The Long and the Short of It - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 336

of public opinion. We should remember these three drivers when we reach the end of our
review on climate change.
The 1950s saw the development of civilian use of nuclear power to generate electri-
city.Thefirstsuchpowerstationtobeconnectedtoanelectrical gridopenedin1954atOb-
ninsk about 110 kilometres from Moscow. It was followed in 1956 by the Calder Hall sta-
tion in the United Kingdom near the present nuclear complex at Sellafield. It was clear that
nuclear power would spread around the world. Along with the benefits of nuclear power
came a problem: What should be done with radioactive waste? In 1957, the Internation-
al Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was set up through the United Nations with a mandate
that spans military (it is the depository of several of the weapons' agreements) and civil-
ian issues. The statute of the organisation declares that its work has “three pillars: nuclear
verification and security, safety and technology transfer”. This resulted in a bewildering
number of treaties, protocols and agreements concerning almost every aspect of the nuclear
power industry, including the handling of nuclear waste.
The result has been a nuclear power industry that is generally safe but is also not per-
fect. Very serious avoidable accidents continue to happen and devastating consequences
are avoided more by heroism and luck than by design. It always strikes me as a giant ana-
chronism to contrast the technical sophistication of a nuclear power plant with the desper-
ate reliance on such measures as dumping water and cement on the facilities at Fukushima
and Chernobyl.
It is equally perplexing that very few arrangements have been made for the permanent
storage of nuclear waste. The Eurasian Arctic continues to host a very high density of tem-
porarily stored radioactive waste that requires assessment and remediation.
Future needs:
Much progress has been made to improve nuclear safety. However, if nuclear power is to
play a significant role in the plans of countries to approach carbon neutrality, then safety
measures must be further improved and the problems of long-term storage of wastes
solved, particularly in the Arctic.