Chernobyl Gives No Cause for Panic--or Smugness

As the Chernobyl reactor is being entombed in cement, we still know very little about the causes of the accident or about the radiation exposure of the nearby population. That hasn’t restrained apocalyptic speculation and polemics concerning what the accident tells us about our own nuclear-power reactors and about nuclear power generally. As usual with things nuclear, there is not much maneuvering room between “the sky is falling” and “it can’t happen here.” What is a reasonable person to think?

Our plants are probably safer than the Soviets’, but we don’t know enough details of their designs and mode of operation to be sure. In complex technology, the details (remember O-rings?) are everything. In view of the gross differences in equipment, the Soviet accident data--if we get it--is not likely to dictate specific changes for our plants.

But that is not reason for smugness. Whatever we may think of the Soviet system, Soviet physicists and engineers are not stupid; they have the same basic training as our scientists. They were aware of the possible safety problems and thought that they had them well under control. (Asked last week whether such an accident could have been anticipated, the deputy director of their Atomic Energy Institute said, “I would have thought it was completely incredible.”) That the Soviets were wrong is a warning about human fallibility.

The accident has thrown the spotlight on containments--the steel and reinforced-concrete structures around our reactors that are designed to prevent release of radioactivity. By now everybody thinks that we have them and they don’t, and that is why the Chernobyl accident was so bad. In truth, it’s not as simple as that. The Chernobyl reactor had some sort of containment. And while most of our containments are sturdier and would prove valuable in an accident, they were not designed to deal with an accident as serious as that at Chernobyl. Nor does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license review check containments, of which there are several types, against such possibilities. It would be useful to reexamine the containments around the country, especially those over reactors near populated areas, for weaknesses. (Those over reactors in California and Arizona are, fortunately, of the largest and strongest kind.)

It will be enlightening to see how long it will take before Chernobyl’s neighbors can return to their homes and whether any areas remain off-limits indefinitely. Dealing with such problems would be vastly more complicated in our system, where people don’t act just on authorities’ say-so.

Another thing to follow up--and it is odd that so little attention was paid to this--is Mikhail Gorbachev’s statement (amplified Monday by Chernobyl’s designer) that the accident started with a “sudden power surge”--a chain reaction that accelerates out of control. We should reexamine our own situation with a fresh eye to make sure that we are not vulnerable to similar very rapidly developing accidents.

The basic facts are: that reactors contain an enormous amount of radioactivity and are extraordinarily complicated machines, and, while the U.S. safety record is pretty good (all things considered), we cannot afford to take it for granted.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is responsible for setting minimum safety standards and enforcing them, but it has its hands full dealing with 50-odd utilities, and nearly as many different designs and styles of operation. Ultimately it is the utilities that operate the plants that determine whether the plants are run safely. They should all be taking the larger lesson of Chernobyl to heart.

Some of them have been doing so. Unfortunately, the industry’s initial response to Chernobyl was to explain it away with assurances that the accident had little significance for us. With the contentiousness that surrounds nuclear energy, perhaps a public-relations response was inevitable. But this approach, intended to calm fears, only raises public worries over whether the people in charge of nuclear programs have their priorities straight. One hopes that this was a passing phase, to be followed by an increased emphasis on safety.

We can be sure of one thing: Long after the story fades into yesterday’s news, reasonable people will remain more apprehensive of nuclear power than they were before the Chernobyl accident, and they will be less tolerant than before of even minor nuclear mishaps. Should these occur often enough, the increased public worry will have a way of translating itself into more governmental constraints on nuclear operations. And should one of our own plants experience a serious accident involving public casualties and radioactive contamination, there will be no explaining it away.

The one exception to this unhappy picture is UCLA’s Dr. Robert Gale and his colleagues who crossed political and language barriers to tend to the most seriously injured. That is the first, but hopefully not the last, positive result of the accident at Chernobyl.