On April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in then Soviet Ukraine. More than 3.5 million people in Ukraine alone, not to mention many citizens of surrounding countries, ...are still suffering the effects.Life Exposedis the first book to comprehensively examine the vexed political, scientific, and social circumstances that followed the disaster. Tracing the story from an initial lack of disclosure to post-Soviet democratizing attempts to compensate sufferers, Adriana Petryna uses anthropological tools to take us into a world whose social realities are far more immediate and stark than those described by policymakers and scientists. She asks: What happens to politics when state officials fail to inform their fellow citizens of real threats to life? What are the moral and political consequences of remedies available in the wake of technological disasters?
Through extensive research in state institutions, clinics, laboratories, and with affected families and workers of the so-called Zone, Petryna illustrates how the event and its aftermath have not only shaped the course of an independent nation but have made health a negotiated realm of entitlement. She tracks the emergence of a "biological citizenship" in which assaults on health become the coinage through which sufferers stake claims for biomedical resources, social equity, and human rights.Life Exposedprovides an anthropological framework for understanding the politics of emergent democracies, the nature of citizenship claims, and everyday forms of survival as they are interwoven with the profound changes that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Before Fukushima, the most notorious large-scale nuclear accident the world had seen was Chernobyl in 1986. The fallout from Chernobyl covered vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in ...Europe. Belarus, at the time a Soviet republic, suffered heavily: nearly a quarter of its territory was covered with long-lasting radionuclides. Yet the damage from the massive fallout was largely imperceptible; contaminated communities looked exactly like noncontaminated ones. It could be known only through constructed representations of it. InThe Politics of Invisibility, Olga Kuchinskaya explores how we know what we know about Chernobyl, describing how the consequences of a nuclear accident were made invisible. Her analysis sheds valuable light on how we deal with other modern hazards -- toxins or global warming -- that are largely imperceptible to the human senses.Kuchinskaya describes the production of invisibility of Chernobyl's consequences in Belarus -- practices that limit public attention to radiation and make its health effects impossible to observe. Just as mitigating radiological contamination requires infrastructural solutions, she argues, the production and propagation of invisibility also involves infrastructural efforts, from redefining the scope and nature of the accident's consequences to reshaping research and protection practices. Kuchinskaya finds vast fluctuations in recognition, tracing varyingly successful efforts to conceal or reveal Chernobyl's consequences at different levels -- among affected populations, scientists, government, media, and international organizations. The production of invisibility, she argues, is a function of power relations.
This study presents a new approach to gauging energy or fuel poverty for developed countries. It develops a multidimensional energy poverty index (MEPI), which can evaluate energy poverty from a ...multidimensional angle. The MEPI is composed of three attributes (dimensions) of energy poverty, specifically for developed countries: energy costs, income, and energy efficiency of housing. The study applies this measure to gauge energy poverty in Japan after the 2000s, focusing on the years around the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and the Fukushima nuclear accident. Based on unique microdata, the results show that energy poverty has been aggravated in Japan since the 2000s. Mother-child and single-elderly households (vulnerable households) are in a serious situation and the elderly are at high levels of energy poverty. In addition, the results indicate the grave impact of energy price escalation after the Fukushima accident on energy poverty aggravation, especially for vulnerable households or the elderly.
•This study first evaluates energy poverty in Japan by a multidimensional approach.•Index with three dimensions of energy poverty in developed countries.•Focus on the years around the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima accident.•Severe and worsening situation notably on mother-child, single-elderly households.•As individuals, the elderly are more vulnerable to energy poverty than children.
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•Thyroid cancer (TC) risk is one of the major concerns after a nuclear accident.•Mass thyroid screening is aimed at complete ascertainment of TC cases, but can lead to over-diagnosis.•Mass thyroid ...screening may cause adverse side-effects (anxiety, overtreatment).•A mass thyroid screening is not recommended after a nuclear accident.•Thyroid monitoring should be available, with appropriate information and counselling.
Exposure of the thyroid gland to ionizing radiation at a young age is the main recognized risk factor for differentiated thyroid cancer. After the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents, thyroid cancer screening was implemented mainly for children, leading to case over-diagnosis as seen in South Korea after the implementation of opportunistic screening (where subjects are recruited at healthcare sites). The aim of cancer screening is to reduce morbidity and mortality, but screening can also cause negative effects on health (with unnecessary treatment if over-diagnosis) and on quality of life.
This paper from the SHAMISEN special issue (Nuclear Emergency Situations - Improvement of Medical And Health Surveillance) presents the principles of cancer screening, the lessons learned from thyroid cancer screening, as well as the knowledge on thyroid cancer incidence after exposure to iodine-131.
The SHAMISEN Consortium recommends to envisage systematic health screening after a nuclear accident, only when appropriately justified, i.e. ensuring that screening will do more good than harm. Based on the experience of the Fukushima screening, the consortium does not recommend mass or population-based thyroid cancer screening, as the negative psychological and physical effects are likely to outweigh any possible benefit in affected populations; thyroid health monitoring should however be made available to persons who request it (regardless of whether they are at increased risk or not), accompanied with appropriate information and support.
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Havingexploded on the margins of Europe, Chornobyl marked the end of the Soviet Unionand tied the era of postmodernism in Western Europe with nuclear consciousness.The Post-Chornobyl Library becomes ...a metaphor of a new Ukrainian literature of the 1990s,which emerges out of the Chornobyl nuclear trauma.
