The Chernobyl Accident and Some Lessons for Zaparozhye

Focusing on Chernobyl, the disaster arguably destroyed the Soviet Union, caused more than a million cancer deaths in Europe, together with a significant increase in genetic diseases, and premature ageing in the most exposed populations like those of Belarus and Ukraine. What the accident also revealed, was the failure of the radiation risk model based on the Hiroshima cancer lifespan study to predict or explain the health effects.  We managed to develop an alternative model which explains the origin of the global cancer epidemic that began in 1980—atmospheric nuclear testing, the downstream genetic effects of exposure to Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons. More than 300 million people have developed cancer ascribable to the atmospheric weapons fallout of the 1960s. The ICRP risk model is in error for internal exposures by upwards of 10,000-fold.  What is its relevance to what is happening in Ukraine?  First is that a nuclear war is unwinnable and will destroy what’s left of the genetic integrity of life on Earth. Start with Depleted Uranium. I studied DU effects in Iraq and in Kosovo. The levels of cancer and genetic birth defects were astronomical, higher than seen at Hiroshima. So, if the West (or anyone) uses DU, the same effects will appear locally and also remotely wherever the wind blows. We have seen the effects of Chernobyl on childhood leukemia in Wales and Scotland where the particles came down in the rain.  Then there is Zaporozhye.  All reactors are currently in cold shutdown, but that does not make them safe. When you take the spent fuel out of one of these reactors, you are talking about 312 rod assemblies totalling 66 tons of spent enriched Uranium, containing a list of very radioactive fission products and neutron activation alpha emitters like Plutonium.  The half live of the longest element, U-238 is about 4.7 Billion Years (Yes).