Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters

by Serhii Plokhy

Overview

A chilling account of more than half a century of nuclear catastrophes, by the author of the “definitive” (Economist) Cold War history, Nuclear Folly.

Almost 145,000 Americans fled their homes in and around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in late March 1979, hoping to save themselves from an invisible enemy: radiation. The reactor at the nearby Three Mile Island nuclear power plant had gone into partial meltdown, and scientists feared an explosion that could spread radiation throughout the eastern United States. Thankfully, the explosion never took place—but the accident left deep scars in the American psyche, all but ending the nation’s love affair with nuclear power.

In Atoms and Ashes, Serhii Plokhy recounts the dramatic history of Three Mile Island and five more accidents that that have dogged the nuclear industry in its military and civil incarnations: the disastrous fallout caused by the testing of the hydrogen bomb in the Bikini Atoll in 1954; the Kyshtym nuclear disaster in the USSR, which polluted a good part of the Urals; the Windscale fire, the worst nuclear accident in the UK’s history; back to the USSR with Chernobyl, the result of a flawed reactor design leading to the exodus of 350,000 people; and, most recently, Fukushima in Japan, triggered by an earthquake and a tsunami, a disaster on a par with Chernobyl and whose clean-up will not take place in our lifetime.

Through the stories of these six terrifying incidents, Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances. Today, there are 440 nuclear reactors operating throughout the world, with nuclear power providing 10 percent of global electricity. Yet as the world seeks to reduce carbon emissions to combat climate change, the question arises: Just how safe is nuclear energy?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324064558
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/23/2023
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	202,077
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Serhii Plokhy, author of The Russo-Ukrainian War, Atoms and Ashes, and Nuclear Folly, is a professor of Ukrainian history and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. He is a leading authority on the history of the Cold War. He lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

List of Maps ix

Note on Radiation Impact and Measurements xi

Preface: Stolen Fire xiii

I White Ashes: Bikini Atoll 1

II Northern Lights: Kyshtym 45

III A Very English Fire: Windscale 89

IV Atoms for Peace: Three Mile Island 137

V The Star of Apocalypse: Chernobyl 179

VI Nuclear Tsunami: Fukushima 227

Afterword: What Comes Next? 277

Acknowledgments 289

Notes 291

Index 331

Editorial Reviews

"Expertly concise."

The Observer - Robin McKie

"Frightening.... With catastrophic climate change bearing down on us, nuclear power has been promoted by some as an obvious solution, but this sobering history urges us to look hard at that bargain for what it is."

New York Times - Jennifer Szalai

"[An] enthralling study of the atomic age and its perils.... A meticulously researched history ... [and] also a timely read."

Financial Times - Lawrence Freedman

04/11/2022

Plokhy (Nuclear Folly), a professor of Ukranian history at Harvard, delivers a stunning survey of nuclear accidents from the 1954 Castle Bravo test on the Marshall Islands to the 2011 Fukushima meltdown. Contending that any consideration of nuclear energy’s role in combatting climate change must consider the nuclear industry’s history of disasters, Plokhy gives a blow-by-blow rundown of six incidents and analyzes the factors that contributed to them. Though more than 100 alarms went off during the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, the signal that would have told crew members that a crucial water valve had failed to close had never been installed. Anatolli Diatlov, the deputy chief engineer at Chernobyl, was “convinced that he was always right,” according to Plokhy, and refused to abort a 1986 safety test despite clear signs that the reactor was malfunctioning. The resulting explosion led to the deaths of an estimated 4,000 people from “radiation-induced cancers and leukemia.” At Fukushima, a faulty seismic warning system, poorly enforced regulations, and a “confused decision-making process” resulted in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Plokhy lucidly explains complex scientific and technical procedures and draws sharp profiles of key players in each episode. This well-informed study strikes a note of caution about the nuclear future. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Absolutely stunning. Atoms and Ashes is a formidable achievement. The prolific Serhii Plokhy has written a six-part historical thriller that is essential reading for both our politicians and the ordinary citizen. We have survived the Nuclear Age for three-quarters of a century, but this book calmly reminds us that accidents happen—and will surely happen again. Plokhy’s stories of nuclear accidents are riveting and frightening."

Kai Bird

"While considering the possible future of nuclear power, Plokhy ... reviews lessons learned from the most serious nuclear disasters since the end of WWII.... [He] asks whether nuclear energy is a viable path forward, considering all the risks."

starred review Booklist

★ 2022-03-11
Gripping accounts of the six biggest nuclear disasters.

In his latest authoritative history, Plokhy, professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard, spreads the blame widely. Readers will be surprised to learn that, for a decade after Hiroshima, governments proclaimed that nuclear radiation was inconsequential. This changed in 1954 after America’s “Castle Bravo” test, in which an early nuclear weapon turned out to be unexpectedly powerful. The explosion dumped radioactive fallout over observers and affected islands almost 100 miles away. Government efforts could not completely reassure the public, and the anti-nuclear movement was born. The most famous American nuclear accident was also the least harmful. In 1979, a cooling failure at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island reactor produced a partial meltdown and some release of radiation. No employee was badly exposed, and studies showed no increase in cancer rates. However, the initial confusion and media coverage “delivered a major blow to the nuclear industry.” As Plokhy shows, the plutonium factory in Hanford, Washington, remains America’s largest environmental cleanup project, but the Soviet counterpart in the Urals is worse: The immense 1957 explosion of a neglected waste tank produced damage and disease comparable to Chernobyl. The explosions at Chernobyl in 1986 released at least 1 million times more radiation than those at Three Mile Island, killed thousands, and poisoned an immense area. Those responsible had ignored safety rules, and a proper containment building, long required in the West, would have confined the explosions. When the 2011 tsunami struck, Japan’s Fukushima reactors escaped harm, but waves knocked out the cooling system. Explosions released perhaps 10% of Chernobyl’s radiation levels and forced far fewer evacuations, but few experts take comfort in that. Plokhy concludes that these accidents produced only a temporary glitch in the spread of nuclear power, which can never be accident-free, and few outside the industry consider it a safe option for the future. Shelve this excellent account next to James Mahaffey’s Atomic Accidents and Kate Brown’s Plutopia.

Hair-raising, instructive, and irresistible reading.

Kirkus Reviews