An American Chernobyl?

Feature story - April 21, 2006

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On April 26, 1986 the night crew at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was asked to conduct an operations experiment. The infamous explosion that resulted released 100 times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Twenty years later, the Bush administration would like you to believe that the Chernobyl catastrophe is a dark day in our history, one that could never happen again, especially here in the United States. As our new report documents, a nuclear meltdown could not only happen here, but we have already come uncomfortably close to an American Chernobyl.

Our report, " An American Chernobyl?" identifies almost 200 near misses at 50 reactors that have occurred in the United States since 1986. Of the 200 "precursors to a meltdown" documented in U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents, eight are considered the most significant. In other words, according to the NRC, the risk of a core meltdown is greater than a one in 1,000 chance. For the most part, these near misses have not been well-publicized, and the safety and well-being of those who live near these facilities has taken a back seat to the publicity needs of the energy industry.

We learned the hard way that nuclear energy is dangerous. Fortunately, in this day and age, it is also unnecessary. Although the Bush administration is calling for a "nuclear renaissance," to meet our energy needs, we're advocating for a switch to safe, clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar. We hope our report serves as a stark reminder that nuclear energy is no safer than it was 20 years ago.

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