The world is currently on an unsustainable way to conflict caused by unstable and unreliable supply of energy fuels, vulnerable infrastructure, massive environmental degradation, and lack of providing energy services to a huge proportion of the world population. Put into operation a system of energy requires the development of various areas such as economy, politics and technology to help overcome these deficiencies and allow creating a more regulated energy governance minimizing the dangers of nuclear and politicians struggles, caused by competition for resources and interests.
Is here where states are in a constant game between national interests and the care of an environment which is injured everyday caused by actual energy ways such as gas and oil. Since the 1970’s, after petroleum crisis and the learn about that energy governance cannot be in the hands of an unrepresentative part of the countries, States began to think about new ways of produce alternative energy. There was developed the idea of manage nuclear energy, solar energy, hydroelectric energy and other sustainable ways that less the dependence of oil mainly.
Even a cursory assessment makes clear that contemporary global energy governance arrangements are far from meeting urgent needs to promote market efficiency compared to externalities (especially, but not only, climate change), expand access to energy services to the billions of people, not enough infrastructure to supply energy to all, and less to meet the demand in the market.
With the auge of the Cold War, nuclear energy took force because was first an idea to produce more dangerous weapons that increase the powerful image of the biggest powers in this age: the United States and the URSS. Nuclear resources became in major dissuasor elements to protect each power blck of an attack from the other one. A lot of nuclear programs were developed in the seeking of win more alliances with developing states and the change of a bipolar system into a unipolar system with not only a super government in the head of the International System, it traduces the win of some political and economical ideas, it was capitalism vs. communism, liberalism vs. protectionism.
With Misil Crisis in Cuba in 1969, the world learned that we cannot go until the last consequences just for some national interests, the system must to change into a cooperation mechanisms, they would have to recover the ideas that died before Second World War, the League of Nations, it was imperative to reinforce the UN mechanisms, and go in the road of a peaceful world.
This crisis was the reason why since 1968, and until 1970 states were working in a treaty that regulates until now the management of the nuclear weapons, in 1959, the International Agency of Atomic Energy was born (IAEA), because they must control the production of nuclear energy, not only for prevent a future nuclear war, also serve to: “The IAEA was created in 1957 in response to the deep fears and expectations resulting from the discovery of nuclear energy. Its fortunes are uniquely geared to this controversial technology that can be used either as a weapon or as a practical and useful tool.” (IAEA, 1959). To prevent catastrophes such chernobyl, one of the worst consequences of bad management of nuclear material.
Chernobyl is the worst nuclear accident in the history, showing how the nuclear energy can by dead full if this one is not treated carefully. The Chernobyl nuclear plant was the biggest and the most powerful in the works with four reactors and three more in construction for the moment of the accident, sometimes is easy to find that the plant actually has other incident, but it was just a little fire.
In the night of 26 April 1986 a security test was programmed, the test try to se how long the reactor can work after being turn off, for this the workers first has to remove the cooling system provocative in this way a up in the temperature the reactor, the second step was supposed to turn on again just to make the fusion stable, but this point will never happened. They try to put on the cooling system to late and the rooftop of the reactor number four exploit, liberating to the atmosphere toxic elements as the strontium and plutonium, the statistics say that the nuclear cloud give almost three rounds to the earth.
For this moment the radiation levels in the neighbour city of Pripyat was more than 25.000 roentgens per second, when a human body only can take less than 100 per hour, this was a death sentence to almost 50.000 persons. The URSS denied that something happen in the reactor and start four days later to evacuate the city and a big part of the plant, this will mark the beginning of something that they called the liquidators. These mens has to stay two minutes I the top of the reactor, cleaning all the zone, because the robots that they try to use first went crazy and suicidate their self for the radiation.
The USSR has to admired that something happen in the central because in Sweden a worker from a nuclear plant detect high radiation level, so they think that maybe the UK has suffered a nuclear attack, and when they asked about Chernobyl in the beginning the kremlin denied, but four days later Gorbachev give a public declaration that the had a little problem in the Chernobyl plant.
The reactor today has a sarcophagus in concrete to stop the radiation going in to the atmosphere, the reactor was building by the liquidators, but today is falling down in a lot of parts. France is now building a new sarcophagus, in a special material where they expected to buried the reactor for at least one century. Also today the zone is a excluded zone, even when the plant still working until 2002.
This serves to show why it is important that countries should control the care that must be taken when handling nuclear resources not to be spectators of another disaster like this. Often the interests of states is not a excuse to ignore the duties we have as an international community as to protect both the environment and the no-action alternative forms of energy harmful to the environment, all in order to ensure good future for generations to come.
Resources:
- https://www.iaea.org/about/history
- Florini, A & Sovacool, BK, “Bridging the Gaps in Global Energy Governance”, Global Governance, Vol. 17 (1), 2011
- Video – Unreported World: India’s Electric Dreams, Channel 4, UK, October 2014
- Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), 1970, Avaiable Online: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/infcircs/1970/infcirc140.pdf