Dirty bombs and Ukraine’s reactors

Beyond Nuclear today issued a press release as a reminder to media that nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous pre-deployed nuclear weapons. The possibility that nuclear reactor sites in Ukraine — and specifically the radioactive dry storage casks — might be used as “dirty bombs”, sends a clear message that nuclear power is a far too dangerous — not to mention expensive, slow and inflexible — technology for today’s warming and ever more volatile world.

“The reality all of this exposes is that nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous with their large inventories of radioactive materials that must be protected for hundreds to thousands of years from escaping into the environment,” said Paul Gunter, Director of Reactor Oversight at Beyond Nuclear.

“The only reason there is such justifiably high anxiety right now about the possibility of these plants being used as dirty bombs — as well as the very real threat of a missile attack — is because of the lethal radioactivity that would be released, sickening and killing countless people and contaminating land and water indefinitely,” Gunter continued. “This sends a clear message that the risks of using this already highly expensive form of electricity generation is, and was always, a mistake.”

Read the full press release

(Headline photo by US NRC shows dry storage casks at Diablo Canyon, US, similar to those sitting unprotected at the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, now within the so-called “annexed” Russian territories and no longer under the control of its Ukrainian operators.)