Just Finished Reading: Atoms and Ashes – From Bikini Atoll to Fukushima by Serhii Plokhy (FP: 2022) [301pp] 

It was quite a promise, the idea of turning Weapons of Mass Destruction into the engines of progress itself. Some even said that the electricity the new stations would be producing was too cheap to meter, in effect free. It was quite the promise. Dazzled by all things nuclear it was easy to forget that promises and radiation containment vessels are made to be broken. 

Growing up in England in the 1960’s I, like most of the rest of the world, had never heard of a place in the Soviet Union called Kyshtym. It appeared on few maps and none of those maps mentioned a classified nuclear facility there. The world only found out about the accident at that plant when the Soviet Union fell. In late September 1957 something went wrong there – VERY wrong – and quickly got out of control. The resulting fire and the explosions they caused spread highly radioactive debris over a large area. Never having dealt with anything like it before the response, especially in a secret obsessed society like the USSR, was far less than that required. Few died on the day, but many followed in the decades to come, vast amounts of topsoil were removed, whole villages destroyed to prevent their occupants returning to contaminated zones and countless animals were destroyed to prevent them being eaten or milked. 

The first nuclear accident I HAD heard about, although it also happened (just) before I was born was at the Windscale nuclear plant in Cumbria (128 miles north of where I was born and 72 miles north of where I went to University) on 10th October 1957. A fire which lasted 3 days in one of the reactor cores spread radioactive isotopes across the UK and into Europe. It was the worst ever recorded incident in England and one of the worst in the world (given a severity level of 5 out of a potential 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.) Downplayed at the time for political reasons – the UK was desperate to be involved in the US nuclear bomb program – the full scale of the disaster remained classified for some time. 

Things got even more interesting when the book moved into the modern era and incidents that many people reading this will remember. First up we have the Three Mile Island incident near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March 1979. This was also a level 5 event and only narrowly avoided being something MUCH worse. The near-meltdown released radioactive gasses and water vapour into the atmosphere as well as radioactive water into the nearby rivers. Luckily for the local residents (and everyone else downwind) a truly awesome tragedy was avoided. However, the costs of the clean-up and the decommissioning of the reactor are in the billions of dollars. [Side note: If you haven’t watched the 1979 movie ‘The China Syndrome’ it’ll give you some idea of what happened at Three Mile Island. Rather spookily the movie was released 12 days BEFORE the Harrisburg accident!] 

Then, of course, we move on to the poster child of all nuclear accidents: Chernobyl. Located in Ukraine (and in the new again recently whilst occupied by Russian soldiers who were crazy enough or ill-informed enough to dig tranches in the still contaminated ground around the plant) this mother of all accidents - level 7 out of 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale – occurred in April 1986 and initially in secret (again) until radiation spikes were reported across Europe and the finger very obviously pointed towards the Soviets. Finally, reluctantly admitting a problem they threw everything they had to prevent an even bigger disaster. It was, for many around the world a wake-up call about the dangers of nuclear power. Whilst some pointed to the lacklustre safety protocols of Soviet industry others pointed to the failures on the Three Mile Island facility with it supposed superior design and safety environment. Unsurprisingly the approvals for new nuclear power stations across the world plummeted. As the situation within the industry began to improve everything crashed to Earth with a bump – or should that be a wave? Fukushima happened on 11th March 2011. 

Hit by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded (with little damage directly caused to the plant itself) and then hit by TWO tsunami waves – one of which exceeded 14 metres (the defensive sea wall only measured 10 metres) - a series of problems caused a fire, partial melt-down and a series of explosions across the site and ultimately another level 7 incident. The facility was state of the art and the operators highly trained yet still a disaster was only averted by some quick thinking, personnel with the dedication and (honestly) suicidal bravery to stay at their posts and luck. Again, unsurprisingly, the world reacted with dismay as yet another nuclear incident shook confidence in the technology. 

Of course, what makes it worse, if such a thing is possible, is that nuclear power is seen as THE saviour to a future energy crisis as older fossil-fuel power stations are increasingly decommissioned and the preferred greener renewable power sources are still coming online and slowly improving in efficiency. The stopgap was supposed to be filled – at least temporarily if not permanently – by nukes. BUT the approval process and building of nuclear power plants takes DECADES – time we seemingly don’t have. So, it is proposed, we need to cut back on safety protocols and cut corners on the building process to speed things up. Really? When some of the most advanced and well-maintained nuclear plants in the world fail how well are quickly thrown up and cost-cutting versions going to manage? It’s a very relevant and deeply disturbing question the author ends with. 

Told in a measured tone without any of the expected hyperbole or ‘the sky is falling’ rhetoric this is a deeply disturbing narrative about a technology that promised SO much and ended up leaving us with problems that our far descendants will be left to deal with. If you have any interest at all in the nuclear industry and want to know more about the promises being made about it ‘solving’ the ongoing Climate crisis this is definitely the book for you. But be warned, it might very well give you nightmares especially if you live downwind of a nearby nuclear station. One of the best reads of the year (so far) and, therefore, HIGHLY recommended. Much more from this author to come.