Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript
Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript
Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
..<br />
335<br />
ES, TUESDAY. JUNE 3. 1986<br />
NEW YORK TIMES<br />
Letters<br />
Don't Let <strong>Chernobyl</strong> Cripple U.S. <strong>Nuclear</strong> Industry<br />
To the Editar:<br />
With reganl to your May 1» frontpage<br />
report that the Oternobyl nuclear<br />
reactor had more safety features<br />
and was closer to American design<br />
than was assumed immediately<br />
after the plant accident, we would<br />
like to malie it dear that we are not<br />
among the "experts" who have<br />
changed our minds about the structure<br />
of the <strong>Chernobyl</strong> reactor. We<br />
have had accurate informatioD and<br />
have been attempting to describe It to<br />
the public and the press.<br />
The <strong>Chernobyl</strong> reactor has no cootainment<br />
in the sense we and other<br />
safety analysts in the U.S. use the<br />
word. In ordinary operation, the core<br />
and graphite moderator are anTuied<br />
behiixl barriers and covered by an<br />
inert nitrogen gas; but these barriers<br />
can be easily breached as they clearly<br />
were on April 26. The difference between<br />
confinement under favorable<br />
circumstances and containment under<br />
unfavorable ones is crudal.<br />
In commercial U.S. reactors, there<br />
is a large, strong, tested containment<br />
to be the problem at <strong>Chernobyl</strong>.<br />
The <strong>Chernobyl</strong> reactor is of the<br />
RMBK 1,000 type, the most easily<br />
available drawing of which is for one<br />
built at Leningrad. But we recently<br />
learned that the accident at unit 4 at<br />
<strong>Chernobyl</strong> took place in a reactor<br />
where a pressure-suppression pool had<br />
been added under the reactor, as well<br />
as strong structure around the steam<br />
collectors and headers. This should reduce<br />
pressure rise in case one of the<br />
water pipes under the reaaor breaks<br />
— one of the four most obvious accident<br />
scenarios. It seems to have<br />
played oo part in the April 26 accident<br />
until cleanup, when the pool was emptied<br />
of water. The reactor core was not<br />
inside a strong containment, although<br />
there is a thick biological shield above<br />
the reactor. The building is oot filled<br />
with inert gas, as are the containments<br />
of reactors such as Sborefaam.<br />
There are many lessons to be<br />
learned from this accident: the importance<br />
of containment and the danger<br />
of fire, both of which we alrea4y<br />
knew ; the slowness of accident devolopment,<br />
which allowed time for an<br />
unrehearsed, but orderly evmcuatica.<br />
and that even downwind in Sweden<br />
the effects were smaller than might<br />
have been feared. We want to find cot<br />
exactly what happened and further<br />
insure that it was not a sequence of<br />
events that we have forgotten. We<br />
want to learn from the Russian* thetr<br />
L' — '— »<br />
—~^ _i— .. S ^Hit ; !0<br />
cleamq) procedures, which we hope<br />
never to be forced to use flrsthand.<br />
It would be ironic If unreasonable<br />
fear caused us to cripple our nuclear<br />
electric capeblUty as a result of this<br />
Russian accident, which caused us no<br />
harm and would not have occurred in<br />
LinnDrapek<br />
Eowm L. Zebroski<br />
RjCHAiiD Wilson<br />
Cambridge, Mass., May 20, 1986<br />
DieU,S.<br />
The writers art, respectively, president<br />
of Gul/ State Utilities ; a nuclear<br />
gdentist with Electric Power Retearch<br />
Institute, and a professor of<br />
physics at Harvard University.<br />
What the Figures Mean<br />
To the Editor:<br />
Your article on concern over Eastem<br />
European cancers as a result of<br />
the Cheroobyl accident (May 16)<br />
quoted "tenutive and highly inexact"<br />
estimates by Dr. Thomas B. Cochran<br />
and myself of the long-term health implications<br />
of radioactive pollution by<br />
the nuclear-plant accident.<br />
structure designed to withstand the We stressed that although the estimates<br />
of thousands of extra caiKer<br />
rise in pressure for days in case of accident.<br />
II should hold in the event of Are deaths and tens of thousands of thyroid<br />
problems over the next decades<br />
and station blackout, which appeared<br />
seem large, the risk to any individuals<br />
other than those near the plant<br />
would be low. The large numbers are<br />
the result of adding very small individual<br />
risks over a very large population.<br />
This was not made explicit, and<br />
we are concerned that the article may<br />
feed rather than reduce the extraorxiinary<br />
fear of radioactivity from <strong>Chernobyl</strong><br />
so evident in Europe.<br />
Even 10,000 cancer deaths among a<br />
population of 100 million in Eastern<br />
Oa«la> Flcflaa<br />
Europe wtwld raise the risk of cancer<br />
death of the average person by coly<br />
about .06 percent, e.g., from 20 percent<br />
to 20.01 percent. The extra cancer<br />
deaths from <strong>Chernobyl</strong> will therefore<br />
be lost in the sea of cancer deaths<br />
that would have occurred in any case.<br />
The increased incideiKe of nonfatal<br />
thyroid problems from inhalation<br />
and ingestion of radioactive Iodine<br />
131 is likely to be greater, but<br />
even if there are 100,000 extra thyroid<br />
cases, the average individual will<br />
have only one extra chance in 1,000 of<br />
developing a Cbemobyl-induced thyroid<br />
problem.<br />
Of course, the anonymity of most of<br />
the victims of <strong>Chernobyl</strong> does not<br />
make the accident any less of « disaster.<br />
Like the equally catastrophic<br />
chemical accident at Union Carbide's<br />
Bhopal plant, the <strong>Chernobyl</strong> accident<br />
tells us that we have to improve tite<br />
designs of faciUties containing such<br />
huge quai'.tities of volatile toxic materials.<br />
This is why the reaction of the<br />
U.S. and Western European nuclear<br />
industries and their r^ulators, "It<br />
couldn't happen here," is so disturtv<br />
ing.<br />
Frank von Hi ppel<br />
Pnrf. of Public and International<br />
Affairs, Princeton University<br />
Princeton, N.J., May 17. 1966<br />
•<br />
Construction Problems<br />
To the Editor:<br />
An interesting article has come to<br />
tight about conditions at the <strong>Chernobyl</strong><br />
plant, published in the Ukrainianlanguage<br />
Literatuma Ukraina March<br />
27, 1986, almost a month before the<br />
nuclear accident. The author, Lyubov<br />
Kovalevska, probably an engineer at<br />
<strong>Chernobyl</strong>, recited shortcomings, excerpts<br />
of which include:<br />
"The time allocated for Its construction<br />
was reduced from three<br />
years to two, and building work began<br />
in 19SS witb minimal supplies . .<br />
With the tightening of plans that were<br />
already tight, it turned out that no one<br />
was ready — neither the designers,<br />
nor the suppUers, nor the builders<br />
themselves . . . The low quality of design<br />
and costing documentation . .<br />
caused additional labor expenditure<br />
and caUed for reworlong, and great<br />
material and moral efforts ... In a<br />
word, all the shortcomings of the<br />
building process, which are unfortunately<br />
typical, became acute and apparent<br />
... In 1385 some 45,500 cubic<br />
meters of prefabricated reinforced<br />
concrete was ordered; 3,200 were<br />
missing, and of the C300 cubic<br />
meters received, 6,000 were faulty."<br />
A fuller quotation and discussion is<br />
in the May 14 issue of Soviet Analyst<br />
(London). Eluot R. Goodman<br />
Providence, R.I., May 23, 1986<br />
The writer is professor of political<br />
science at Brown University.<br />
'