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Available
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Publication
W. W. Norton & Company (2022), 368 pages
Description
"A chilling account of seventy years of nuclear catastrophes, by the author of the "definitive" (Economist) Cold War history, Nuclear Folly. Nuclear energy was embraced across the globe at the height of the nuclear industry in the 1960s and 1970s; today, there are 440 nuclear reactors operating throughout the world, with nuclear power providing 10 percent of world electricity. Yet as the world seeks to reduce carbon emissions to combat climate change, the question arises: Just how safe is nuclear energy? Atoms and Ashes recounts the dramatic history of nuclear accidents that have dogged the industry in its military and civil incarnations since the 1950s. Through the stories of six terrifying major incidents-Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima-Cold War expert Serhii Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances. Atoms and Ashes provides a crucial perspective on the most dangerous nuclear disasters of the past, in order to safeguard our future"--… (more)
Media reviews
Plokhy, a historian at Harvard, has written previous books about Chernobyl and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the acknowledgments in “Atoms and Ashes,” he says the book began as a response to readers who wanted to know whether the Soviet response to Chernobyl was in any way “unique.” He
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notices some patterns in nuclear accidents, including the exceedingly common impulse among governments “to hide information and, later, to spin or distort it”; but Plokhy is too committed to the specifics of each catastrophe to succumb to the temptation of making a grand case. Every nuclear disaster is terrible in its own way....The global scope of such dire subject matter means that the experience of reading this book is a formidable exercise in cumulative disillusionment....With catastrophic climate change bearing down on us, nuclear power has been promoted by some as an obvious solution, but this sobering history urges us to look hard at that bargain for what it is. Show Less
Amid the climate crisis and the pressing need for clean energy, a renewed emphasis has been placed on the promises and potential of nuclear power. Nuclear power plants, however, are exorbitantly expensive and may present threats and vulnerabilities to surrounding populations and ecosystems. While
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considering the possible future of nuclear power, Plokhy, professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University and author of several books on the Slavic nations, reviews lessons learned from the most serious nuclear disasters since the end of WWII. Show Less
Plokhy (Nuclear Folly), a professor of Ukranian history at Harvard, delivers a stunning survey of nuclear accidents from the 1954 Castle Bravo test on the Marshall Islands to the 2011 Fukushima meltdown. Contending that any consideration of nuclear energy’s role in combatting climate change must
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consider the nuclear industry’s history of disasters, Plokhy gives a blow-by-blow rundown of six incidents and analyzes the factors that contributed to them....Plokhy lucidly explains complex scientific and technical procedures and draws sharp profiles of key players in each episode. This well-informed study strikes a note of caution about the nuclear future. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member breic
A challenging story on the accident risks of nuclear power. The chapter on Chernobyl was perhaps the weakest, as I have read better accounts, but the other chapters were strong, especially the brief Fukushima summary.
> the main source of contamination was the radiation control point itself.
> Britain’s first atomic establishment became known as the brainiest town in the country. If one counts people with degrees, it turned into one of Britain’s most educated places. And they had smart children, too—the grades in local schools were higher than anywhere else. One former pupil recalled that they could not get a physics teacher in their school because the quality of the homework was so high that regular teachers of physics were afraid to take the job
> Frustrated, Yoshida, who knew that a delay in pumping seawater into the reactor might cause a second, much more damaging explosion, decided to ignore both the prime minister and TEPCO. “I continued with the pumping of seawater based on the judgment that the most important thing was to … prevent the spread of the accident,” recalled Yoshida later. He called in one of his managers and told him: “I am going to direct you to stop the seawater injection, but do not stop it.” He then gave a loud order in front of the cameras of the telecommunication system linking him with TEPCO headquarters to stop the pumping. Despite that formal order, the pumping continued.
> “When I heard about the evacuation request, I was feeling that I had to stake my political life on resolving the situation,” recalled [Prime Minister Naoto] Kan later. “That made me feel the request was totally out of line.” Kan’s aides shared his sentiment. “We must ask TEPCO to hold the fort, even if they have to put together a suicide squad,” said one of them. TEPCO officials denied that they had ever suggested complete evacuation of the site. Instead, they had allegedly considered the evacuation only of nonessential personnel. The videoconference footage that TEPCO was later forced to release suggested otherwise, supporting Kan’s understanding that the company was prepared to abandon the station altogether.
> the main source of contamination was the radiation control point itself.
