The Chernobyl disaster broke trust in nuclear, now we’re paying the price

What unfortunately also followed in the aftermath was a fundamental and lasting shift in our perception of nuclear as a power source, a change in attitude with measurable consequence. It’s difficult to classify the Chernobyl incident as an “accident”, as there was little about it that was accidental.

The reactor design was deeply flawed from the start, the plant had no containment systems, and - on the day of the explosion - management had ordered key safety systems bypassed for what was somewhat ironically meant to be a safety test.

And yet the long shadow of Chernobyl still lingers in some places over mindsets about nuclear in the West.

In the years following 1986, states across the world began to turn their backs on nuclear power, motivated by a wholly understandable but entirely misplaced fear. This fear that still lingers is not grounded in science but instead is hooked on the notion that, in this instance, history will repeat itself.

Far from a preservation tactic, this fear has had tangible, often overlooked and avoidable environmental impacts. Germany, which systematically phased out its nuclear fleet, fell back to a dependency on fossil fuels that sent its carbon emissions spiking upward – far from an example to lead by.

Facing a global energy crisis, there is an undeniably urgent need to do things differently. To avoid doing further damage, we must stop adhering to a narrative that has had key facts written out. Nuclear is not only the most reliable of renewable energy sources, having proved its green credentials time and again, but also the safest. There has been remarkable progress made to ensure what happened at Chernobyl can almost certainly never happen again.

The anti-nuclear position is at odds with the drive for on-demand, clean power. Without a resilient, reliable power source such as nuclear, it may only be a matter of time before energy blackouts are occurring not just closer to but at home. Through its faithfulness to risk aversion, this scepticism ironically only increases the risks of a delayed or unrealised energy transition – rising emissions, bruised environments, poorer health, cost crunches, the list goes on.

We’re not dealing with the same nuclear that caused the event at Chernobyl, so we shouldn’t be using the same old arguments around safety against it. Those deeply flawed and irresponsibly operated Soviet-era plants that most of us have in mind are long-abandoned, rigorous safety stress tests have been carried out and cleared all across Europe in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, regulations around development and operation have been at record highs, and next-gen reactors are designed to be and certified ‘walkaway safe’. Put simply, nuclear power has never been safer and the combination of weaknesses that day unable to be repeated.

The fractures to be wary of are those that exist in global energy politics, not those we imagine belonging to the plants themselves. The very word “nuclear” has become a harbinger of bad news, and prominent sceptics and media outlets have historically played their part in worsening the already poor public perception of the power source. That European policymakers are finally, and so far successfully, pushing for nuclear power is no small feat when dealing with such a deeply entrenched narrative. Beyond just a rethink, we’ve seen welcome progress already made on upping investment and expediating programme deliveries.

The argument is not that nuclear could be a dominant feature of our energy systems; it is that we all need it to be. And though nuclear is demonstrating its worth, it ultimately falls to us as to whether it sticks around.

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Vincent Zabielski is a Partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

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