ( All were produced before the Fukushima accident, so they don’t contain direct comparisons. )
It happened in … Chernobyl (Al Jazeera English – Original Airdate: June 2008)
Part 1
Part 2
The True Battle of Chernobyl Uncensored (hour and a half documentary):
A collection of film from Vladimir Shevchenko, a Ukrainian filmmaker who visited the nuclear reactor shortly after the accident. He filmed the workers, most of whom had no protective gear whatsoever. Shevchenko was exposed to a fatal dose of radiation while filming, and died soon afterwards:
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