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Radioactive particles washed off dirty vehicles stayed on the spot, and, as people walked from dirty buses to clean ones, they picked up radioactive dust and carried it into the buses and their apartments.> Britain’s first atomic establishment became known as the brainiest town in the country. If one counts people with degrees, it turned into one of Britain’s most educated places. And they had smart children, too—the grades in local schools were higher than anywhere else. One former pupil recalled that they could not get a physics teacher in their school because the quality of the homework was so high that regular teachers of physics were afraid to take the job
> Frustrated, Yoshida, who knew that a delay in pumping seawater into the reactor might cause a second, much more damaging explosion, decided to ignore both the prime minister and TEPCO. “I continued with the pumping of seawater based on the judgment that the most important thing was to … prevent the spread of the accident,” recalled Yoshida later. He called in one of his managers and told him: “I am going to direct you to stop the seawater injection, but do not stop it.” He then gave a loud order in front of the cameras of the telecommunication system linking him with TEPCO headquarters to stop the pumping. Despite that formal order, the pumping continued.
> “When I heard about the evacuation request, I was feeling that I had to stake my political life on resolving the situation,” recalled [Prime Minister Naoto] Kan later. “That made me feel the request was totally out of line.” Kan’s aides shared his sentiment. “We must ask TEPCO to hold the fort, even if they have to put together a suicide squad,” said one of them. TEPCO officials denied that they had ever suggested complete evacuation of the site. Instead, they had allegedly considered the evacuation only of nonessential personnel. The videoconference footage that TEPCO was later forced to release suggested otherwise, supporting Kan’s understanding that the company was prepared to abandon the station altogether.
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LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
There are currently 440 nuclear reactors operating worldwide, supplying 10% of the world's electricity. Because of climate change, the European common has now designated nuclear as "green energy." This book takes a fresh look at some of the major nuclear accidents over the years in the context of
1. "Castle Bravo" Test--1954. This was the first attempt to explode an H bomb, whose power comes from fusion not fission, and before the test no one was fully aware of just how powerful it would be. The blast was much larger than expected, and fallout covered a much larger area than expected. Many Marshall Islanders were affected, as well as some soldiers, and a Japanese fishing vessel. In fact, the test only became known because on return to port the fishermen were found to be radioactive.
2. Kyshtym 1957--This was the first Soviet reactor and level 6 plutonium processing chemical plant. At first, radioactive waste was dumped into nearby lakes, but by 1953, began to be placed in underground tanks. On September 29, 1959 one of these tanks exploded, spreading a radioactive cloud. There was fear that other tanks would explode. Several villages around the site had to be relocated. 85% of the area is still an ecological disaster area.
3. Windscale 1957--The reactors at Windscale were modeled on the US reactors at Oak Ridge, which was air cooled and used graphite to moderate the neutrons. Great Britain had the A-Bomb, but wanted the H-Bomb, and great pressure was put on Windscale to produce more plutonium and other materials needed for an H-Bomb. Because of its design, the rods at Windscale needed periodic annealing to release Wigner energy that developed in the graphite, but because of the pressure to produce more, Windscale decided to reduce the number of anneals. During an anneal, the temperature did not act as expected and Wigner energy was not fully released. In attempting to repeat the process a fire resulted. Cartridges were stuck, temperatures kept rising, they couldn't use water to put out the fire, and radiation was released. These reactors were shut down in 1957 and never reopened. The last fuel was not removed until 1999, and demolition did not begin until 2019. Demolition is expected to be complete in 2022.
4. Three Mile Island 1979--This was a Pressurized Water Reactor which uses water rather than graphite to moderate reactions. This type of reactor is considered safer than a graphite reactor. This accident resulted from a malfunction in the pilot operated relief valve, or PORV. Here the PORV opened to relieve pressure, but then unknown to operators failed to close, allowing water to escape. The staff, thinking too much water was going in, shut off the water supply. One historian later stated, "If the operating staff had accidentally locked itself out of the control room, the TMI accident would never have happened." By shutting off the water supply, the staff brought the reactor perilously close to meltdown. The reactor was never reopened. It took until December 1993 to remove the fuel. Final cleanup will take until 2078.
5. Chernobyl--The Chernobyl accident resulted from the Positive Scram Effect, a known phenomenon in RRMK reactors. When rods are inserted into the core for shutdown, there is an immediate spike in the intensity of the reaction, which is the opposite of what they were meant to do. If water stops flowing, the intensity of the reaction increases. Although these effects were known, the operators at Chernobyl were not told about them.
