On 10th anniversary, issue of nuclear plants is still hot in U.S.

A brush fire that swept through the ghost villages around Chernobyl this week served as a cruel symbol of the political firestorm that continues to rage in the United States and abroad over the meaning of the nuclear accident that occurred at that Ukrainian village 10 years ago today.

The fire began in dry grass about six miles from the abandoned power plant and quickly spread. Villagers returning to observe the solemn anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident watched in horror as flames destroyed what was left of their homes. Wind-whipped flames sent radioactive particles from roof tiles high into the air, forming a radioactive cloud that drifted toward Kiev and its 2.6 million residents.

In 1986, villages within 18 miles of the Chernobyl plant were abandoned after the reactor fire, which killed 30 people immediately and exposed 5 million more to radioactive fallout, mostly in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Scientists now believe that the fallout may have caused genetic mutations more than 100 miles away from the reactor in children born after the accident. The crippled reactor and a second one have been shut down, but two others are still being operated to generate electricity.

While most of the radioactive molecules in the Chernobyl exclusion zone may have sunk into the soil, the political fallout from the disaster continues to rain down, in the United States affecting such issues as reactor relicensing and waste storage. Pro- and antinuclear forces each see lessons in the Chernobyl disaster that bolster their deeply held views. Meanwhile, much of the public, along with its elected officials, remains as bewildered by the promise and the risks of commercial nuclear power as when news of the Chernobyl disaster broke.

History continues to be used by both sides in debating nuclear power, but each side uses a different history. The reactor industry and others proudly point to the performance and safety of the 110 U.S. plants now operating and to the contribution that nuclear power makes to the nation’s generation of electricity--22%. The industry correctly insists that a Chernobyl-type accident could not occur in this country because of the vastly different and safer reactor design of U.S. power plants.

But in contrast, nuclear power opponents see in the now-defunct Soviet government’s attempt to block the release of reliable information about the Chernobyl accident an attitude similar to what they consider industry-friendly oversight of U.S. reactors and waste sites. Opponents recall the 1950s and 1960s, when the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission had the dual--and incompatible--roles of promoting and regulating nuclear power. The AEC’s successor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is now solely responsible for regulation.

The Chernobyl accident occurred at a time when construction of new U.S. power plants was at a standstill, due in part to spiraling costs. Now a new cycle is at hand. Within the next 10 years, most U.S. plants will approach the end of their 40-year operating licenses. Utilities must either get a federal extension to continue operating or build new plants; either way they will face a public sometimes skeptical about nuclear safety.

Meanwhile, growing stockpiles of nuclear waste material in California and elsewhere still lack a permanent disposal site. The licensing of the proposed Ward Valley site in the Mojave Desert is stalled, caught in a war of words and conflicting scientific tests, between those who insist the site is safe and those unconvinced by the assurances.

The poisonous winds of Chernobyl still swirl.