PDF copy of 2009 book

CHERNOBYL1. Chernobyl Contamination throughTime and SpaceAlexey V. Yablokov and Vassily B. NesterenkoRadioactive contamination from the Chernobyl meltdown spread over 40% of Europe(including Austria, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Romania, Great Britain,Germany, Italy, France, Greece, Iceland, Slovenia) and wide territories in Asia (includingTurkey, Georgia, Armenia, Emirates, China), northern Africa, and North America.Nearly 400 million people resided in territories that were contaminated with radioactivityat a level higher than 4 kBq/m 2 (0.11 Ci/km 2 ) from April to July 1986. Nearly 5million people (including, more than 1 million children) still live with dangerous levelsof radioactive contamination in Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia. Claims thatthe Chernobyl radioactive fallout adds “only 2%” to the global radioactive backgroundovershadows the fact that many affected territories had previously dangerously highlevels of radiation. Even if the current level is low, there was high irradiation in thefirst days and weeks after the Chernobyl catastrophe. There is no reasonable explanationfor the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World HealthOrganization (Chernobyl Forum, 2005) have completely neglected the consequences ofradioactive contamination in other countries, which received more than 50% of the Chernobylradionuclides, and addressed concerns only in Belarus, Ukraine, and EuropeanRussia.To fully understand the consequences of Chernobylit is necessary to appreciate the scaleof the disaster. Clouds of radiation reachedheights between 1,500 and 10,000 m andspread around the globe, leaving deposits ofradionuclides and radioactive debris, primarilyin the Northern Hemisphere (Figure 1.1).There has been some dispute over the yearsas to the volume of radionuclides released whenreactor number four of the Chernobyl NuclearPower Plant (ChNPP) exploded, and it is criticalto be aware of the fact that there continueto be emissions. That release, even without takingthe gaseous radionuclides into account, wasmany hundreds of millions of curies, a quantityhundreds of times larger than the fallout fromthe atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima andNagasaki.Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academyof Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,Russia. Voice: +7-495-952-80-19; fax: +7-495-952-80-19. Yablokov@ecopolicy.ru1.1. Radioactive ContaminationImmediately after the explosion, and evennow, many articles report levels of radioactivitycalculated by the density of thecontamination—Ci/km 2 (Bq/m 2 ). While theselevels form a basis for further calculations of collectiveand individual doses, as shown below,such an approach is not completely valid as itdoes not take into account either the ecologicalor the physical aspects of radioactive contamination,nor does it provide exact calculations ofreceived doses (see Chapter II.2).1.2. Geographical Featuresof ContaminationImmediately after the NPP explosion, attemptsbegan to reconstruct the radioactivefallout picture to determine radioactive falloutdistribution levels using hydrometeorologicaldata (wind direction, rainfall, etc.) for each5