Physical Society Colloquium
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Physical Society Colloquium
The CHERNOBYL and preceding nuclear disasters?
What have we learnt from them?
Prof. Richard Wilson
Harvard University
In the 1950s there were major several radiation exposure incidents in the
USSR:
- over exposure of workers in the plutonium production plant
- exposure of villagers to radionuclides dumped in the Techa river,
- over exposure at the first bomb tests in Semipalatinsk,
- explosion at Kyshtym,
- and finally, in 1986, the nuclear reactor accident at CHERNOBYL.
Each of these caused as much as or more exposure than that to the
population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the bombs dropped in in 1945.
However, the effects of CHERNOBYL are less than given by calculations from
the Japanese experience-except for for 1,000 thyroid cancers among children,
with perhaps 2,000 more to come.
Some of the lessons we have to learn:
- The thyroid cancers could have been avoided by prompt action after
the accident.
- In spite of the atrocious situation following the CHERNOBYL disaster,
the effect on public health in the USSR was and will be less than
the effect of ONE year of fossil fuel burning.
- One cannot ignore some cardinal rules in the design and operation
of nuclear power plants.
Friday, October 2nd 1998, 15:30
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, Key Auditorium (room 112)
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