Military Nuclear Accidents Environmental, Ecological, Health and Socio-economic Consequences

264 Pages·2018·8.82 MB·English

by  Amiard

Military Nuclear Accidents
Radioactive Risk Set
coordinated by
Jean-Claude Amiard
Volume 1
Military Nuclear Accidents

Environmental, Ecological, Health and
Socio-economic Consequences

Jean-Claude Amiard
First published 2018 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956923

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-333-2
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Acronyms and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Chapter 1. Classification of Nuclear Accidents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1. Classification of nuclear events: incident or accident? . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2. Military classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Acknowledged, unknown and secret accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4. Origin and frequency of accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4.1. Origin of accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4.2. Frequency of accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Chapter 2. Birth of Atomic Weapons and Their First Atrocious
Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1.1. Discoveries of natural and artificial radioactivity . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.1.2. The discovery of fission and the first nuclear reactor . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.3. The A-bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1.4. French research work before and after World War II . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2. The explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
the first appalling applications of fission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.1. The facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2.2. The immediate effects (destruction of buildings) . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.3. The environmental consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.4. Health consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
vi Military Nuclear Accidents
2.2.5. The sociological costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.2.6. The economic costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Chapter 3. Atomic Bomb Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1.1. Test sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1.2. Various types of atomic tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1.3. Safety of atmospheric tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1.4. Various phases of a nuclear explosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2. Atmospheric atomic tests: massive voluntary releases . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.2.1. A-bombs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2.2. H-bombs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2.3. Production of radionuclides from an explosion . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2.4. Production of particles and aerosols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2.5. Surface deposits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.2.6. Accidents during atmospheric atomic tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3. Accidents during underground atomic tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3.1. Radioactive releases during underground tests. . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3.2. Soviet accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3.3. American accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.4. French accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.5. British and Chinese accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4. Environmental consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4.1. Geomechanical consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4.2. Environmental contaminations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5. Worldwide spatial consequences of atomic tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.6. Health consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.6.1. Health consequences to military personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.6.2. Health consequences on workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.6.3. Health consequences on local populations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.6.4. Health consequences on the world population . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
3.7. Sociological consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.7.1. Taking into account the harm suffered from French tests . . . . . . 91
3.7.2. The case of American military personnel and civilians . . . . . . . . 94
3.7.3. Psychological illnesses related to nuclear explosions . . . . . . . . . 94
3.8. Economic impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.8.1. Compensation for military personnel
and local populations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.8.2. The cost of French tests at Mururoa and Fangataufa . . . . . . . . . 99
3.9. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Contents vii
Chapter 4. Accidents Involving Deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.1.1. The principle of nuclear deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.1.2. Acquisition of the bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.1.3. From massive retaliation to flexible response . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.1.4. The second path to nuclear arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.1.5. The situation in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4.1.6. The main non-proliferation treaties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.2. Accidents involving weapons in service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.2.1. Accidents involving bombers carrying nuclear weapons . . . . . . . 107
4.2.2. Accidents involving submarines
carrying nuclear weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.2.3. Missile and rocket accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.2.4. Accidents during armed missile tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.2.5. Accidents involving power generators and satellites . . . . . . . . . 119
4.2.6. Various accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
4.3. Consequences for the environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.3.1. Consequences of bomber aircraft accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.3.2. Consequences of submarine wrecks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4.3.3. Consequences of submerged military waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.4. Consequences for flora and fauna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.5. Consequences on human health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
4.6. Economic consequences: the cost of nuclear deterrence . . . . . . . . . 134
4.6.1. The American costs of nuclear deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.6.2. French costs of nuclear deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
4.6.3. British costs of nuclear deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
4.6.4. The costs of nuclear deterrence for other nations . . . . . . . . . . . 140
4.7. Strike force in the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
4.8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Chapter 5. Accidents Involving the Production of Atomic Weapons 145
5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
5.2. Accidents involving plutonium production units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
5.2.1. The Windscale accident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
5.2.2. The Kyshtym accident at Mayak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
5.2.3. The accident at Tomsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
5.2.4. The Gore accident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.3. Criticality accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.4. The consequences of an accident on
atomic bomb storage sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
viii Military Nuclear Accidents
5.5. Environmental impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.5.1. Windscale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.5.2. Kyshtym and its surroundings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
5.5.3. Tomsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
5.5.4. Hanford and Los Alamos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
5.6. Health consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
5.6.1. Windscale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
5.6.2. Kyshtym . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
5.6.3. Tomsk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.6.4. Gore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.7. Costs of weapons production plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Chapter 6. Nuclear Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
6.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
6.2. Humanity and the legitimacy of a nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
6.3. The risks of a nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
6.3.1. Nuclear war has not taken place… but it is possible . . . . . . . . . 187
6.3.2. International crises and moments
of senseless escalation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
6.3.3. Accidents that may trigger nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
6.3.4. False alarms that may trigger nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
6.3.5. Geopolitics and nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
6.4. How to avoid nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
6.4.1. Increased awareness and establishment
of peace movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
6.4.2. The Stockholm Appeal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
6.4.3. Limiting those that possess the bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
6.4.4. Towards a new treaty for outlawing nuclear weapons? . . . . . . . . 196
6.4.5. Peace movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
6.5. Scenarios of nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
6.6. The environmental impact of nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
6.6.1. Large-scale fires and smoke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
6.6.2. Dust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
6.6.3. Radioactive fallout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
6.6.4. Depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer
and increase in UV rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
6.6.5. Oxygen losses and increases in carbon dioxide . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
6.6.6. Reductions in light and temperatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
6.6.7. Nuclear winter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
6.6.8. Radioactive contamination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Contents ix
6.7. Ecological impact of nuclear war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
6.8. Impact of nuclear war on health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
6.9. Expenditure on dismantling and destroying
nuclear weapons in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
6.10. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Acknowledgments
Claude Amiard-Triquet (Honorary Research Director, CNRS, France) has
taken on the onerous task of re-reading, annotating and casting a critical eye
over the French version of this book, and Professor Philip Rainbow (former
Keeper of Zoology, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom) has
done the same for the English version. I warmly thank them both for their
time and efforts.
A certain number of colleagues have made documents available to me
and I am grateful for this. They are in particular Christelle Adam-Guillermin
from IRSN, Pierre-Marie Badot at the Université de Besançon, Mariette
Gerber from INSERM in Montpellier, Anders Pape Møller from the CNRS
at the Université de Paris Sud (Orsay) and Timothy Mousseau at the
University of South Carolina. I hope that I have not forgotten anyone.
I would also like to thank the members of the Scientific Council of
the ANCCLI (French National Association of Local Nuclear Information
Committees and Commissions) who have helped me, sometimes without
knowing it, to understand certain subjects. The same goes for all members
of the GRNC (Nord-Cotentin Radioecology Group), a multi-faceted group,
for the remarkable work they have accomplished, working together in
complete harmony.
Acronyms and Abbreviations
ABCC: Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission
AFB: Air Force Base (of the United States Air Force)
AMFPGN: Association des Médecins Français pour la Prévention de la
Guerre Nucléaire [French Physicians Against Nuclear
Weapons]
Aven: Association des vétérans des essais nucléaires [French
Association of Nuclear Test Veterans]
AWE: Atomic Weapons Establishment
BMI: Body Mass Index
CEA: Commissariat à l’énergie atomique [French Atomic Energy
Commission]
CEG: Centre d’études de Gramat [Gramat Study Centre]
CEMO: Oasis Military Test Centre
CESTA: Centre d’études scientifiques et techniques d’Aquitaine
[Aquitaine Centre for Scientific and Technical Research,
France]