Bill Dalton: American Chernobyl?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

For a long time, I’ve been worried that Donald Trump is going to get us all killed someday.

So far, thankfully, I’ve been wrong.

But thanks to some brilliant reporting by NPR, we’re learning about his latest plans to destroy America, or at least parts of it.

Those old enough might remember Chernobyl. It happened long ago (1986) in a place far away (now Ukraine), but in 2018, HBO produced an incredible mini-series recreating the tragic events leading up to the worst nuclear accident in human history. Worse than Three Mile Island in 1979 and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011.

Anyone who watched that frightening HBO miniseries came away with one very strong impression — when it comes to nuclear reactors, it's not smart to skimp on safety.

Apparently, Trump and his cronies never heard of Chernobyl, because now that’s exactly what they’re doing and not telling the American public about it.

NPR obtained documents showing the Trump Administration quietly overhauled our nation’s nuclear safety rules — without public input — to speed up development of small nuclear reactors Big Tech needs to power their hungry Artificial Intelligence machines.

Read More: Secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules are made public

Those “small modular reactors” are supposed to be operational by July 4 of this year. Think about that for a moment. Nuclear plants usually take years to build, not months like these smaller reactors.

What’s more, Trump "nuked" more than 700 pages of safety requirements, including environmental protections, site security and accident investigations.

Experts who reviewed the documents supplied by NPR were shocked. A former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said relaxing safety and security standards in secret wasn’t a great way to build public trust. An expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists warned Trump was taking a “wrecking ball” to our system of safeguards put in place after Three Mile Island.

It probably won’t come as any surprise that the reactors are being backed by “billions in private equity, venture capital and public investments…from tech giants Amazon, Google and Meta,” according to NPR’s report.

The new rules also eliminate safety measures designed to keep radiation exposure below legal limits, suggesting the new reactors will need less concrete shielding, and workers could receive higher doses of radiation. They also eliminate a “cognizant system engineer” — someone more knowledgeable let's say than a Homer Simpson — designated for each of the reactor’s critical safety systems in case something goes wrong.

Like at Chernobyl.

Perhaps most frightening is the elimination of much of the security for nuclear material, meaning the enriched uranium used for fuel could become an easy target for theft.

Like by terrorists.

The only good news in NPR's report? Experts are doubtful, even after eliminating so many safeguards, that these new modular reactors can be built by July.

Let’s hope they’re right.

Because if they’re wrong … well, watch the HBO miniseries on Chernobyl and see what can happen.

— Bill Dalton is a former reporter and editor for The Kansas City Star and worked for several Michigan newspapers. He spends summers on the family farm near Fennville. His new novel “The Bank Game” — a trashy crime thriller — is available from Amazon.

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