Our review of worldwide nuclear accident data shows Japan has had more nuclear accidents of greater severity than other countries. Cultural and geological factors likely combined to increase the ...severity of accidents, while policies designed to incentivize expansion of the reactor fleet likely increased the consequences of accidents. Cost estimates for the Fukushima disaster have doubled to $220 billion, and a literature review indicates total accident costs could exceed $500 billion. Indirect costs could increase that amount even more. To mitigate risk of future accidents, Japan could consider constructing a new fleet of 25 highly advanced reactors and require plant owners to establish set-asides to pay for future accidents in much the same way banks set aside funds to cover loan losses. This would build a profit motive into improving safety protocols and incentivize businesses to foster a stronger safety culture. At the same time, Japan might increase investments in clean fuels, such as hydrogen, to ensure it has feasible alternatives for successfully achieving safe, economically viable, and secure forms of energy.
•Japan has had more severe nuclear accidents than most countries.•Cost estimates for the Fukushima disaster have doubled to $220 billion.•Government and industry must devise financial incentives to promote safety.•Set asides for accidents that impact company profitability is key.
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The environmental impacts of the nuclear accidents of Chernobyl and Fukushima are compared. In almost every respect, the consequences of the Chernobyl accident clearly exceeded those of the Fukushima ...accident. In both accidents, most of the radioactivity released was due to volatile radionuclides (noble gases, iodine, cesium, tellurium). However, the amount of refractory elements (including actinides) emitted in the course of the Chernobyl accident was approximately four orders of magnitude higher than during the Fukushima accident. For Chernobyl, a total release of 5300PBq (excluding noble gases) has been established as the most cited source term. For Fukushima, we estimated a total source term of 520 (340–800) PBq. In the course of the Fukushima accident, the majority of the radionuclides (more than 80%) was transported offshore and deposited in the Pacific Ocean. Monitoring campaigns after both accidents reveal that the environmental impact of the Chernobyl accident was much greater than of the Fukushima accident. Both the highly contaminated areas and the evacuated areas are smaller around Fukushima and the projected health effects in Japan are significantly lower than after the Chernobyl accident. This is mainly due to the fact that food safety campaigns and evacuations worked quickly and efficiently after the Fukushima accident. In contrast to Chernobyl, no fatalities due to acute radiation effects occurred in Fukushima.
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•The environmental effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima are compared.•Releases of radionuclides from Chernobyl exceeded Fukushima by an order of magnitude.•Chernobyl caused more severe radiation-related health effects.•Overall, Chernobyl was a much more severe nuclear accident than Fukushima.•Psychological effects are neglected but important consequences of nuclear accidents.
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The concept and methodology of traditional Defense in Depth (DID) was challenged in the Fukushima nuclear accident. In order to fix the weakness of the traditional emergency strategies of nuclear ...power plants (NPPs) and to enhance the DID for nuclear safety, the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) put forward the concept of Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategies (FLEX) for the special purpose of beyond-design-basis external event (BDBEE) hazard mitigation and the corresponding FLEX support guidelines (FSG). The theory has been wildly spread and accepted by many countries that generate nuclear power. The research on the FLEX strategy is a new trend in nuclear engineering in the recent decade. It provides not only fixed on-site equipment/devices but also on- and off-site portable resources to strengthen the reliability of the nuclear safety system, especially for the disaster/hazards (similar to the Fukushima nuclear accident) triggered by BDBEEs. After a brief introduction of the FLEX strategy, four opportunities and ten challenges are summarized. Subsequently, in view of these challenges and technical difficulties, five suggestions for future work are recommended.
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•SHAMISEN built upon the experience of past nuclear accidents.•It aimed to develop holistic recommendations to limit impact of nuclear accidents.•SHAMISEN drew lessons about preparedness, response ...and health surveillance.•SHAMISEN aimed to build resilience/improve well-being in affected populations.
Experience suggests that current nuclear accident response planning in European countries mostly has a technical focus, with less attention paid to social, psychological and ethical issues. Information provided tends to be directed towards decisions made by experts, rather than for the support of affected populations. The SHAMISEN (Nuclear Emergency Situations - Improvement of Medical And Health Surveillance) consortium, composed of close to 50 experts from 10 countries, performed a critical review of current recommendations and experiences regarding dose assessment and reconstruction, evacuation decisions, long-term health surveillance programmes and epidemiological studies. The review included case studies and lessons drawn from the living conditions and health status of populations affected by the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, taking an integrative approach to health and well-being. Based on this work, SHAMISEN developed a series of comprehensive recommendations aimed at improving the preparedness, response, long-term surveillance and living conditions of populations affected by past or future radiation accidents, in a manner responding to their needs, while minimising unnecessary anxiety.
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The Fukushima nuclear accident released radioactive materials into the environment over the entire Northern Hemisphere in March 2011, and the Japanese government is spending large amounts of money to ...clean up the contaminated residential areas and agricultural fields. However, we still do not know the exact physical and chemical properties of the radioactive materials. This study directly observed spherical Cs-bearing particles emitted during a relatively early stage (March 14-15) of the accident. In contrast to the Cs-bearing radioactive materials that are currently assumed, these particles are larger, contain Fe, Zn, and Cs, and are water insoluble. Our simulation indicates that the spherical Cs-bearing particles mainly fell onto the ground by dry deposition. The finding of the spherical Cs particles will be a key to understand the processes of the accident and to accurately evaluate the health impacts and the residence time in the environment.
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