Chernobyl Case Study
In the table of advantages and disadvantages to nuclear power, you learned that accidents at nuclear power plants are rare. However, when they do occur, they can be deadly. The world’s worst nuclear power plant accident occurred in 1986 at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine.
The Chernobyl accident was caused by a faulty reactor design that allowed it to easily explode when problems occurred with its cooling system. The explosion did not come from the nuclear fission reaction, but rather from the build-up of steam in the plant’s cooling system.
Chernobyl once was the home to more than 50,000 people. Today it is largely a ghost town. By 2005, 56 recorded deaths had been attributed to the accident. The United Nations estimates that ultimately 4,000 more deaths will occur. This is because the radiation that escaped to the environment that day is extremely persistent. It sticks around for thousands of years and is a cause of cancer. There have been no other accidents like Chernobyl, but its physical and emotional impacts were strong enough to discourage future nuclear power plants in many parts of the world.
