- Accidents like Chornobyl and Fukushima have damaged the public perception of nuclear power, leading to decreased investment and development.
- Nuclear power is a low-carbon energy source with a proven track record of safety and reliability.
- Despite past challenges, there is a growing global interest in nuclear power as a key component of a sustainable energy future.
Three major nuclear events throughout the history of nuclear power production have tainted the image of the clean energy source, according to recent reports and years of public opinion polls. The events at Chornobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island swayed public opinion against nuclear power in many areas of the world for several decades, encouraging governments worldwide to move away from the clean energy source in favor of continued fossil fuel use.
Today’s energy mix could look extremely different if these events had not occurred, or greater efforts had been taken to raise public awareness over nuclear safety.
According to a recent report published by a think tank from the ex-U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair – Tony Blair Institute (TBI), the nuclear power industry could have had a significant impact on global carbon emissions had it continued to grow at the same pace as before the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
It predicted that carbon emissions would be around 6 percent lower today if a different narrative of nuclear energy had been established following the Chornobyl disaster, rather than one that spurred “unfounded public concern”.
The Chornobyl nuclear power station was located in Pryp’yat, 10 miles northwest of the city of Chornobyl and 65 miles north of Kyiv. It consisted of four reactors, each with a 1 GW capacity. The disaster happened on April 25–26, 1986, when workers shut down the reactor’s power-regulating system and its emergency safety systems and withdrew most of the control rods from its core while it ran at 7 percent power. A combination of human errors led to several explosions triggering a large fireball that blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor, which resulted in a partial meltdown of the core. This led large quantities of radioactive material to go into the atmosphere and spread for miles around.