On 26 April 1986, just after one o’clock in the morning, the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Power Station exploded, sending a radioactive cloud over Europe, and causing nuclear fall-out to contaminate a wide area of what is now the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Twenty years later, people in this region – including thousands of children who have since been born – still suffer the consequences. But, apart from out of humanitarian concern for the affected populations, why should we remember Chernobyl? What is its relevance to the world today?

Chernobyl – which revealed for the first time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki the cataclysmic potential of nuclear disasters – raised questions that are still pertinent, and largely unresolved. How can we be sure that the states which possess nuclear power, whether civilian or military, today adhere to the necessary safeguards and regulations? How can we justify gambling with the well-being of future generations for the sake of our “national security” or energy consumption? And, finally: Is nuclear power a viable solution to our energy or climate change challenges anyway?

Half the battle to finding solutions lies in asking the right questions. But regarding the struggle against climate change, and the need to transform our energy sources and habits, we are not asking the right questions. That’s why we have recently been hearing that nuclear energy could play a major role in the solution to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. It sounds tempting: a technological solution that will allow us to continue to behave exactly as we are today while still meeting Kyoto Protocol commitments.

Regardless of one’s position on nuclear energy, it is not the solution to climate change. It is currently a small player in global energy supply, accounting for 16 percent of electricity consumption, which itself is only 12 percent of total global energy consumption. Even with an aggressive, broad acceleration in the commissioning of nuclear reactors it can only hope to generate a maximum of about 9 percent of global energy by 2030. The greenhouse gas emissions that this would save could be achieved far more sustainably, quickly and cheaply by improving energy efficiency. But this option does not attract the same political, financial or media interest, and would actually involve us – the individual consumers – taking some responsibility!

The questions we need to be asking are: How can we stop our behavior and decisions today from putting future generations at risk? How can we extend the opportunities and benefits of access to energy to all people in a sustainable way?

These questions are officially on the agenda of the G8 Summit being held in Russia for the first time in July. The Summit has set energy as a priority, but sadly the discussions appear more likely to focus on concerns of more direct political interest to those gathering around the table: securing supplies of traditional (i.e. oil and gas) fuel supplies and examining the potential for nuclear energy.

Oil consumption now exceeds 1000 barrels per second, that’s over 85 million barrels per day! This is the fundamentally unsustainable basis upon which our global economy and politics currently rest. Building new nuclear power stations will not have any real impact on this problem (little of this oil is used to produce electricity), and no nuclear fuel cycle is entirely immune to proliferation, accidents or terrorist risks. But direct subsidies to nuclear energy in the U.S. totalled USD115 billion between 1947 and 1999, with a further USD 145 billion in indirect subsidies. By contrast, subsidies to wind and solar power combined were just USD 5.5 billion.

There are no quick-fix technological solutions. Breaking our dependence on oil and other fossil-fuels will not be easy. But if we embrace the real solutions – renewable energy, decentralized networks and improvements in the efficiency of our buildings, vehicles and appliances – we can begin building a genuinely sustainable society. This is not a soft “tilting at windmills” option, it means making tough decisions and changes – and it is the option that the leaders of the world’s richest and most powerful states should be guiding us towards. Twenty years after the Chernobyl tragedy it is painfully apparent that the consequences of decisions and mistakes outlive those who make them. The articles in this issue of The Optimist cannot claim to cover all aspects of either the Chernobyl accident and aftermath, or the debate on the future of nuclear energy, but certainly include much insight and analysis not so readily available in the mainstream press.

We should all take the time this spring to remember those who lost their lives, their health or their homes due to the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and think seriously about the lessons that can be learned.

Alexander Likhotal

Jean-Michel Cousteau

Excerpted from The Optimist

A publication of Green Cross International