6. Fukushima 2011--This accident was caused by an earthquake/tsunami, and was exacerbated by the chaos and lack of communication between the site, the government, and TEPCO, owner of the plant. The Prime Minister of Japan later wrote, "Because Japan possessed unparalleled nuclear technology and superior experts and engineers, I believed that a Chernobyl-type accident could not occur at a Japanese nuclear power plant. To my great consternation, I would come to learn that this was a safety myth created by Japan's "Nuclear Village."' The situation at Fukushima did not stabilize until August 2011, 5 months after the event. There are still 1.23 million tons of contaminated water stored on the site. In 2021, the Japanese government decided to start releasing the contaminated water into the ocean, and there are ongoing protests to this plan. The release will take decades and is scheduled to start in 2023.
And the next nuclear accident??? Who knows where or when but it's inevitably coming.
4 stars
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the debate over the safety of nuclear energy. It is well worth reading. I will just briefly describe the accidents discussed in the book:1. "Castle Bravo" Test--1954. This was the first attempt to explode an H bomb, whose power comes from fusion not fission, and before the test no one was fully aware of just how powerful it would be. The blast was much larger than expected, and fallout covered a much larger area than expected. Many Marshall Islanders were affected, as well as some soldiers, and a Japanese fishing vessel. In fact, the test only became known because on return to port the fishermen were found to be radioactive.
2. Kyshtym 1957--This was the first Soviet reactor and level 6 plutonium processing chemical plant. At first, radioactive waste was dumped into nearby lakes, but by 1953, began to be placed in underground tanks. On September 29, 1959 one of these tanks exploded, spreading a radioactive cloud. There was fear that other tanks would explode. Several villages around the site had to be relocated. 85% of the area is still an ecological disaster area.
3. Windscale 1957--The reactors at Windscale were modeled on the US reactors at Oak Ridge, which was air cooled and used graphite to moderate the neutrons. Great Britain had the A-Bomb, but wanted the H-Bomb, and great pressure was put on Windscale to produce more plutonium and other materials needed for an H-Bomb. Because of its design, the rods at Windscale needed periodic annealing to release Wigner energy that developed in the graphite, but because of the pressure to produce more, Windscale decided to reduce the number of anneals. During an anneal, the temperature did not act as expected and Wigner energy was not fully released. In attempting to repeat the process a fire resulted. Cartridges were stuck, temperatures kept rising, they couldn't use water to put out the fire, and radiation was released. These reactors were shut down in 1957 and never reopened. The last fuel was not removed until 1999, and demolition did not begin until 2019. Demolition is expected to be complete in 2022.
4. Three Mile Island 1979--This was a Pressurized Water Reactor which uses water rather than graphite to moderate reactions. This type of reactor is considered safer than a graphite reactor. This accident resulted from a malfunction in the pilot operated relief valve, or PORV. Here the PORV opened to relieve pressure, but then unknown to operators failed to close, allowing water to escape. The staff, thinking too much water was going in, shut off the water supply. One historian later stated, "If the operating staff had accidentally locked itself out of the control room, the TMI accident would never have happened." By shutting off the water supply, the staff brought the reactor perilously close to meltdown. The reactor was never reopened. It took until December 1993 to remove the fuel. Final cleanup will take until 2078.
5. Chernobyl--The Chernobyl accident resulted from the Positive Scram Effect, a known phenomenon in RRMK reactors. When rods are inserted into the core for shutdown, there is an immediate spike in the intensity of the reaction, which is the opposite of what they were meant to do. If water stops flowing, the intensity of the reaction increases. Although these effects were known, the operators at Chernobyl were not told about them.
6. Fukushima 2011--This accident was caused by an earthquake/tsunami, and was exacerbated by the chaos and lack of communication between the site, the government, and TEPCO, owner of the plant. The Prime Minister of Japan later wrote, "Because Japan possessed unparalleled nuclear technology and superior experts and engineers, I believed that a Chernobyl-type accident could not occur at a Japanese nuclear power plant. To my great consternation, I would come to learn that this was a safety myth created by Japan's "Nuclear Village."' The situation at Fukushima did not stabilize until August 2011, 5 months after the event. There are still 1.23 million tons of contaminated water stored on the site. In 2021, the Japanese government decided to start releasing the contaminated water into the ocean, and there are ongoing protests to this plan. The release will take decades and is scheduled to start in 2023.
And the next nuclear accident??? Who knows where or when but it's inevitably coming.
4 stars
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Awards
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
1324021047 / 9781324021049